The Anti-Muse
by Richard Kilroy
Have you ever heard of an anti-muse? Me neither. that is until I moved into the apartment next to apartment number six. Anti-muse is a term I coined after living in the unit next to someone who is just that.
Don't get me wrong,
I live in a great building. Most of the neighbors are friendly and quiet. My landlady, Minnie, is an 89 year old Japanese lady who gives you fish flavored cookies and a roll of toilet paper when you pay your rent. I love it here. I love Minnie and her fish cookies.
I've lived in the same building for over 15 years. My mom lived in apartment number one - the downstairs corner apartment. When she became ill, I moved into the unit above Mom to take care of her. That's when I moved in to the apartment next to the anti-muse.
Her name is actually Molly and she doesn't realize she has this moniker but she's certainly worked hard for it. Molly does laundry five nights a week, three loads per night. I later discovered that a load of laundry to her consists of exactly five articles of clothing. "I like to keep things separated." she told me once.
She shuffles out of her apartment like she's in leg shackles, usually banging her head on wind chimes that she's hung from one of the light fixtures on our shared balcony. Then there's the ping-ping-ping sound from her set of keys clanking against what must be a large metal key holder. Then there's some full-throated Broadway-voiced talking to herself:
"For Gad's sake, where's my soap? Who took my soap? Ah jeez-Louise, what next …?"
Then the shook - shook - shook rasping of her sandals across the walkway and after minutes on the staircase and some additional grumbling, Molly makes it to the laundry room at last.
Her timing is exquisite. The moment I turn on my work light, put colors on a palette and begin to paint, Molly gets to her work as well. It's almost chilling how well timed with me she is. I don't have any set hour to paint - sometimes it's after dinner, sometimes it's 3 a.m. - as long as I get six hours in in a day, I've had a good work day. But no matter when I commit myself to my canvas, my liner brush dips into a jar of water, Molly is on the move. I admit to wondering if she's set up motion detectors in my painting area of my apartment so we can be synchronized.
Molly usually begins her night of anti-musing by arguing with her roommate Lucy.
"Who says you can do that! Well you can't! Don't ask me why! I dunno - you just can't! Stop asking me Lucy!" she'll say in a voice that sounds like a five year old girl with a drinking problem.
I usually have a good ten minutes of productive painting time while Molly sorts her laundry and her life-issues in our downstairs laundry facility. It's when I hear that zombie chain-gang shuffle approach that I know we're in for the second act of her balcony performance. Shook- shook- shook up each step and it's usually around my picture window when she begins her dialogue with her roommate. More jangling of keys, one more head smack into the wind chimes sending out notes all around her like cartoon birds swirling about her crown.
"What more do ya wanfromme for Gad's sake?? We've talked about this already … ah hell …" she yells into her apartment while dropping her keys onto the balcony floor. When she eases over with a loud "oomph'' to pick up the keys, that's usually when she also spills her powdered detergent.
"look what ya made me do now ?? - ah hell…"
All of this while I try to make sense of a portrait I've been commissioned to paint. This painting is due in three days and the photo the patron chose - out of scores of perfectly good images - is the only one that's wildly out of focus. This isn't a fuzzy photo, no, the guy in the photo looks like he has two heads the motion blur is so bad. I have to make this look flattering but it's an image out of 'Jacob's Ladder'.
I know - I know, I chose this profession. This is really all my fault. I'll be a painter! So romantic! I'll stretch my own canvas and grind pigments out of hand picked berries!
I try not to get angry.
And I know Molly has it tough. Her social life consists of a room mate who is apparently psychotically disagreeable and then those five nights of laundry. What is peculiar (and I admit, I've given this way too much thought) is that in the fifteen years Molly's been my neighbor, I've only seen her in the same green stretchy pants and out of shape floral blouse with the ruffled collar. Why doesn't she wear any of the clothes she washes? Where does it all go to? I found myself thinking less about my painting but giving much thought to the idea that perhaps Molly is running a laundry business out of her apartment.
The other peculiar thing I wonder about is why is it that I've never seen this Lucy woman? She never checks the mail? Never goes on an errand? Now God knows Lucy doesn't need to do laundry, I'm sure Molly's got her back on that one - but does she ever see daylight? Is she strapped to a bed and Molly collects her unemployment checks? I picture Lucy is really mummified and sitting in some rocking chair among huge piles of freshly laundered towels.
I sometimes think I'll ring the doorbell when Molly's in the laundry room just to see who answers but I never do.
It's Christmas time and this portrait of the blurry man has a firm deadline - it's a present and I think he's giving this image to his girlfriend and I can't decide which head to paint - there's two of them - maybe one of them is his true self? I try squinting in hopes that the siamese twins will somehow merge.
