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I just moved in next door and I’m like 99% sure you’re insane
Eugene Sledge, standing stock-still on the pavement, stared up at his new apartment, the white painted window panes glinting in the sun. Shielding his eyes with a limp hand, he grimace-smiled in the glare and felt glad to his bones. Finally, a place of his own. He turned to glance at his sensibly parked car, full with all his worldly possessions and contemplated the struggle of bringing his three cardboard boxes, stuffed with conservative button-up shirts and books about birds and fantastical journeys, up the three stories to his place. He wished Sid was free, but he had a lunch arranged with his fiancée and Sledge thought it would be cruel to deny him that. Perhaps he should have taken up his parents offer to help after all, but Sledge had only recently managed to escape their grand spread in Mobile and he wanted his new place to be entirely free of their influence. It was too far away for them to drive anyway, all the way in Louisiana. He was completely on his own but he found he didn’t really mind, a small personal smile lighting his face as he opened his car door and began to unload.
He had lived away from his parents before, at University when he roomed with Sid but he had still been so close to home that he had visited his parents every single Sunday for dinner. It hadn’t been much of a change, living with your childhood friend, constantly monitored by well meaning but overbearing parents, still in that privileged Alabama sphere. Now Louisiana, where he was going to take his MA, that was a change. Granted, it was still in the South (he wasn’t desperate enough to venture north) but it was far enough away to allow Eugene complete autonomy. He could stay up late, eat Mac and Cheese every single night, nutrition be damned, or even take up gambling and there would be no one to tut or shake their heads disapprovingly at him. Hell, something actually exciting might happen for once. The world was his oyster.
This bright thought in his head, Eugene decided to pile one box on top of the other and carry them all the way up the stairs. As he stumbled under their combined weight he could practically hear his mother’s shrill voice proclaiming what a foolish idea this was in his ear. He hated to admit that she would be right. As he finally fought his way onto the third floor after a few near accidents and a lot of sweating, he could see the finish line, his blue door, in his sights. Unfortunately, this was the exact time he managed to trip clumsily over his own feet and unceremoniously throw all the boxes to the floor. A loud crash sounded through the hall.
“Damn it!” Exclaimed Eugene through gritted teeth. All his pots and pans were now lying all over the floor. Luckily he didn’t have anything breakable, but this kind of mess would take an age to clean up. What a pain.
As he began picking up his things, cursing quietly, he heard a door creak to his side. His immediate neighbour was peaking out of his door, summoned by the ruckus. Eugene could see his dark head in his periphery vision and quickly inclined his head to identify him.
He was smallish, thin, with sallow-tan skin, dark curly hair and a boyish face that was taken up by a large pair of googly eyes. He looked to be about Sledge’s age. He had a cigarette tucked behind one ear and was appraising the scene before him with great curiosity. Fighting his fluster, Sledge remembered his manners and managed a friendly grin from his place on the floor.
“Sorry about the noise!” He gestured towards the contents of his boxes that were strewn across the landing. “I dropped my stuff. I’m Eugene Sledge, just moved to 3B. Nice to meet you!” He lamely extended his hand towards the man, who just stared at him blankly for a few minutes until Sledge dropped his arm sheepishly.
Sledge’s neighbour grunted, ‘Hmm’, and then retreated back into his flat, closing the door. He didn’t offer to help, which would only be polite, at least according to Sledge’s well-bred southern manners, he didn’t even offer his name. Just glared unnervingly and left. Sledge shrugged, muttering ‘Okay then!’ sardonically to himself as he resumed his task. Maybe he’d just caught his new neighbour on a bad day.
As Sledge began to realise after his first week at his new apartment, every single day seemed to be a bad day for his mysterious neighbour. In fact, he was 99% sure he was actually insane. A couple of days after moving he had witnessed him chain smoke an entire pack of cigarettes to himself on the fire escape, puffing away at one after the other like a man possessed. That was not the sign of a healthy mind, or a healthy body for that matter. The sight had put Sledge off his own personal vice, an occasional pipe smoke, for a couple of days. He often heard him ranting and raving in his room in the middle of the night, which meant he finally heard his voice at least, a deep Cajun-tinged Louisiana drawl, his tirades peppered with the occasional French and expletives that could make a sailor blush. Otherwise, his neighbour did not speak much at all; he just kind of stared, like a dangerous swamp alligator waiting in a shallow bog. Sledge supposed this was a particularly apt comparison as his neighbour acted like he had come straight from some backwoods shack in the Louisiana bayou, walking around shirtless with no shoes.
