I saw my neighbour at the supermarket

I saw my neighbour at the supermarket. It just happened a couple of moments ago. He was walking just like any other pesron. He was wearing black skinny jeans and a black T-Shirt. He looked like an old heavy metal singer. It all happened very fast, but I’m sure it was him. I think he got a new haircut. His tounge was sticking out of his mouth in a starnge way. I don’t think he noticed me. He went directly to the butcher counter and I was at the checkout. I’ve been living in this apartment for five years and it’s the first time I saw him out of the buliding except that one time. It was three or maybe four years ago. It was a sunday. I was waiting for the bus ony my way back home and then I saw him. He was about thirty meters away from me and I’m almost sure it was him. He was accompanied by a women and a young girl. They almost looked like a family.

My first interaction with the neighbour was when I just moved to this apartment with my ex girlfriend. We left him a letter at the doorstep that said “Hey, we’re the new neighbours. We just wanted to say hello and give you our numbers in case you need anything.” That evening we heard four nocks on our door. They were strong nocks. We opened the door and he was there holding the paper in his hands. He held it as if he was about to ask “do you know who did it?” But he didn’t ask that. He wore sunglasses and had long hair that reached his shoulders that were covered with a jeans jacket. “Hello neighbours,” he said. “That’s a very american thing to do. We don’t leave letters here and we don’t walk around with cookies introducing ourselves. Anyway, I’m your neighbour. Nice to meet you.” He spoke fast and avoided our eyes. “Come in. Do you want to have some coffee?” My ex asked him. “No thank you. I don’t like entering other people’s houses,” he replied. “Well maybe we can go to the mexican bar underneath one day and have a beer together,” I added. “I don’t like this bar nor the mexicans,” he answered. There was a short silence and then he added, “I like going to the cemetery on weekends. Do you know that cemetry?” he asked. “Some very big generals are burried over there.” Later that night we heard some shouting from the other side of the wall, “fuck you, you idiot,” we heard. And then, “Sons of bitches. What a bunch of sons of bitches you are.”

The wall that separates my apartment from his is very thin and it almost feels like we’re living together. I know what time he wakes up in the morning, and I also know what radio station he listens to in the mornings. He’s a loud person and he likes listening to rock music from the seventies every sunday morning while he’s cleaning his house with the vacuum cleaner. He once told me, “there’s no music worth listening to after the ’80s.” He works from monday to friday. He wakes up at 5:30 in the morning and listens to the radio while he’s preparing himself for work. He lifts up his blinds with a terrible creak. Then he slides the key into the lock at 6:15 and turns it three times. Each turn makes a heavy metallic crack until the door opens. Then he shuts the door and turns the lock three times even harder then before. Then he’s off for work. I’ve never seen his blinds open and there’s a big piece of fabric around his little balcony. “I don’t let people into my house,” he told me once. “My apartment is very politicized.”

A couple of months later my ex needed walnuts for a stop-motion video. We didn’t have a nutcracker so I went to the neighbour. He opened the door just a crack and I could only see his head. “Hey how’s it going?” He asked. “Hey, do you happen to have a nutcracker?” I asked. “A nutcracker?” He said surprised. “I don’t have any. When I was your age I used to open them with my bare hands you know?”. I thanked him and went back home to my ex. “Give me two nuts please”, I said. “What are you trying to do? He didn’t have a nutcracker?” She asked. I didn’t answer and tried to press the two nuts against each other. “Be careful. You’ll hurt yourself.” She said. After a couple of seconds the walnut shell cracked and I felt a sharp stab. I opened my hand. One of the walnuts had shattered completely and blood was running across my palm. My girlfriend looked at me and said, “That was stupid. What were you thinking?”

