The Intelligence Estimate

There was a fire last week at the building next door to mine. I'm not sure the cause of it, but there was an arrest this week, so apparently it was intentionally set. And I can't say I am surprised.

I have lived in my current apartment for almost three years. It is owned by the same people that own the now burnt building next door. The quality of tennants in these buidlings have steadily declined over the course of those three years. And they were never GOOD.

My first Christmas there I was approached by the lady in apartment 2 and she asked me for money because, as she so eloquently stated "the banks are closed and we're stuck like chuck." I gave her ten dollars and as collatoral she gave me two Steven Segal movies. Who got the better deal there? Well, they've moved and never returned my ten dollars and I'm stuck with two movies so bad that they barely stick to film.

After we got burned by those tennants, my wife and I shied away from talking to people in the hallways. Not because we didn't have the money but because we have standards in films. So we were a bit taken aback when recently our neighbor in apartment 3 introduced herself by inquiring, "Are you the ones that called the cops on me? I don't smoke marijuana!" Let me stress that this is the first conversation we ever had with this woman. Just to put it into perspective, try to think of the last conversation you had that STARTED OFF with the accusation that you were a narc. Sure, plenty of conversations end up there but very few start there, especially with strangers. And in her defense, she clearly doesn't smoke marijuana. Not the good stuff anyway, because that ditchweed will make you paranoid.

But at least the stoned are quiet. The people who replaced her in apartment 3 will not shut up. All hours, all days. They will not shut up. No matter what they do, party, listen to music, whisper, they do it loudly. One morning I was woken up to one of their conversations. Luckily one of them had a fleeting moment of clarity due to the fact that the landlord had talked to them the night before.

"Shut up, people are sleeping," the man said.

Not to be overcome by the power of his logic she shot back, "We'll those people need to get their asses up!"

So what could I do? I got up.

These people all lived in my building, but they are also the caliber of people who were being displaced by the fire next door. So when all the neighbors were asking, "Where will they go? What will they do?" I thought, "Well, I guess they'll just be annoying somehwere else."

And I was right. They were all moved into our building.