What's Going On

What’s Going On?

               I’m not sure exactly when this craziness all started, perhaps on that fateful day when I went down to pick up my mail in the lobby of my apartment building.   This was about two weeks ago. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining, several residents visiting together in the entrance lounge area, and my neighbor Bill sharing a story with me about weird characters banging on his balcony railings at 5 am. I never heard a thing, although my bedroom is near his deck and as I awoke, I thought I heard a huge wind and a vacuuming noise; but no banging sounds. Bill said that he was planning to call the cops and would be taking up an all night watch to ensure that this did not happen to him again. I wished him well on his project and proceeded to the mailroom to get my mail. 

               I noticed someone weird at the front desk as I moved toward the mailroom. Dressed in dark clothing with a hat pulled down over his ears with large lens sunglasses, he glared at me as I walked past. I said a warm hello and he quickly turned away as though he didn’t want me to get a good look at him. He didn’t greet me or anything.  As I passed him I noticed the smell of alcohol mixed with old spice which was strange as he had a beard growth of several days or more. It was clear he had not shaved today, yesterday or, when was that last shave? I didn’t give this much more thought as we have a good security system for entry. All strangers need to be buzzed in, have a key or access to the lock box just inside the outer door.

               As I unlocked my mail box to take out my mail, the top letter was from the post office letting me know that the Jones family was requesting a change of address to my apartment and that the change was effective immediately and had been approved by the postal authorities and the property manager. Now this was odd as I am in the middle of my lease and have been faithfully paying my monthly amounts as agreed upon in my contract. It was also intimidating because I don’t have the resources to move, I hate moving and I’m irritated with every aspect of moving. As I stood in front of my mail box sorting through my mail, I heard the fire alarm sounding off with that piercing, non ending reverberation rolling from the mailroom to the front lobby and extending down the halls. Now this was getting to be too much.

               I raced over to the manager’s office and it was fortunate that the leadership team was there, and they were trying to turn off the alarm at the central hub station. This was obviously not the time to take up the change of address form with them. Joe from maintenance turned to me and said there is a problem; as we think there is a fire in the fourth floor trash room. While there is no need to evacuate just yet, we need to be cautious and everyone needs to get back to their apartment and stay there until further notice. The fire department has been notified and he said that Pete, his assistant was on the fourth floor with the fire extinguisher to put out the fire. The plan was to systematically inspect all floors and then the basement where the trash containers collected the garbage through the chutes from the floors above.

               I quickly moved down the hall with my mail to get to my apartment but noticed that the other residents were ignoring the orders of the management and visiting as if the alarm had never gone off. The stranger who was at the front desk had disappeared. Then, as if by a secret signal more than ten dogs, from across the building complex began barking and baying in unison. I thought that the fire alarm had set them off, but as the alarm was now disabled, their barking did not cease. Instead it just seemed to become more outrageous in both its volume and mournful tone. This was a dog choir at its maximum level and no discerning tune could be detected. Now the strong smell of smoke was wafting through the building and my theory was that this smell had set off the dog chorus.

               The smell was not just of burning wood or paper, but a mix of garbage, rotting food, smelly sewage along with a toxic like chemical smell. Maybe Pete was having a difficult time putting out that fire on the fourth floor. I headed for the stairway and as I opened the exit door, I also grabbed my covid mask fitting it to my face to block some of the smoke from entering my lungs. 

               Rushing up the stairs two at a time, I made it to the fourth floor in no time flat, but was wheezing from the swirling smoke as I arrived at the stairwell door to the fourth floor. As I entered the hallway, I was surprised to see that stranger who had been hanging out at the front desk with a lit blow torch, trying to add fire to the fire by torching the doors and walls on the fourth floor. I hollered at him “Stop you idiot, you will burn it all down!” He just laughed hysterically and mumbled “You betcha”. 

               I looked around for about anything that could have stopped him, slowed him down or knocked that blow torch out of his hand. There was not a chair or anything to use as an implement of destruction; so I hammered on the nearest door, yelling “Help, a crazy man is out here and trying to burn our place down”. The door opening in about thirty seconds and there stood Art, with his walking crutch in his hand. “Here use this”, he said as he tossed the crutch to me. I immediately swung it around as forcefully as I could and clubbed blowtorch man on the upper arm on his right side where he was holding the blow torch. The swing of the crutch did its job as the blow torch hit the floor and slithered down the hall, clattering all the way. The swing of the crutch also bonked blowtorch man off balance and he hit the floor with a thud. He was not knocked unconscious as I don’t have that capability, but as he went to the floor, he didn’t have anything to brace himself so he bounced onto his knees as if someone had struck him with a heavy hit.  I immediately jumped him and took him onto his back to hold him down. Art was right alongside me and grabbed the runaway blow torch and shut the thing down.

