The Trees Got it Too

             Last week when I was coming home from work one evening, I received the sudden craving for either cheesecake or ice cream on a cone. Once I was off the subway the only cheesecake option I had was from the diner, with a likely generic cheesecake slice not appeasing, I walked over to a Carvel instead in search of a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. One or two scoops would've been fine with me, but the girl behind the counter must have been bored from a lack of customers during the cold season because she stacked up my cone with at least four to five big scoops. It felt like the cone and the ice cream combined weighted at least ten pounds. I tried hard to keep my mind away from thinking how many fat and calories I was staring down, but what was for sure, I knew I needed to take a bike ride the next day to burn it off.

             My Tour de France when I want to take a long bike ride is to ride through Pelham Bay Park en route to City Island. I usually enter the bike path on Pelham Parkway which heads in that direction, but on this particular day I saw a large plastic grey barrier nearly blocking off the path. Someone had slightly moved it off the path, so I though nothing of it and kept riding along the same way as always. Next, I came upon an orange large plastic barrier which hasn't been moved. Clearly something was going on and for some reason a higher power didn't want bikers on the path. I couldn't think what the issue could've been, so I rode around the orange barrier and continued onto the path which leads under an overpass for the I-95 highway. Every time I pass under there I usually see a homeless person sleeping, or least their belongings left behind while they're out and about. There weren't any homeless people this time and seconds later I discovered the reason for the barriers - the bike path was under construction. The path simply ended and I saw construction trucks not far off working on other parts of the path. Lately that section of the path has been very bumpy and the concrete was all cracked up. Although I was delighted to see that the path was being fixed, I had to turn around and take an alternate path. The second path I took had an obstacle as well, a downed tree, likely a result from the strong winds from the recent Hurricane Sandy, was blocking the way. I rode around it and finally was on the main path on the way to City Island.

             There was no homeless person under the overpass that morning, but I saw the next best thing ten minutes later. I saw Donald, a local begger/junkie/homeless person, for the first time in years on the bike path, struggling to hold his pants up. Donald's signature walk, and he's been doing this for years, is to walk with one hand holding up his pants. He's somewhat on the obese side and has to wear a large pants size, but he refuses to ever use a belt. One might state that since he's homeless he can't afford a belt, but in all his years on the street, he could've found plenty of belts, or he could've used a make-shift chord to tie around his waist to keep his pants from falling. Another one of Donald's traits is he asks for a whole dollar. While the typical run-of-the-mill begger asks for a quarter or dime, Donald's total vocabulary consists off, "Give me a dollar". He points his head downwards and uses his long blonde hair to cover this face while he gives out this command in a deep base voice. He was very visible around the neighborhood eight to ten years ago, but then he disappeared for a long while without a trace. In recent weeks I've seen glimpses of him in passing, but wasn't sure if I eyes were deceiving me. I was able to ride my bike near him and study his movements to make sure it was indeed Donald. Falling pants, long blonde hair and all, I was happy to see Donald back in action.

             The next big stop on the path was the draw bridge which crosses over the Hutchinson River. Nothing looked different with the views of Co-op City and of the river, but I had to do a double-take when my eyes were drawn to the side of the water. A car was literally in the water, caught by a pile of rocks which prevented it from floating away further. Parts of the outside of the car looked burned, so perhaps the car was stolen and dumped there, but I couldn't figure out how the thief would be able to drive the car upon that spot. During weekends its common to see cars parked on the land nearby as people like to use that spot to go fishing, but there's still no way to drive the car into the water like that. The only conclusion I came to was it must have also been a result from Hurricane Sandy. The hurricane which left over two hundred people dead overall and destroyed thousands of homes in the Tri-State area, must have swooped that car from somewhere and led it down this river. The rocks must have finally ended its journey, and there is lies, until a tow-truck is able to get it out of there somehow. The Bronx received the least of the hurricane's fury compared to other boroughs and Jersey, but as I traveled further on the trail I would soon see more of the local damage that occurred.

             At this point the bike path goes uphill and it becomes more grueling to peddle. I tried to take it slow to conserve my energy, and without making a sound, another biker buzzed past me going into hyper-space. I had no urge to speed up and tire myself out too quickly, I kept it slow and looked in amazement at all the destruction that surrounded me. The trees took at heavy beating at the hand of Hurricane Sandy, many laid dead on the ground. The winds must have been so powerful that big-thick trees that were probably decades old, were simply ripped up out of the ground from the roots the same way a person would yank a weed from their garden. Branches torn off and hanging by shreds of wood, other trees were chopped in half at the base. As I kept going on this path, it was one destroyed tree after another. It reminded me of those movies about the Civil War where they're always that scene after battle with dead bodies littered all over the place. That's what this place became, a tree graveyard. The worst case, and most serious display of the storm's deadly force, was a tree which it's roots grew under the blacktop of the bike path. Not only was the tree pulled out of the ground like many others, but not even the blacktop was able to keep the tree standing as that too was ripped out of the ground.