After a few close encounters with him- awkward meetings in the hall where it was revealed that his neighbour, besides being a possible sociopath, had no clue about personal boundaries and forced Eugene to edge around him nervously as he refused to move out of the way- Eugene asked his friendlier downstairs neighbour, a likeable guy called Burgin, about him.
“Oh, that’s Snafu.” Laughed Burgin in broad Texan tones, leaning against the wall. “He’s just like that. You get used to it.”
Sledge didn’t think he was ever going to get used to it, especially since Snafu appeared to be ramping up his game in the crazy stakes. He found himself shivering when he was out in the apartment, doing washing or picking up his mail, feeling the heavy warmth of an intense gaze trained on his back. When he turned around, his paranoia was often confirmed as he was greeted by those pale, amused eyes. He wondered if his neighbour did this to everyone in the apartment or he was just a special case.
It was a week and a half into his residence when Snafu finally deigned to talk to him. He was minding his own business, removing his clothes from the washer and putting it into the dryer, when Snafu sauntered in breezily and sat himself on top of a machine, kicking against the metal with skinny tan legs like a kid. Sledge carefully hid his surprise, not wanting to give him the satisfaction and smiled tightly in his direction, polite to a fault. Who else would deem it only proper to greet their practical stalker?
“You’re doing it all wrong.” Snafu drawled lazily, drawing out his words. Sledge ignored him. “You’re gonna ruin your clothes like that.” Sledge did turn around at that remark to cock his eyebrow at him, trying to convey ‘coming from you?’ with his expression. Snafu’s own garments, the little that he actually wore, weren’t exactly pristine.
“How should I do it then?” He asked, humouring the mad man.
“Turn ‘em inside out.” Replied Snafu, picking at his nails like he was longing to hold a cigarette. It wasn’t a bad idea, Sledge reasoned as Snafu watched him closely, like a specimen at the zoo.
“Okay.” Sledge began following his advice, which seemed to momentarily satisfy the other man before he launched into another conversation.
“You should stop taking the alley on your way to school. Some bad folks out there. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt, Sledgehammer.” Reeling slightly from the weird, uncalled for nickname that implied far more familiarity than he was comfortable with, Sledge prickled a bit. He wasn’t a child. Plus, how the hell did he know which way he was taking to the University? This was getting out of hand and he didn’t know what to do. He was just tired of it now. He sighed and finished packing up his laundry.
“Fine. Okay, I’m done. Do you want to use the machine?”
Snafu gave him a slow grin, those huge eyes widening.
“Nah.” He hopped off the machine and traipsed away, throwing Sledge one last devious look before disappearing. Sledge kneaded his forehead in confused frustration. What on earth was going on with that guy, and just what did he want with him?
The next day, Sledge found himself less angry and more grateful to his strange but enigmatic neighbour/stalker. The alternative walk to school, avoiding the dodgy alley, did leave him feeling far less edgy than usual. His clothes felt soft and looked brighter. The advice he gave was actually pretty rational, and it almost gave Sledge a happy feeling to think that maybe he had someone looking out for him, not overbearing and sappy like his parents, but in their own, very creepy way.
This air of safety was a little premature. One evening, Sledge had resolved to try and be a bit more involved with Snafu and do more ‘neighbourly’ things with him. He had made an extra large batch of brownies for his classmates (it was his turn on the snack-after-seminar rota) and decided to go share a couple of the leftovers. It might be nice and honestly Sledge was a little worried about Snafu’s diet, which appeared to consist solely of cigarettes and black coffee. He knocked on Snafu’s door, only for him to swing it open violently, wielding an enormous knife. It was danger close to the tip of Sledge’s nose; Snafu staring at him expectantly like this was an every-day occurrence. Sledge very nearly pissed himself. He had muttered that he was sorry for disturbing him, in reply Snafu had given him a horrible smile and then gotten back to whatever hideous business he was up to. Sledge definitely did not want to know what that was. That incident had taught him soundly about attempting normal interactions with the guy. Snafu, although a giver of astoundingly sound advice, was still a crazy motherfucker.
