hottie walking

The boy upstairs has moved. It started on Thursday with the disconnection of his wireless, which I’ve been mooching for months*. It continued Friday night with loud footsteps up and down the back staircase. Up and down, up and down. Every time I peered out the peephole to see what was happening, there was no one there, but there was sound, up and down, up and down.

At 7:30am yesterday it continued, but this time over my bedroom, his bedroom too. I gave in to the clonking and woke up for the day. Footsteps spread throughout the apartment, the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen. Hottie was leaving I was a little sad.

The first time we met was in the back stairwell, he was moving in. He was beautiful and polite. He was tall and thin with dark brown hair and brown eyes. I could have melted. The second time we met was in the parking lot where I asked him about the school sticker on his car. It was his brother’s he explained, he had gone to Notre Dame. The third time we met was at our mailboxes. It had been raining that day and I was wearing my new wellies. After some polite chitchat I walked upstairs ahead of him and proceeded to fall UP the stairs. He was so kind. I blamed the boots. I also avoided him from then on.

We kept the same hours, up ‘til 12am or 1, sleep, and then up at 8. I could follow him through his house through the sounds of his footsteps and the running of water through the pipes. I wasn’t stalking, just paying attention. During the winter at Stitch ‘n ‘Bitch sessions at my house I would often say to the group who was knitting like the 80 year-old women that we are, “hottie walking.” Looks would be exchanged and then I would tell them about hot boy upstairs and that whenever I heard him walking around I think to myself, “hottie walking.”

I could sometimes hear his phone conversations and there was one particular one that quelled my crush on him. He was shouting, “You make me so mad!” and stomping. I followed him as he walked through his apartment. He was pacing, heavily. He finally ended the conversation, but not before he hit his front door so hard that my ceiling and door rattled. I decided right then and there that you can be cute and polite, but also a borderline wife beater.

He would often come home from work around 7pm, come through the back door, go through the front down, down the stairs to his mail box, talking on his cell phone the whole way. Our doors are thin and the stairway echoes. I heard him say things like, “How is it with the girls?” and then he’d get back in his apartment and the conversation would be muffled. “Hottie talking,” I would think.

Around January he got a girlfriend. I know this because I heard things. And yes, I do mean those things and no, I’m not going to tell you about it. He also began spending less and less time at home. His walking was silenced, but there were days this summer that I heard him come home for the first time that day (like on a Tuesday) at 1am. I didn’t understand that one. So, when he began moving, I wasn’t surprised. The last girl to live above me moved because she got married. I imagine the same is happening for hottie or that he is moving in with his girl**. She was helping him move.

I'm sad to see him go if for no other reason than to give me cause not to be annoyed at footsteps above me. No more "hottie walking" going through my mind. But all day yesterday, with the clonking and the up and down, up and down, my mind kept saying, "hottie moving."



* not because I had to, but because his signal was stronger than mine throughout my apartment

** Maybe I should move a floor up because this floor is really not working for me, clearly.