My sleep schedule has been increasingly fucked up lately. I tend to be able to sleep for two or three hours in the evening, and then not again until after dawn. Night before last I went to bed at four, even though I didn’t feel particularly sleepy, and ended up just lying there until six. So, screw that; I might as well stay up and accomplish something. Except that I don’t, always — sometimes all I can manage is to sit there and play Freecell.
So this morning I worked until I couldn’t stand it anymore, then played Freecell and waited to go to bed until I knew I could sleep, which turned out to be shortly after seven.
Approximately three and a half hours later I struggled out of a near-coma, disoriented and aware that something was wrong. I sat up, peered around in my highly myopic way, and realized that there was a person standing in the middle of my apartment, watching me.
My sluggish brain proffered a wordless logic that went something like, “This is absurd; therefore it must be a dream.” I think I spent several seconds looking around for some other confirming absurdity. But I was in my apartment, which appeared completely normal except for the stranger standing in the middle of it.
I registered that he was male — I couldn’t see that, exactly, but I could extrapolate it, perhaps from the general shape and the sounds he was making. I knew he was facing me because his hair was dark and his face light, and I could see very little of the former and a lot of the latter. He was holding something red down by his side in one hand; and I got the sense that it was something electrical. I don’t think I could actually see a cord, but I extrapolated that too. Either something in his stance or the shift of colors tipped me off to the fact that he was holding a long cord in his other hand, or I just thought ‘electrical’ and assumed a cord by association. Because what I first thought, actually, was that the red thing reminded me of my vacuum cleaner, which is a hand-held Dirt Devil with a long black cord. That’s kind of how I’m used to “seeing,” without my contacts; I know what I expect to see in my apartment and so I can figure out what I’m looking at from very minimal data. Red thing slightly larger than a loaf of bread? Ah, must be the vacuum cleaner.
I did not expect to see a person in my apartment, so I didn’t have much to go on there. I saw colors and fuzzy large shapes. White guy, overweight, longish hair, wearing dark pants or jeans and a dark (black or dark blue) t-shirt, I think with white printing on it, and carrying something electrical. Building maintenance person of some sort?
I became aware that I was stammering, “What? Who? What?” With effort, I achieved the ability to articulate complete sentences and said, loudly, “What are you doing in my apartment?!“
“I know the owners,” he replied. Gruff voice, gravelly and middle-aged.
“... But what are you doing in my apartment?”
His response was a touch slow, his breathing an audible wheeze in the space between my words and his.
“I know the owners.”
“Yes, but why are you here?” Mentally I measured the distance I’d have to reach to get the cordless phone and the time it would take to dial 911, and tried to calculate whether, if he came at me, I could fend him off long enough for it to connect and at least register my phone number. (Does the emergency dispatcher have Caller ID, now? You would hope so.)
“I was checking stuff out.” He gestured vaguely with the red thing.
“But you didn’t knock or ring the buzzer or anything!”
“Well, you didn’t answer the door.”
Nearly yelling by now, I said, “Because I was asleep!”
He stood there for several long seconds, muttered something angry and disgusted, then turned and left. I heard him go out my front door and then out the side door of the building.
And I was up out of bed and down the hall and locking the door and pulling the chain across.
And then I stood there, thinking — gods, did I dream that? But the smell of cigarette smoke lingered in my apartment for another fifteen minutes. Under it, I thought I caught a whiff of alcohol. He sounded like he was either drunk or mentally retarded; I’d put my money on drunk.
I don’t know whether he had a key, or whether I forgot to lock the door. I usually flip the top deadbolt when I come in, but not always — maybe eighty percent of the time. I never use the chain.
Let me make that past tense: previously, I never used the chain. Now I think I will be using it religiously. Confidential to the Universe: yes, thank you, I got the hint.
B would either yell at me or laugh, because the whole time we lived in Brooklyn he bitched at me for forgetting to lock the door when I was in the apartment. I always remembered to lock it when I left, and that to me was the important part. I could easily envision being robbed in our absence, but “it’s not like someone’s going to just walk into our apartment off the street,” I argued reasonably.
Okay, I take that back now.
I’m still not positive he was not some sort of authorized maintenance person, but it seems unlikely. I mean, he left the entire building instead of moving on to another apartment, and he sounded drunk.
And there was one other thing ...
Do I need to mention that I spent the rest of the day quietly freaking out? I couldn’t raise H for hours; she was sleeping the sleep of the dead and did not hear the phone. I talked to S for a little while, but he was at work and couldn’t keep me company indefinitely.
About an hour later, though, S and I were discussing the red thing he was holding. “You think it was a staple gun?” he asked.
“Uh ...” I said, trying to remember whether I’d ever seen an electrical staplegun. “It looked a lot like my vacuum cleaner,” I said. “About those basic dimensions.” I decided to go have a look at my vacuum cleaner, in fact, and refresh my memory. It usually lives on the office floor, that being the only carpeted area in the apartment, but it wasn’t there now. Well, at some point I had it in the main room so I could vacuum cat hair off the chairs. Not there either.
I looked through my entire apartment about forty times, hands shaking, thinking it must be in a closet somewhere or under something or ... but no. No vacuum cleaner. Anywhere.
The guy walked into my apartment, took my vacuum cleaner, and left.
You know you’re in trouble, H said later, when your real life is stranger than your dreams.
I haven’t called the police, because I’m afraid they would laugh at me. Was your door locked? Well, I’m not sure. What did he look like? Well, I’m not sure. Did he take anything from your apartment? Uh ... a vacuum cleaner?
Never in my whole life has my poor vision made me feel so vulnerable.
I think it’s the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to me, and I am no stranger to creepy, having been followed, stalked, flashed, and groped on various occasions. I can’t imagine this is going to help my insomnia; already I am repeatedly checking the locks and chain like a person with OCD.
But hey, it’s going to be all right, because in three weeks I will have a roommate, and I understand he’s really good with a machete.