He comes back from work at six. Sometimes he smokes a couple of cigarettes down at the bench before going up with his electric scooter. “What do you think he’s doing for a living?” My ex asked me once. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s a coal miner or something,” I answered. “A coal miner?” She laughed. “Are you serious?” When he’s back home he slams the door even harder than in the morning and locks it immediately afterwards. Then he usually throws a few curses into the air and turns on the TV. There’s never any silence when he is home. He usually spends his afternoons playing Call of Duty online. “You useless piece of shit. You dumb motherfucker.” Are some of the curses he likes using when some of his teammates make a mistake. I can imagine him wearing a headset and talking to his teammates when he’s playing. I wonder what nickname he uses. The wall that between our apartments separates my bedroom from his living room so sometimes on sundays when his music is too loud I move to sleep on the couch. There’s a big painting that I hung on that wall. A friend gave it to me for my birthday. I remember driving the nails in and thinking they might come out of the other side of the wall. “Give me your smallest nails please,” I told the guy at the hardware store.

On weekends and holidays something different happens. He’s usually louder and constnaly coming in and out of the apartment while always maintaining the key ceremony. I remember very well the first time I heard a feminine voice on the other side of the wall, “it must be a prostitute,” I told myself. I pressed my ear against the wall. She was laguhing a lot. “She must be really ugly. Something must be wrong about her,” I thought. I couldn’t understand anything they said, but it seems like they were having a good time. While I was there listening I thought of how my ex told me once that I should be careful not to become like him. It seemed unlikely to me back then, but I didn’t like the idea. The second time I heard a woman approaching his apartemnt I ran to the peephole. I saw him wearing his leather gloves, and next to him was a young girl. They were in his apartment for about an hour and then she left. The TV was on the whole time in the background. “I’ve been living here for ten years,” he told me once. “Then I met a girl. We got married and had a kid. We got divorced, and then I came back here to the same apartment.” I didn’t ask for this information and I didn’t know what to answer so I just shook my head. That was probably the most intimate conversation we have ever had. “Don’t stop, don’t stop!” She said. “Feel free to moan louder.” I said and then made a big effort to make some more noise. “Your neighbours will wake up,” she whispered. I don’t even remember her name. “That’s fine,” I said. “He makes noise all the time,” and I kept going. After that, whenever I brought someone home I liked knowing he could hear us through the wall.

We usually greeted each other quickly when we passed by at the staircase until christmas two years ago. I had already broken up with my girlfriend and she moved to a different city. I noticed that my neighbour didn’t wake up early for work for a few days in a row. Instead he was playing video games until late at night. I couldn’t sleep well during that period, but I took advantage of this to play the piano until late. This was our new status quo. One night I practiced a new piece. It was around midnight. I reached a passage where I couldn’t get my two hands play at the same pace. I repeated this passage over and over until I heard, “stop with the fucking piano you piece of shit! I’m gonna kill you for fucks sake!” These screams were accompanied by fists being thrown at the wall. I froze. “Are you talking to me?” I said after a while and walked towards the wall. “Trust me you don’t want to be my enemy. You’ll see,” he said. “Are you serious?” I asked. “Why are you hitting my wall. Why can’t you knock on my door like a civilized person and ask me to stop making noise?” “You were the one who started. I’m fucking trying to sleep,” he said. “You don’t know what I’m capable of doing. Wait for tomorrow morning.” I looked at my baseball bat leaning against the wall and said, “Look, I didn’t mean to bother you. I didn’t know you were trying to sleep.” I couldn’t say “I’m sorry.” “You made a big mistake,” he said, and then there was a silence. I stayed next to the wall for a couple of minutes and then went to the living room. My hands were shaking. I tried to call a friend, but there was no answer. I could barely sleep that night and I set an alarm for 5:30. My alarm went on and I heard steps on the other side of the wall. Then the radio went on. I went out of bed and prepared myself. After a while I heard the lock turning three times and then again after the door closed. I ran to the window and waited to see him pass by on the street. He was wearing a black bandana on his head and I saw a shining chain hanging from his pants. Then he was gone.