The Shakey Mover
It was time to move again.
Where? Why, into my boyfriend’s apartment, of course!
I know - what could go wrong?
Somehow, in the midst of all my moves and full-time jobs, poetry writing and socializing at rock shows, I managed to hold down a couple of semi-serious relationships.
My third boyfriend, J.R., was gentle, intelligent and decent-looking. In an Eric Foreman kind of way.
So, after I relinquished my room in the coked out apartment, I moved in with J.R. One of his roommates was away for the four-month term, so I took his quaint little room at the front of the house.
This move marked the beginning of a meaningful relationship. Not with J.R., but with the building itself.
13 James Street was a mid-century two storey home tucked away on a cul-de-sac close to two university campuses. J.R. and his roommates were students at Wilfred Laurier, conveniently located just around the corner.
I was just some girl. The time we shared as a roommate couple was harmonious. We laughed, we had sex, we drank, we hid in our own rooms and had our own friends. The term passed quickly, and then it was time for J.R. to leave for his four-month co-op work term.
In Texas.
Livin’ the long-distance dream(nightmare), I moved into his room. It was much more spacious and located at the back of the apartment. I loved the room. I loved the trees in the backyard. I loved the apartment. My roommates were as likable as 20-year old kinesiology students can be. They were jocks. But I enjoyed their company. They didn’t do drugs, they flushed toilets, and they smiled a lot.
Best of all, they sometimes went home to their parents’ for the weekends, leaving me to stretch out and enjoy the bright, clean three-bedroom apartment all by myself.
One such weekend, I awoke to a cold breeze in my bedroom. It was just after Christmas, which I had spent alone. It was a blue-sky morning, and probably -15 degrees Celsius. It was also unusually windy. I walked over to my bedroom door and the handle was as cold as frozen meat. When I unlocked and opened it, icy air gushed past me into my room. It shocked me like diving underwater.
As I stepped out into the hallway I saw that the front door was wide open; this was alarming as I’d been alone for days and knew I’d locked the door. 13 James was in a (then) low-rent student neighbourhood across the street from a known crack house and around the corner from a raging frat house. I always locked the door.
I heard an intimidating and rhythmic bang-bang-bang coming from the kitchen.
Brazenly, I stepped out of my room and felt a downward whoosh of frozen air. I looked up. The trap door to the attic was wide open. Before that moment, I’d never even noticed that there was an entrance to the attic.
Fear rippled through my guts. I ran down the stairs and slammed the front door and locked it. Back upstairs, I found the kitchen cupboards – all and every one - wide open. The second-floor balcony door – which opened off of the kitchen, where I loved to go outside and smoke – was banging insistently against the inside wall.
The air all over the apartment was utterly frigid.
My roommates were both probably lounging around in their jammies with their families, three- and five-hour drives away respectively. I knew they’d never have returned just to open every door and window in the apartment. No. Somebody else had been in there with me while I slept. Consciously, I thought of this as a break-in.
Yet, subconsciously I felt as if the intruder hadn’t been human.
Nothing was missing. Nothing else had been moved.
I climbed up onto a folding chair and slipped the attic door back into place. I couldn’t bring myself to look around up there first.
I never reported the incident. Somehow, that thought was scarier than the event itself.
I had some friends over that evening, and laughed about the Sixth Sense of it all. My friend Josh asked me to imagine what might have happened had I not slept with my bedroom door locked overnight.
I slugged some whiskey.
I hoped I wouldn’t hear anybody rustling around above me as I spent the next week alone in the house, wondering.
Spooky!!!