The mom from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape lives on the third floor. Sometimes I hear her yelling for help to get upstairs to her son who is in his thirties and apparently needs his own apartment. She sounds really mean in a whiny, guilt inducing, rasping, wheezing way. Sometimes I’ll see her sitting (squatting, occupying) with her walker outside of the building (when she manages to make it outside) and waiting for help to get into her apartment. I think she’s a home shopping addict, all the delivery guys know her by name and there’s always a package waiting for her in the hallway. I wonder: how can someone who never leaves her apartment need so many things? 

There is a man who always wears white suits and has a Yanni ponytail. He uses too much cologne and I can always tell he’s been in the hallway hours after he’s left. Whenever I see him he has a bag of party favors. I don’t know why. I think he may be a pimp for Russian escorts. 

Then there’s the metal head troll on the first floor. He wears all black and has only come out of his apartment once, that I know of.

Lastly, my landlord, an 85 year old Polish man who knows limited English. He has mastered the phrase “You have rent?” Occasionally, he drinks a handle of vodka and will stand in his doorway wearing a banana hammock and an undershirt. Otherwise he’s been known to don a military uniform and walk around the neighborhood. When he’s away his wife invites men over. My landlord doesn’t allow me to give her my rent money. I think she’s mail-order as he is ancient and she looks about 60. 

All in all, it’s your typical Brooklyn apartment building.