Just when Sledge had thought he had a handle on Snafu’s mentally questionable behaviour, he still managed to throw him a couple curveballs. One was the knife incident, another was the time Snafu almost punched a hole through his bedroom wall and into Sledge’s, but there was one habit that he had taken up that managed to truly knock Sledge for a loop. He discovered this aforementioned habit when he knocked on Snafu’s door, steeling himself for another knife attack, to hand him some mail that had mistakenly been shoved under his door.
Snafu answered the door shirtless. Not that shocking for him. In fact, Sledge noted with horror, he looked pretty cute that day, in a pair of baggy jeans, drooping low on his hips. Reprimanding himself for this train of thought silently, he handed Snafu his mail (which Snafu glanced at and immediately tore in two) and went back to his own apartment. Funny that Snafu also had jeans in that colour, he figured Snafu would be the last person he could play wardrobe twins with. Then he remembered the small rip in the knee. The same one that Eugene’s pair had. Realisation struck. His mouth hung open. Those were HIS jeans. Snafu had stolen HIS jeans.
The worst thing about it was that it kept on happening. Snafu would round the corner, fiddling with the cuffs of one of Sledge’s favourite shirts or the edge of his t-shirt, a smile in the corner of his mouth and his eyes daring Sledge to say something. Sledge never did say anything. He didn’t know what to say. This whole thing was taking a very weird turn.
Of course, with Snafu involved, things could only get weirder. One night a class ran particularly late at college and a tired Eugene forgot not to take the dodgy alley behind the apartment, trundling it down it hazily, his only thoughts focused on his nice, fluffy bed. This meant he didn’t notice, not at first, when two guys stepped out of the shadows, one holding a small utility knife and both smiling with menace. Eugene groaned, almost resigned. This would happen to him, just when he least expected it. He must be unluckiest guy in the world. He squinted at them in annoyance.
“Hey man. We don’t want no trouble. Just give us ya wallet.” The guy with stringy long hair and an ill advised facial tattoo demanded.
“I bet he got a laptop too.” His accomplice, shaved head, exclaimed.
“Ay.” A low, drawling familiar voice rung out from the end of the alley, up on the fire escape. The two guys, fear in their faces, quickly darted their eyes up to the source of the disturbance, shifty and unnerved. The fear broke, surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly) into smiles of recognition.
“Hey, Snafu, how ya been?” Snafu, also smiling that rakish grin, clambered down from the fire escape, stubbing out a cigarette to clap hands with Sledge’s muggers.
“Not bad. You gotta smoke?”
“You just had one.”
“I’m out now.” The muggers sighed and one handed Snafu a Marlborough Red, which he immediately lit. Sledge was almost forgotten, awed by the scene playing out before him. Snafu took a long drag then gestured towards Sledge.
“Don’t rob that guy.”
“Why not? He looks rich as hell.”
“He’s cool.” Snafu simply stated, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. The two guys looked at each other, looked at Snafu, then shrugged. Sledge was finding the whole situation hard to believe.
“Fine. See you around, man.” Snafu grunted in their direction as they walked away then dropped his cigarette and ground it under a heavy boot. Sledge had just been a silent observer in his own re-negotiated mugging. Snafu turned to him, his mouth turned upwards.
“What was that?” Murmured Sledge.
“I told you not to take the alley.” Replied Snafu, offering very little explanation. He began to pad away towards his favourite fire escape before he turned around, expression like he’d just recalled something important. “You should get a new shower curtain.”
Sledge’s eyebrows drew together.
“Why?”
“It’s see-through.”
It was stupid, it was paranoid as hell and Snafu was likely messing with him but Sledge showered in a pair of trunks for weeks.
