Cast of Colorful Characters

Where to being? So much has happened since the last blog. I guess I could start where I left off with Tenant Smoothy from my previous blog entitled, "Oh...My Bust."

Well I didn't have to evict ole Tenant Smoothy after all. He was arrested that night after being shot. Now before you react with, *GASP* OMG, its actually quite humorous as to the circumstances in which this went down. He was selling drugs, someone tried to sell him bad drugs and he threw the guy out. Well that guy got pissed, pulled out his gun and proceeded to do a perfect imitation of the Star Wars Storm Trooper effect. If you are not familiar with that, let me explain. Its where a Storm Trooper fires a million times and hits nothing. In this case, the man fired 5 in the door, 2 in the back wall, 1 in the bedroom door, one through the windowsill, and Tenant Smoothy got hit by a ricochet in the elbow. There were others in the apartment as well and not one of them was hit. Needless to say Tenant Smoothy will be gone a very very long time. Upon hearing the news, it made me think of the flight attendant SNL skit, "Buh Bye...buh bye now....buh....bye." Tenant Smoothy is just one of the many colorful characters on this street.

Another of the colorful characters is an older lady, who rides in a motorized wheel chair, and there is nothing wrong with her....physically. Miss P. is her name. You can see her driving around at maximum warp, cigarette in one hand, one leg crossed underneath her to make you think she has one leg, bumming and stealing anything she can get her hands on. She actually doesn't live on Turpin itself, but around the corner on another street. I have witnessed Miss P, drive her chair up to one of my tenant's apartment, jump out of her chair, run up to knock on the door, then quick as hell, dive back into her chair before he can get to the door. Everyone knows her game, but it is hilarious to watch. One afternoon, apparently Miss P. decided that she needed a cat. So she steals one from another tenant. Now she could have gotten away with it, however, Miss P needed cat food. So instead of buying it like everyone else, she goes back to the person she stole the cat from and asks if she can have some cat food for her cat. Of course this started World War III between the two and I had to play the United Nations Diplomat to ensure peace ensued. The peace treaty consisted of, "Miss P., give the woman her PUSSY cat back and go find your own PUSSY cat. Didn't your momma ever tell you its rude to steal someone else's PUSSY cat off of their BIG deck?" So the PUSSY cat was returned to its rightful owner and this ushered in a new era of peace LOL. Well at least for about 2 hours. Unfortunately, Miss P just moved out yesterday. Coincidentally the neighbors dog is also missing.

Another main character in this insanity is the local drunk. D.R. is his name and 4 day drinking binges are his game. Anything can happen. I was chatting with one of my tenants, when all of the sudden, a house full of furniture goes flying out of the door of D. R.'s apt piece by piece. He poked his head out of the door, shaking his finger at the furniture and yelling, "Keep your damn ass out of my house and don't ever come back!" I turned to my tenant with a mixture of confusion and amusement and asked, "Who the hell is D.R. throwing out?" My tenant giggled and replied, "No one. He is completely alone. This has been going on since 7 am this morning."
I decided that watching D. R. was probably going to be worth my while, so I decided to visit with my tenant a little longer and enjoy a nice tall glass of iced tea.
My waiting paid off. D. R. then proceeded to lug all of his shit back into his house while yelling, "If I catch the son of a bitch that threw my stuff out into the road I am gonna whip his goddamn ass."
He continued by having a very intense political debate with his empty lawn chair, yelled for some "crack whore" to quit smoking crack in his bedroom, threatened to kill the next "sommmabitch" that rings his "goddamn doorbell" that doesn't exist on these apartments, and dumping gallons and gallons of water on a non existent fire in the parking lot. So from what I took from all of this was that D.R. did a bit of spring cleaning, there is a strict "no crack smoking" rule for his bedroom, the conflict in the middle east can easily be solved with 30 gallons of Heaven Hill Whiskey and an empty lawn chair, D. R. is not a big advocate for water conservation, and my tenant makes about the best damn glass of iced tea I have had in a long time.

In amongst these characters is an elderly gentleman that drives a very small, white, pickup truck, with a handicapped tag hanging from the rearview who drives up and down Turpin 30 or more times a day. We have lovingly named this man, "Mr. Pervert". The story that I have been told by "Wiki" (Wiki is what I call my tenant who has lived down there for 12 years and knows everything about everybody...see previous blog) is that a few years ago Mr. Pervert was down on the street trying to get him a piece of ass. Mr. Pervert did indeed score that night as well as the chick giving him "geriatric oral therapy" when she proceeded to rob him for everything he had. SO I guess this is kind of one of those ghost stories where it ends in...And to this day the poor man can be seen driving up and down the road looking for the hooker that stole his heart as well as his wallet.

Between the cast of characters on the street and the heat, the insanity grows in leaps and bounds. If you are ever in town, give me a buzz, bring your lawn chair and a cooler, and come on down.