             I was almost at the small bridge which serves as the entrance to City Island, there was just one small pond I needed to visit first. I saw a large white swan and a few ducks swimming around, so I figured it was worth a closer look. There was a red ladder by the side of the pond and a sign indicating that it is to only be used in the case of the pond freezing and some genius deciding to walk on it, only to fall through into the sub-zero water. I never saw it there before, but it seemed to be a great idea because you never know who might get adventurous if that water freezes over. Going by a dozen or so more killed trees, I was finally over the bridge and into City Island. As soon as you enter with the bike path, on the right hand side there's a rest area with benches which is my usual endpoint when I bike there. Pigeons were around looking for crumbs, seagulls were posted on the guardrail working on their tans, and a couple of ducks were enjoying the water. That was more than enough reason for me to put my bike down and rest up for a few minutes before carrying on. I did hear on the local news that as a result of Hurricane Sandy, a restaurant on City Island called Tony's Pier had burned down. I know most of the restaurants on City Island, but I wasn't familiar this place. Instead of turning back to head home, I wanted to ride on the island further to see exactly where Tony's was located. It wasn't until I reached the very end of City Island that I found Tony's Pier, or what was left of it. As the reports stated, most of what was left was burnt rubble. There were piles of charred wood and a construction crew on hand to clean the area up. Though things looked bleak, a big sign on the parking lot declared that the restaurant will be back up and running by the summer of 2013.

              On the other hand the car might be stuck in the river for another decade....
         

The Walls are Thin

             Three weeks ago the high volume of a neighbor's television began invading our apartment bedroom and made it near impossible to fall asleep. Of all the rooms to have this issue at nights, it had to be the room we need quiet to sleep in. The odd part about it was that the neighbor that lives in the apartment next to where our bedroom wall is, has been relatively quiet since he moved in a little more than a year ago. I only physically saw him a handful of times, and just spoke to him once last Christmas when he both exited our apartments at the same moment. There was an awkward silence between us as we both locked our doors, so cringing inside, I blurted out, "Merry Christmas", to kill the silence, and took my time locking my door so he would finish his sooner and be on his way before me. At night, his snoring does echo through the wall, but its not loud enough to be considered a nuisance. In fact, its near comical that its worth him doing it. A loud television set it a completely different story, but we couldn't figure out why this usually quiet neighbor would all of sudden have his television set blasted all night long into the morning hours the next day.

              We came up with a number of theories to help explain the bizarre behavior; needs noise to make it seem like he is home to fool police surveillance, needs noise to drown out the sound of cooking meth (if there's any noise involved with that creation process), gets drunk or high at nights and falls asleep with the TV on, he's deaf, recently lost his job and stays awake at night in a depressed state, just bought a TV and there wasn't one in that room until now, overdosed or killed himself weeks ago and the TV has been running since, or finally the universal - I'm going to do whatever I want without any consideration of others around me. Most people renting an apartment might go immediately to the landlord to make a complaint, but we had contacted him recently regarding our broken door bell/buzzer, and to pile on a loud TV coming from a neighbor only a few days after would've overloaded him and we could possibly forget about ever getting the buzzer fixed anytime in the near future. With three weeks of unsound sleep, she proposed the idea that we give the neighbor one more week to shape up, otherwise we ask the landlord to get involved. The noise was brutal, it would go on from 9 pm at night to 10 am the next morning. Who could watch television that continuously at nights? When we would turn off our television before trying to fall asleep, the silence would make the outside noise even more of a nuisance. The only way to drown out the noise would to turn our set back on at a low volume to balance it out.

             Then came that one night that really started to push things over the edge. It was so loud we had to abandon the bedroom and make for the couch in the living room around 4 am. Although it was nice to have quiet at night for the first time in many weeks, two people trying to sleep on a couch isn't the most comfortable thing in the world. Seeing the noise was bothering her more than it was me, I volunteered to go back into the bedroom so she could have the couch and I would have the bed (and noise). I heard the TV as if it was my own, and actually turned mine on with the sound muted, so I could figure out what channel he was watching. It took only a few minutes to pinpoint it on an infomercial about buying jeeps. He watched another one after that. I felt it a bit odd that someone would be watching infomercials all night, that's usually something only elderly people do. This guy is in his late 20's or early 30's, and come to think of it, the noise we hear is usually news shows or infomercials like the one I was hearing this night. It didn't add up. Should this guy be watching MTV or movies at least? It only increased belief in one of my theories that he's getting drunk or high and falling asleep without any awareness of the TV being on or what channel its even set to. Although we were going to give the neighbor a week to change his ways, the night was so bad that she wanted to slip a note under his door that morning to ask him to lower his television set at nights. I agreed, and after several drafts, this is the final version we came up with that explained everything without seeming too combative:

November 19, 2012

Dear Neighbor,

Could you please keep the TV volume to a minimum during the overnight hours (12am-8am)? It has been difficult to sleep at night during these past two weeks since these walls appear to be thin and the very loud TV sound is coming through. The TV volume was never so loud before from your side, so I’m not sure why it’s coming through the wall so much as it has been, but it’s quite loud now.  I hope everything is OK.

Thank you for your understanding,

Your next door neighbor 

             It's a very tricky thing to send a note such as this. Since we really don't know this person, there's no telling how he may react. Plus, it could open an entire can of worms of back-n-forth games just to be spiteful for calling him out. Even though we were in the right, sometimes that doesn't mean justice will prevail, and it could end up making things worse. With no end in sight, in this case we had no choice but to try the note. It was placed sticking out the side of his door, and twenty minutes later we saw that it was gone, so we knew he got it. The funny part is that even with the letter, it didn't seem like the television volume was getting any lower. This same day, she was having a friend staying over for the night that I needed to wake up 6:30 am the next morning to drive to JFK airport. With the couch in the living room now occupied with her friend, we had no choice but to stay in the bedroom and put up with the racket. Besides, having to get up early the next morning for the airport run and having to go to work, I really needed a good night's sleep. This would be the first night after we had delivered the letter to our neighbor and it would serve as a test if this letter was going to do any good. Defiantly, as a car splashing a puddle of water onto a pedestrian waiting at the bus stop, the television noise was as loud as it had been all the other nights. What I was afraid was going to happen, did happen, the letter fell on deaf ears.

             With only a handful hours of sleep, I work up early and drove her friend to the airport. When I exited off the highway at Hillside Ave., I was stationed at a red light and saw a city bus was creeping up behind me. The bus came to a stop and all the vehicles in my lane were standing still waiting for the light to turn green. Seconds later, something smashes us from the back and jolts the car forward. It was turning out to be a really great week! I spun my head around to look at the bus driver and he gave me one of these 'my bad' gestures to his chest. The bus hit my back bumper from a stopped position, so it wasn't like he rammed me while he was in motion. It didn't sound like I had any damage beyond a possible dent, I was at a busy highway exit with the light about to turn green, there was a city bus full of passengers behind me on their way to work or school, plus I had to get her friend to the airport in time for her flight. I wasn't in the mood and it wasn't necessary, so once the light turned green I took off on my merry way instead of going through the routine of getting out of my car, looking at my bumper, putting my hands in the air, holding up traffic at a busy exit, waiting two hours for a cop to finally show up, I just wanted to get out of there. Once I dropped the friend off at the airport, I did get out of my car to check the back bumper, and as I suspected, there was no damage than what was there before. When I finally arrived home, I inspected the bumper even further and realized if you put alot of pressure on it, it's a tad bit loose, but nothing that some Krazy Glue could fix.

             A couple of night later there was another powerful batch of noisy soundwaves entering our bedroom from a neighbor's television. Clearly the letter was having no impact, and we were giving this neighbor a week to redeem himself before we go to the landlord, but it was so loud she wanted to knock on his door the next morning and tell him in person to lower the television. While she proposed that solution, I was going over other more sinister remedies to solve the problem. One of them being calling the landlord the next day and suggesting maybe he's dead so police and EMS workers barge in on him while he's cooking meth. Another was taking a piece of electrical tape and taping his buzzer down 4 am so it rings loud in his apartment until he comes downstairs himself to remove the tape. The last devious attack plan was using Krazy Glue and inserting it in his key holes so he would have issues locking and unlocking his door and mailbox the next day, combined with stealing his door mat. The problem with these sinister ideas was that since we gave him the letter a few days previously, obviously he would know who did it and then that whole situation could turn ugly. That's the reason I really didn't want to send the letter in the first place, it actually took away our ability to retaliate, but at the time she was going nuts and we needed to do something, so I just went along. The only other option besides telling the landlord, would be filing a complaint with 311. Who knows how long before someone shows up for that(if they even do show up), and calling a cop on someone also falls into that tricky area of opening a whole can of worms. Someone could dig up an insignificant reason to return the favor and then the whole thing just gets stupid. Then there's also the chance the landlord could get upset with us for bringing cops around (nobody wants cops around), and we could forget about ever getting our doorbell fixed.

