wanderingstan

Crazy neighbor strikes again

Yes, the time is right. It's very very late. It's early.

Egon and Judith got the beamer from the institute and Mario and I rigged up a movie screen in their flat. We watched Dr. Strangelove and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So that's why I'm in bed so late.

But I had to write, cause some wierd stuff has been going down. Fedder. That's our neighbor. Mrs. Fedder and then just Fedder. She's his mom, quite old. He's 40ish, and a little crazy. Usually not to much. He followed me around town once. He makes faces through the glass door as we pass his flat on the way up to ours. When the old residents moved out, he asked them if they were taking the radar dish with them--the one they'd been using to microwave his brain. In May he woke up Maike and I when he yelled "Macht das licht aus!" over and over in the middle of the night. (All our lights were out, by the way.) And then a month ago he got in the habit of ringing our bell and, when we'd answer, say he just wanted to see who was there and then turn around and leave.

Last night, however, was different. 3am. The door rings. Footsteps. I think it's some drunk folks, maybe from a party upstairs. Worry about my bike in the hallway, get up, open the door just to check. (It's there.) Doorbell rings again, with lots of voices. No, wait, it's just one voice, but there's a conversation. It's in German, I don't catch much, but I do hear "Bastian Bügler and Stan-lay James!"and then the voice gets really high and he says "Hello-ooooooo. I'm heeeere, babyface. I'm here to f*ck you!" I did not open the door.

Restless sleep, and then the doorbell rings again. It's 5:30. I wake up Basti and he open's the door. Fedder says (in German, of course) "Mr. Bügler, you know you are a murderer!" - "Actually, I wasn't aware of it." replies Basti. And then Fedder rushes forward and pushes him back and says "I'm going to kill you!" and at this point I spring out from behind the door. Fedder's startled, and backs down the stairs.

So later that morning Basti made some calls. The landlord, helpful as ever, said that Fedder is usually not like that and that we should "be careful." Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot. The police made a report, and the pychiatric people came later in the day but only Frauke was home when they were here.

That's the word.