Amanda Filipacchi - Love Creeps

It was a chilly afternoon.

A cop came by and told him to cover up or he would arrest him for indecent exposure.

“But there’s a fire in my building!” Alan said.

“Exhibitionists always have excuses,” the cop replied.

A rumor began spreading that the fire was started by a young woman from the fourteenth floor, technically the thirteenth floor, the bad-luck floor, who was burning a contract her boyfriend wrote and signed in his blood that he’d never lie to her again. And then he did. So she burned the paper and left the fire unattended to cry on her bed.

Alan approached the woman from the fourteenth floor — the fire starter. The crowd of tenants parted to let him through.

He stood in front of her and said, “How could you leave burning paper unattended? Are you insane?”

“I’m sorry it caught you at that bad moment, when you were doing whatever you were doing,” she said, pointing to his chocolate-covered nudity.

“There is no good moment to cause a fire,” Alan replied.

“I’m sorry. I was disillusioned.”

“Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“Everyone already knows about it. You burned a contract in which your boyfriend swore he’d never lie to you again, but he did. Tough. So what?”

“Get away from me. You’re naked and disgusting and infringing on my privacy.”

“And you started a fire. I’m one of your victims.”

She rolled her eyes.

“On candles it says, ‘Never leave burning candles unattended.’ Haven’t you ever had a candle?”

“Get him away from me,” she said, cringing. “You’re naked and disgusting and holding a rat.”

Alan puffed out his chest and loomed over her. He then hopped up on a little wall and spun around, facing the tenants, his rat in one hand. With his other hand he pointed to the disillusioned fire starter. “And whose fault is that? Am I the one who chose to leave burning paper unattended just when I happened to be naked and covered in food? What did you expect me to do? Stay in my apartment and burn to death with my pet?”

“Listen, I can understand why you’re upset,” the woman said. “You’re feeling humiliated and frustrated because I obviously interrupted you in the middle of some perverted sex game, but you’re not improving your lot by screaming.”

A businessman from 3A said, “It does look like the fire alarm caught you in the middle of a titillating situation. It must have been a drag to be interrupted.”

“No! I was in the middle of trying to kill myself, okay?”

A few tenants laughed, assuming it was a joke.

The businessman smiled. “What suicide method involves being covered in chocolate?”

“None. But being covered in chocolate does not stand in the way of suicide,” Alan said.

“No? I think it should,” the man said. “Finding oneself covered in chocolate periodically and for any reason is a sign that one’s life is rather exciting and not worth ending, in my opinion.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

“If I’m wrong, why did you run out of the building to save your life, just when you were about to end it?”

“I was saving my rat, not my life.”

People were silent.

Alan added, “Every day of my life I go up and down the stairwell, closing every door on every floor to protect myself and others from maniacs like her who leave burning, broken, bloody contracts unattended!”

After a moment, the businessman said, “And now, do you still think you’ll kill yourself?”

“Possibly not. The moment passed.”

“So the rest of your life will be thanks to her.”

“Yes. And if my life is bad, which it probably will be, as it has mostly been, it’ll be thanks to her, too.”

“You can’t blame things on others.”

“Just watch me. I’m sure you’re all very familiar with how comforting it is, how mentally helpful it is to blame things on others. You all have your childhood molesters, your bad parents, your abusive teachers, people to blame everything on. I never had one. I thought I did, recently, but I was misled. Now I finally have mine.” He pointed his finger at the woman from 14C and proclaimed, “The rest of my life will be her fault!”

The ex-psychologist homeless man, Ray, looked on, askance, wearily transfixed. He felt beaten down, worn down by the flurry of questions coursing through his mind like a drug whose effect he was trying to resist. It looked to him as though Alan were auditioning to be his patient, and Ray had to admit it was a convincing display of insanity.

Alan suddenly heard a loud voice from the crowd shout, “Drop your weapon!” He looked in the direction of the voice and saw two policemen pointing their guns at him and asking him again to drop his weapon.

“No, it’s not a weapon, it’s my pet rat!” Alan shouted.

“Drop what you’re holding!” they said.

“No! Look, it’s not a gun, it’s just my pet rat, Pancake. He’s not like a dog. He’ll run away if I let him go.” Alan raised Pancake by his tail, letting him dangle. He held the tail between his thumb and index fingers, the rest of his fingers lifted high and spread out, to show that he wasn’t hiding anything else. Pancake struggled at the end of his tail, and abruptly swung up and bit Alan’s hand.

“Ow!” Alan screamed, dropping the rat, who scurried away. Alan leapt off the wall and chased his rat, shouting to people, “Catch him! Catch him! He’s my pet!”

The policemen ran after Alan, who finally caught up with his rat and managed to grab him. Furious, Alan turned to the cops. “How dare you make me almost lose my fucking pet! What do you want? I’m naked because there’s a fire in my building, and I didn’t have time to put on clothes, is that a crime?”

“We need to take you in for questioning.”

“Because I’m naked?”

“No, it’s about another matter.”

“I’m not the one who started the fire. Everyone already knows it’s the woman from 14C. She confessed.”

“It’s about another matter.”

“What other matter?”

“Get in the car.”

“But I’m naked and covered in chocolate and honey. I’ll dirty your car.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve seen worse.”

The police questioned Alan about Max, eventually revealing to him that Max had been found dead. Alan told them about his last exchange with Max and about catching Max having sex with Jessica. They questioned Jessica, who answered all their questions truthfully, and immediately fell into a deep depression, believing she had been the cause of Max’s suicide when she had told Alan, in front of Max, that she had no intention of seeing Max again. They questioned Lynn. They also questioned Roland, even though as far as anyone knew, he hadn’t been at the inn in over a week.

After their brief investigation of Max’s death, the authorities chalked it up to suicide.

Jessica left New York and decided to stay with her parents in the Midwest for a few months to think about her life and the people she had hurt.

Four months passed, the dead of winter came, and, remarkably, nothing changed, the stalking chain remained intact.

Alan’s building hadn’t been seriously damaged by the fire. All the residents were able to continue living there, except for the fire starter, whose apartment had been destroyed. Alan still checked the stairwell doors every day.

After the fire and the news of Max’s suicide, it had no longer seemed so important to Alan that Roland had beaten him up in a field, had come to his apartment and shot at him with a gun that easily could have been loaded, and had then carried Lynn off over his shoulder.

Alan did mention those offenses to the police when they questioned him, which was what led them to question Roland, but Alan didn’t bother pressing charges against Roland or putting a restraining order on him. His magnanimity was not brought on by a feeling of strength, but quite the opposite, by feeling overwhelmed and numb.