Molly senses I'm on a deadline - she's in full- wash- spin- rinse-drop-soap-smack wind chimes repeat mode. Every ten minutes the door swings open, more diaphragm projected dialogue to Lucy about not being an effective friend, another thwack of her forehead, more sonar pinging of the keys and the shuffle downstairs to deliver a dash of softener.
I'm in my ten minute window so I quickly dip my brush into the paint when …there's a rhythmic car door slamming sound. Every three seconds a wham comes from somewhere below.
Who can that be? Molly doesn't own a car. But it sounds like a car door shutting. But that'd have to be a 22 door sedan - there's too many slams.
This is ridiculous. I can't paint so I decide to take out the trash. I've got to see what's causing the slamming while not seeming like I'm looking for what's causing the slamming because that would make me look like, you know, the neurotic neighbor. There's no car in the drive - no one around but there it is again! Another whamming from nearby. It's coming from the laundry room.
Someone is slamming car doors inside the laundry room.
As I round the corner, I see Molly lift the washer's lid all the way open - drop in a lace-trimmed sock - and let the lid fall to its frame. WHAM! She lifts the lid again, pours in a capful of Baby-Soft and lets the lid fly away from her fingertips.
Did I mention, it's two a.m.?
I almost drop my garbage bag. This is a whole new level of anti-musing! She's upped her game! Wow! I'm impressed. Everyone in our building is in bed - I'm standing with my mouth agape, holding a trash bag watching my neighbor drop another sock into the washing machine like she was feeding a whale - and then let the lid free fall. I feel freakishly connected to her madness in this moment so I hurry off to the trash bin.
Molly shuffles up stairs and I feign busy at the dumpster so I don't have to, you know, be nice to her in the stairwell. Don't be shocked. I'm angry with this woman. If I tried to smile at her right now my mouth would look like a seismograph reading. I want to paint! I need to paint! I pay for things when I paint. Why is this woman in my life? Where did she come from anyway? She had a head injury in her past, I just know it. And what the hell did she do with Lucy anyway? I want to know! My neighbor in apartment six ate her roommate and now she talks to her bones like she's still there so no one gets suspicious.
Well I'm more than suspicious. I'm ready to blow this case wide open. Then Molly can do laundry duty in jail where people like her belong - that'll be her payment for years of slow shuffles and spilled detergent. Hell, the poor dryer's motor has burned out twice in the last five years because of her obsessive choring. And think of the money! How does she afford her laundry habit? 75 cents a wash-load times 3 loads and then 3 dries - times 5 nights a week?? Not to mention the boxes of Tide - the gallons of Baby Soft, the bleach, the Woolite - the cling-frees! And again, what does she do with all of those clothes she never wears?? Does she dance around in forty cardigans while dead Lucy looks on?
I can't stand her anymore! I'm tired of being quiet! Artist types are supposed to be the silent sufferers but no more. I'm going to yell in her face in the same volume she uses! I'm going to tell her about all of her interruptions of my work. About how many times I stopped painting, stopped thinking, stopped understanding life because she wore me down. How many straight lines in my paintings went all a wiggle because of her sudden door slams. All of my missteps and missed opportunities are all her fault! I'll tell her how I could be in galleries all over the world and wouldn't be reduced to painting blurry two headed monsters if it weren't for her inane dialogue with her dead Lucy. Everything will be uttered in one run-on sentence and then I'm going to rip down those wind chimes while she cries.
I am ready.
I start for the staircase…
I now hear Molly's wind chime collision and the inevitable, "Ah hell, I dunno know Lucy, you figure it out! Now look what you made me do??" and then the sound of her door slamming and she's gone. Wait. She's gone? She never moves this fast! How did this happen?? I didn't get up the stair case fast enough!
Now I'll have to wait another ten minutes until she reemerges to add a sheet of bounce and by then I won't be as angry as I am right now dammit.
As I round the stair case to my landing I notice that there's something left at my door.
A small box.
It's wrapped in gold foil with a neatly looped green bow on top.
I pick it up, look at the tag which reads, 'To Richard. I hope you have a very merry Christmas. Love, Molly.'
What's this? She took my anger. She took my anger … she's not allowed to do that, is she? She's taken everything else, she can't take this too ...
I fumble with the box, trying to find the scotch taped line - and open the wrapping. I Pop off the lid, pull away some cotton and now I see: It's a small snow globe with glitter drifting lazily inside. A small village tableaux - something out of Mary Poppins. It's tiny and dainty and perfect.
All of my rage drains from me. It's a snow globe. I defy anyone to be angry while holding a snow globe.
I can't hate her now. It's simply not possible. I could just see her and Lucy wrapping snow globes in gold foil - it's just too sweet.
And so I decided she may not be a very effective anti-muse after all because she ended up inspiring me that night. I decided which head to paint and I finished the blurry man before sunrise.
And all was well in my building. Even the wind chimes sounded like Christmas carols that night.
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