The Man Downstairs
Today I found a strange creature needling around, digging her face in one of the two plants belonging to the man downstairs —
The man downstairs did not die a week ago.
I am his upstairs neighbor and know that the man downstairs walks out onto his porch for two reasons only. 1. To swing past his porch gate and walk to the corner store — picking up only what will fit in two plastic bags or 2. to sweep away pests, birds, cats, and anything else daring to linger on his porch. If it’s to sweep, he makes a whole day of it and at the end of that day he will talk to his two potted plants. His remaining two plants, I’m sure of that, because there are actually plenty of pots scattered about his porch — some of them green and brown with caked-on dirt — but most of them barren with dead vines, gray stumps, or gaping holes, except for the remaining two. Once the man downstairs is done whispering and watering these two lonely plants — while topless, I forgot to mention he’s usually topless — he will survey the world from his porch, from behind his thick wire-framed glasses, for approximately nine seconds then shuffle slowly inside his apartment and slam the door.
A week ago, the man downstairs got a haircut.
I saw it from the lawn adjacent to his porch belonging to our connecting apartments in the middle of walking my dog. Silver to gray-white oreos, springy short curls atop his head, making him look like an aged cherub with clipped wings. He was ethereal, his hair was at least. It was fresh from a shower — a Tahiti based waterfall breaking away with shimmering light. It was achingly sunny that day. He was sweating. He was walking back from the corner store. He swung the plastic bags back-and-forth and back-and-forth but not from amusement like I would’ve done, instead from the stockiness of his weight. He wasn’t topless but if he wore a shirt it was always open. A light blue short sleeved button down. His favorite button down. The only shirt he attempts to tuck near the waistband of his shorts. Sweat ran down his eyeglasses to his swarthy neck to dampen the hems of his favorite shirt. Others leapt, pushed off from the momentum of his swing and plopped onto his stomach, sizzling like tears on a slab of hot asphalt. Why wear a shirt at all. I watched transfixed even when my dog whined that he was finished with his business.
That afternoon, the man downstairs made wide sweeps on his porch in the summer sun and I wanted to yell out from where I was standing, watching him through the slits in the slats of the wood of my balcony, to tell him that his haircut looked nice. But if you learn anything at all about the man downstairs then you should know that you don’t speak to the man downstairs unless he acknowledges you first. You can announce pleasantries like “Good afternoon,” or “It’s hot out, huh?” but that is all unless he looks you in the eyes. And if he looks you in the eyes, you’re not exactly guaranteed conversation because he immobilizes you with his stare.
Eye sockets grown apart from years of observing.
Pale skin translucent at the corners revealing veins or arteries. His gray eyes reminded me of the cloudy obsidian shells that once belonged to my old dog seconds after he passed away. As if at one point they had color so saturated that you’d think it would never leave.
But the iris grows grayer and grayer as we age. And our souls leave and take the color with them.
I walked down the staircase connecting our apartments and stopped at the landing. I looked out toward the apartment lawns, swung my arms a bit to try to get him to look up at me, but he never did. His eyesight made it as far as criticizing the falling horizon. I couldn’t really tell if he was waiting for something. Or if he was waiting for me to say something.
A few days ago the man downstairs was upset over a possum that died on his porch. The stench had climbed up to my apartment and hovered just outside my door but I didn’t say a thing about it. I figured he would find out eventually and maybe feel sorry for the possum, but he didn’t. He yelled so loudly the next morning and spent it sweeping and squirting and removing whatever remained of the possum as I went off to run errands. When I came back that evening his porch was silent and I found the soil outside his porch gate turnt up like someone had been shoveling. I stood silently beside the mound of darker dirt. I wondered if the possum was given proper funeral rights. I held my hands together. It didn’t matter. But I was thankful enough to the man downstairs for not going with a trash bag and a trip to the dumpster. So I said a silent prayer then climbed up to my apartment.
Today I found a strange creature needling around, digging her face in one of the two plants belonging to the man downstairs. She stopped at one of them and almost ate it with her nose until she noticed I was staring. I didn’t need to ask what she was doing because she readily told me that she knew that particular plant and would only like to take a bit for herself. Maybe to grow her own, I thought. I didn’t pay it too much mind since she was just a strange creature who wanders about picking up things as she goes, and if she only meant to grab a few seeds then it wouldn’t hurt anyone, so I nodded and went about my morning.
When I came back everything was wrong.
The man’s remaining plants were gone and all of his apartment neighbors but me had known that the man downstairs had been dead for a week.
The cops came. And then the leasing office. And then finally their cleaning crew. And during that entire morning strangers gathered outside his apartment to bid on a dead man’s belongings while I sat on the stairs to watch. The man downstairs never kept much on his porch. His porch light was always broken and his plants were usually starved for water but box after box were taken from his apartment. Kitchen, books, media. Trash, donations, miscellaneous. Each of them labelled carefully in black sharpie. I stared closely at each box dumbfounded over the dead man’s hidden meticulousness, wondering if he had planned on having a fresh haircut and fresh groceries. Or if death took him by surprise.
I watched the strange creature inch around the corner of his porch like a deranged troll asking for toll knowing you have none. “I’ve known it for weeks now. I’ve always known,” she said. I kept quiet. The summer sun was beating hard by the evening, creating a burn that kindled my ears but not as angry as the burn on my face. I watched all the strangers rejoice in cleaning out the dead man downstairs. Hands jeering, mouths cheering. All of them a bunch of gremlins. Gremlins with their noses so far in his things they looked as if they would eat them.
The sun was setting and everyone disappeared. The only proof of their existence were the foot tracks in every direction, dirt that the man downstairs would’ve angrily swept from his porch.
I stood up from my seat on the stairs and clasped my hands together staring at the mound of darker dirt. It was trampled the worst and crackling gray flesh speckled the ground, silver to gray-white peeking from the grave.
The man downstairs would survey the world from his porch, from behind his thick wire-framed glasses, for approximately nine seconds…
For nine precious seconds his image was as solid as the broom in his hand, his belly naked and stout, his stare scrutinizing the ending horizon, listening behind gold frames as I told him how nice I thought his haircut looked.
I couldn’t tell you what day that was.
The Man Downstairs was a 2020 Non-fiction Short Story Honorable Mention in the Rowan Writing Competition.