             As she said she would, 9 am that morning she went to the neighbors door and knocked. I stayed in the bedroom and waited for gunshots. For a good five minutes she was out there and I was wondering what was going on. Maybe he invited her into his apartment to show her his television set in perhaps an attempt to explain how and why the noise was coming through the wall so much. She did return eventually (without any bullet wounds) and sprang a bombshell - it wasn't him!!! This neighbor, who I though was rude and cooking meth, was actually quite nice and even had kids. I did recall hearing the occasional footsteps of kids running when he first moved in, but not a peep since of any kids running or crying, etc. As I figured he might, he even invited her to check the room out herself to prove its not his television set making the noise, but she declined and took him at his word. He stated he rarely even watches any TV in the room that shared a wall with our bedroom, and he was going to write a return letter explaining all this to us, but he didn't find the time yet to do so. Once we had this revelation, things started to make sense. We always assumed the noise had to be coming from next door because it made the most sense, but originally we both felt as if somehow the noise was emitting from the outside, like a car radio passing by on the street but never going away. That turned our attention to the fact that the noise had to be coming from an apartment underneath our bedroom.

             I was going out to grab an egg sandwich for breakfast, but before leaving the building I decided I should do a little detective work. I went to the floor beneath mine and honed in on two apartments that lie under the area where our bedroom is located. I put my ear on the door furthest left and heard what sounded like a really loud television set tuned in to news show - the M.O. for our perp. I know an older lady lives in this apartment, she's friendly towards me, so I felt bad having to knock on her door to hurl accusations whether right or wrong. Recently, it seems her daughter and grandchildren have moved in with her for whatever reason and I heard them all in there. I took a few breathes and calmly knocked on the door, the older lady answered. Before I had a chance to speak, her phone rang and she picked it up quickly. Her daughter came over to me holding a baby and asked what I wanted. I mentioned the loud TV, and within a split second she pointed to the apartment next door, which is the apartment directly under me. With the other lady done with her phone call, they both gave me the full story. There's a very old lady next door to them who needs healthcare workers to come in and care for her around the clock. I always thought the lady I saw going into that apartment was someone who lived there, but she was just a home healthcare nurse. I never seen the real tenant who actually lives there. Basically the tenant is very old and has to turn the television set very high in order to hear. It all made sense; the news shows, the infomercials, it had to be an old person. If I thought my bedroom was a disaster at night because of this hard-hearing woman, these two ladies who live right next to her have it even worse. They said they too can't sleep at night and its a real nightmare. They knocked on the neighboring door to get the nurse to perhaps do something about it, but the nurse gave a response that there was nothing she could do. The ladies even reported the problem to the landlord, but apparently that wasn't going anywhere I either (as I figured).

             They suggested I too knock on their door so that maybe if more tenants complain, maybe someone would finally lower the noise. I gave the door a knock and seconds later a nurse opened the door. As soon as I saw she had a stud pierced into her nostril, I knew I'd be wasting my time, but I went through the motions anyway and explained my situation. I can't say she was exactly rude or nasty, but her attitude was a little sassy, and more or less she gave me the same 'there's nothing we can do about it' response the two ladies next door got. The main problem is she really doesn't sleep a normal six to eight hours at a time during the night like normal people. I'm guessing due to health issues, she can only sleep a few minutes at a time and then wakes up, so that's why she pretty much watching TV all day and all night. The nurse claimed she'll make a note about it on the sign-in sheet which apparently the nurses use to log after their shifts. I asked her to try to see what she can do and just left it at that. Now that I had positive identification on who the culprit was, I went back up to my apartment to report to the story. Then there was a knock on my door. I wonder if it was the nurse, so I ran to open it, only to find it was the landlord - perfect timing! He was there by coincidence making his usual monthly sweeps for apartments that may have any infestation issues. We waived him off about that, but he did have some updates regarding our inoperative doorbell/buzzer. Since the building and doorbell system is quite old, they need to rewire the whole system beyond just our apartment. He told us someone should be coming in next week (although I won't hold my breath on that) to fix it. While he was there, I told him about the loud TV issue with the old lady downstairs and he confirmed he knew about it issue, probably from a call from the two ladies next door. He told me he was going to contact the tenant's nephew to see if he could intervene and somehow get her to lower the TV at nights. So doorbell/buzzer issue possibly solved, loud TV issue defined but not solved, and car's back bumper loose.

              I'm just glad I didn't Krazy Glue my neighbor's locks........