Malcolm in the end

 

My new next door neighbor Paul G pops by once is a while. Last time he told me he had Malcolms photo albums. He was a resident of the building who Richard, another neighbor, told me “melted into his floor” one fateful day. This was years ago. He was found dead in his place after his adjacent nabe complained about a deeply offensive odor emanating from M’s hoarded hovel. David our super got in with his key and found the poor guy quiet as a mouse pissing on cotton. I didn’t know Malcolm well. He smelled of cigarettes and beer, he was alway scowling and his loud porn scared the young kids who lived under him. He had beady eyes, not much of a chin and a thin pointy nose like the end of an ice cream cone. He wore some kind of big something on a chain underneath his t short, like the size of a kitchen matches box. I always wondered if it was medical or diabolical, maybe a bomb or some satanic equivalent of a Catholic scapula.  

So - back to the photo albums. Paul G was gonna toss them - I said I’d take them and did and they remind me of the scene in Schindlers List - when Spielberg pans across tables and tables of confiscated family pictures in the Nazi camps - or like when you go to a flea market and see suitcases of family fotos worth maybe five for a dollar. He had a homely wife and timid sisters, dogs and cars and vacations, parties, relatives holding babies, people acting loud and toasting and dancing and acting silly. Wow. Even old smelly, mean porn guy Malcolm had all that.  And now, here I am - a neighbor of a neighbor of a neighbor  - deciding which snaps to throw out and which to play around with and make into something probably funny. Life. Funny. Done.