In Which Our Heroine Ruminates on Annoying the New Neighbors

Last night, as I was belting out all six verses of American Pie for the second night in a row, I started to wonder what my new neighbors would think when they realized they were moving next door to the Go Go Guitar Girl. My previous neighbors--the inimitable Pellegrino, Ursula and baby Carmine--moved out about a month ago. (May they R.I.P. in their new upstate home.) I expect their replacement tenants to make their entrance this very weekend.

I should back up. Pellegrino et. al. have been the pea under my mattress ever since I moved into this building, two long years ago. Their ability to sense my presence in the backyard--even if I was only stepping out briefly, to release an errant cockroach or shake out a tablecloth--was so uncanny, and their efforts to bully me into weeding the garden for them so relentless, that I had developed a deep and abiding fear of running into them in the hallways. When I realized I didn't have enough chairs for my Thanksgiving dinner, I even threw my brother in law to the wolves and made him go next door to ask if they had any to spare.

So when, on a recent Saturday morning, I saw a mattress walking down the stairs in front of my front window, I got hopeful. Could they be moving out? I was on the phone with SNM at the time, and she told me not to be stupid--they were probably just getting a new mattress. But later that day I came home to find Pellegrino moving a refrigerator out into the hallway.

"We move," he said with a big smile.

"Oh, that's too bad," I said, with an even bigger smile. "Do you know who's moving in?"

"Ah, yes. Two gaiss."

"Two guys?" I asked, imagining two stinky college boys throwing keggers on my back porch.

"You know. The gaiss."

The clouds broke, and my heart leapt: Gays! Hurrah!

"You no worry," Pellegrino continued, assuming I was as intolerant of alternative lifestyles as he . (This was, after all, the man who had orchestrated the ousting of the transgendered dancer from the second floor the previous fall.) "The gaiss, they clean. You know."

Oh, I knew. Did I ever.

My fantasy life kicked into overdrive. Me, sitting between my new gay best friends on their comfortable yet stylish couch, watching marathons of the L Word whilst stuffing my face with handcrafted appetizers and wine procured from their most recent jaunt to Napa.

Me, throwing lavish parties on my new canopied back porch overlooking the English-style rose garden they had landscaped with the help of a revolving cast of boy-toy handymen.

Me, playing my guitar for a crowd of their closest friends, one of whom would just happen to be an A&R guy at Nonesuch Records and who would absolutely insist I come in to record a demo.

Oh, the life I would lead living next door to the gaiss!

It all came crashing down when I dropped off my March rent at the cafe run by my landlord, MF. As I handed him the envelope I put on my saddest face, feigning devastation at the loss of the G. family from the building. MF shook his head sadly. When I asked--perhaps too eagerly--when the new tenants would be moving in, he said they hadn't found any yet.

"But--but--Pellegrino said--," I sputtered.

"Na, na," MF replied. "We find someone else. We find you someone nice."

I knew exactly what he meant.

No gaiss, no rose garden, no wine parties. No A&R courtship for the Go Go Guitar Girl. Just loud music all hours, sports on Sundays and keggers with kiddies in the backyard.