               As this was happening, Pete came down the hall as if he were Santa smoking a supersized pipe. Smoke was swirling around him, but he was whistling that old Beatle’s tune, “Don’t bring me down”. Now Pete is six foot five inches tall, weighs about 275 pounds and is in great physical condition. He came up to Art, me and blowtorch man and said, “So this is the rascal causing the trouble here, I’ll take care of him”. As I jumped to my feet, he reached down, grabbed the guy by his coat collar and lifted him up, with one hand. “Torch man you’re in big danger now; get your butt down to the lobby as you will be getting a free ride to the cop shop.

               As we proceeded to the stairwell, Pete said he had extinguished the fire on the fourth floor but needed to check the other floors and basement once we took the blowtorch man to the office on the 1^st floor. Pete said that his plan was to tie this guy up to a pillar in the entrance with some copper wire or extension cords that he had available in the maintenance cart. I asked about the smell; that nasty mix of sewage, rotting food and chemicals. Pete responded, “Often when a fire gets going in an enclosed space like the trash room, the fumes seep down the chute and we find that the fire starts as well in the garbage container in the basement, rebounding back up the tube spreading across the floors and throughout the building. As the sewer pipes run alongside the chute, and we are using the chemicals from the fire extinguisher, this produces a mix of smells that no one wants to experience. Once you smell it, it takes days for your nose to recover, and will take about a week to repair and properly exhaust the smoke and rid this putrid smell from the building.” Wow, what a treatise on fire, smoke and recovery efforts by the assistant maintenance guy. I was glad he was on the team and knew so much about it.

               As we reached the office on the first floor we were met by the management leadership team, several residents, the firefighters and a squad of police officers who quickly handcuffed blowtorch man and gave him that promised ride to the local jail and a date before a judge in the court of law.

               We were fortunate not to experience any great property damage, and no deaths or injuries at all from the events of that day. We were inconvenienced for several weeks as cleanup crews and repair teams arrived to assess and then address the damages. We had to take our trash out to the side patio for three weeks and it took about that long for the smell of smoke and the accompanying odors to be completely eradicated.

               It turned out that blowtorch man was also the character that Bill heard at 5 am, banging on the spokes of his terrace. He confessed that to the authorities and Bill was informed of this by our apartment manager. As for the accused arsonist, the outcome was a rather positive twist in the sad life of this character. This was a homeless veteran with mental and physical issues who was seeking revenge on our apartment complex as several residents were trying to get him connected to a homeless shelter, rather than letting him just squatting at the edge of the apartment property lines, in the local park. Where he came up with the blow torch no one knows. The outcome however was encouraging, as he was cited for trespassing but not charged with a felony for incendiary acts, or maliciously attempted arson. He was assigned to the local homeless shelter with a great social worker who worked through many of his anger issues, gave him food and shelter as well as a part time job at the properties the shelter connects with. 

               Art and I received a citation from the police department for citizen bravery and the local news station came to the ceremony and interviewed us. We were the heroes on that day. The building management also provided us a medal for resident courage in the face of a crisis. However, we also received a stern lecture about trying to apprehend strangers on the premises. Instead, we were told we needed to inform the management leadership team or call 911.

               I also was able to get the change of address issue dealt with.  The Jones’ were moving in. It was not on my floor but the apartment above me, so this was a simple mistake by the post office and our management. An internal review included checking off the names; however they didn’t look closely at the apartment number as they just assumed that information was correct.

               Where did that strong wind and vacuuming sound come from so early in the morning and why did all those dogs start their chorus on that fateful day? That remains a mystery as I don’t know. Could it have been spirits from long ago?  This was after all a grave site of Indigenous peoples who lived here in ancient times.  Could it have been the weather patterns that plague this region at these times of the year?  Was it a shift in the solar winds, the magnetic forces or changes taking place in the core of the earth?  Perhaps it had to do with stellar changes taking place due to asteroids, comets or modifications in the pathway orientation of the Milky Way?  It could have been any of these phenomena, other forces not listed here or any combination that may exist beyond our understanding.

               I’m just happen that my life did not veer totally out of control and for the past several weeks there has been peace and quiet in my apartment living arrangement. Maybe I’m on a roll and this newly emerging pattern will end the paranoia I had been previously experiencing

END