After the near-mugging incident, the dynamic between the two neighbours shifted in a way that was hard to explain. Snafu still stared and stalked as much as he ever did, still disturbed Eugene’s sleep with his nightly rants, still did odd, crazy things (stole a dog from the woman on floor 1 for a day until forced to give it back, threw a waste paper bin from a window etc. etc.) but Eugene found them far less bothersome then he once did. In fact, they had developed a bit of a rapport, joking and grinning with each other. Snafu was still habitually stealing Sledge’s clothes, and he was starting to run out of socks, so he decided to get his own back. On a rare occasion that he spotted Snafu’s ratty stuff in a dryer, he fished out a bright red t-shirt, snickering to himself. This would be funny, he thought, he could finally get his own back on that creepy little shit.
Disappointingly, Snafu was not at all annoyed by Sledge knocking on his door and asking for milk, nonchalantly wearing his shirt, which to be honest was a little small on him and embarrassingly exposed an inch or two of his very white stomach. Not disappointingly, (not surprisingly, when Sledge considered everything with a rational outlook) instead of laughing or being pissed off, he stared at him like he was the hungriest man on earth and Sledge was an all-you-can-eat buffet, made an indiscriminate growling noise deep in his throat and dragged Sledge into his apartment by the scruff of his newly acquired tiny red t-shirt.
Predictably, Snafu was pretty fucking wild. Sledge liked to think that he gave as good as he got though as they stumbled over furniture, blindly tearing at each other’s mutually stolen clothes. If he had known that this was why Snafu was stalking him, that he wanted to fuck him as opposed to kill him, he would have hit on him ages ago because, shit, all glazed and ferocious, he was amazing. From the way Snafu’s breathing was getting erratic at the slightest touches; he figured he felt similarly about Sledge, although he really had no idea why.
When they finally got to the messy bed, Snafu made sure to really make his mark, leaving purple hickeys down Sledge’s neck, big red scratches on his back with bitten nails and his lips sore and swollen. Given his fine, fine performance that left them both gasping and thanking all and every deity, Sledge found that he didn’t mind. He would just pay him back later.
They lay side by side on Snafu’s small bed, Snafu smoking a cigarette and passing it to Sledge for a puff every now and again with nimble fingers.
"So." Sledge started, Snafu's eyes flickering to focus on him. "What was up with the shouting in the night?" Snafu shrugged, his smooth shoulders rolling with the motion. Sledge kind of wanted to attach his mouth to one of them.
"I get pissed off when I play COD."
"Okay. The knife?"
"What knife?" Eugene propped himself up on his elbows and glared at the other man indignantly.
"The fuck off enormous one you almost scared the life out of me with!"
"Ohhhh." Snafu chuckled low. "I was makin' steaks and forgot I still had it." That was a little less reasonable and pretty irresponsible but Sledge let it slide, making a mental note to try and cure him of that particular digression.
“The clothes?”
“I ran out. Plus, I like yours. Smell like you.” Rolling his eyes at the overtly creepy statement, Sledge couldn’t help the smile on his face.
"Watching me in the shower?" Snafu grinned and stubbed out his cigarette in the mug next to his bed, rolling over on his side, facing him, their noses almost touching.
"Eugene. I can't see you in the shower. That would be impossible.What, you think I got X-Ray eyes or some shit?” He laughed. “I wish I could." Sledge cast a look over himself.
"Well, I probably need to take one now. You're welcome to join." Snafu stopped laughing abruptly, his eyes wide.
“Seriously?” Sledge smiled widely, getting up off the bed and extending his arm to Snafu. It was as if their roles were reversed from their first meeting, Sledge knealing on the floor and Snafu standing above him. Snafu, who had been looking at him with some sort of reverence started to smile too. He really was very cute when he wasn’t being a creeper, with his messy curls and blue-green eyes.
“Sure. C’mon now, let’s go to mine, I have no idea what your bathroom is like and I have nice conditioner.” Snafu took Sledge’s hand and allowed himself to be dragged up off the bed.
“You use conditioner? That’s pretty gay, Sledgehammer.” Sledge gave him a long look that he hoped read ‘you wanna talk about what’s gay now, huh?’ and Snafu just laughed loudly, elbowing him. “Hurry up. I’m fuckin’ excited.”
Sledge grabbed him by the waist and pushed him towards the blue door of his adjacent apartment.