Dueling Pyros

Shorty update: He's still here.

He tried to burn the house down yesterday. The good news is we now know the smoke detectors work. The bad news is he broke my toaster, although that was a completely unrelated incident. The fire started when he tried to cook french fries in a pot on the stove. Not to be outdone, I left my straightening iron on all day while I was at work. There were no injuries.

But that was yesterday. Today brought a whole new chapter in the Shorty saga. It had already been a crazy morning and I was trying to get ready for work. When I came out of the bathroom, there were two policemen in the hallway. "Ma'am did you know your front door is open?" I did not know that, but it didn't surprise me. Just last week I had gone upstairs around midnight and found the front door open, not just unlocked, but wide open. I looked around but there was no one in sight. I'm way beyond caring about such trifles. There's not much point in locking your front door when the kind of people you're trying to keep out have keys.

The police had shown up as a result of the morning's activities, for which I was only partially responsible. I was still asleep when I heard the landlord come by and started pounding on Shorty's door. After a round of yelling, he announced he was going to enter the room and throw Shorty out. Then I heard him fumbling with some keys. He tried about seven different keys unsuccessfully and then started cursing under his breath. Since he can't do anything right, I was forced to enter the fray, discreetly opening my door and handing him the correct key which, as the previous tenant of that room, I had held on to for just such occasions. I ducked back into my room, as the landlord burst in on Shorty and his lady. More yelling and some shoving followed. In case this story isn't suspenseful enough, it's helpful to know that Shorty's girlfriend is prone to seizures brought on by stressful situations. And in case this story isn't trashy enough, it's helpful to know that she was mostly naked at the time. The fight didn't last long. Likely the sight of Mrs. Shorty's semi-nude, drug-ravaged body caused the landlord to recoil and flee.

When the police showed up, I assumed the landlord had finally decided to do something about this crazy situation, but no, it was Shorty who called the police to report that he had just been assaulted. I cooperated with the investigation by providing the landlord's phone number and a phone to call him on. I was really embarrassed that the police were going to see how messy my room was since I had to go in there to retrieve my phone. Not that there was evidence of any arrestable offences, but they wouldn't be able to help but judge the occupant of such a disaster area. Fortunately, the officer stuck to questions like "How long have you lived here?" instead of "Is that any empty cottage cheese container on top of that pile of dirty laundry?" as I dug through my purse. While the hot cop used my phone to call the landlord, the other cop listened to Shorty's tale of abuse and discrimination. From the side of the conversation I heard, I'm beginning to suspect my landlord is even more unscrupulous than I thought. He denied most things, didn't have any answers for simple questions, and refused to come back to the house. I hoped the cute officer would ask to jot down my number so he could "follow up", but he didn't.

In the end, nothing was resolved, no charges were laid, and no deviants were evicted. On a positive note, Shorty still doesn't seem to suspect me of plotting against him, even describing me to the police as "a nice girl". I'm pretty sure nice girls don't live in places like this.