Just when I think my roommate and her live-in boyfriend will finally leave my life, something crazy has to happen.

This morning, a man appears at the door, looking for C., who is asleep. Can he come downstairs? He seems nervous. I tell K., who goes downstairs.

When K. returns, she tells me that the police might show up at the door. If they come, don't tell them that C. is here. Apparently C. had cashed a paycheck after his employer had broken a private-nursing contract.

It was perfectly legal to cash the check! K. insists. She herself is leaving right now, for a little while, because there is, hee hee, she giggles, a warrant out for her arrest.

Downstairs at the entrance of my apartment house, I encounter a quadriplegic man and a cop in deep discussion.

Is she the girlfriend? the cop inquires.

No, the quadriplegic man responds as I walk past, seemingly innocent, even blithe.

...

Further complicating this situation is the fact that I am squatting an illegal apartment. (A very long slumlord-related story.) It doesn't take any housing expert to identify the attic as the death-trap-by-fire that it so lovably is. Hopefully I'll still have a "home" this evening.

Nevertheless, I really need to vacate the Attic. I can't simply wait for my roommates to leave, even if they have one-way tickets to Spain. Just being in the proximity of their overwhelmingly bad karma is giving me nightmares, visions of grim black-leather assassins wielding silencers or baseball bats, brains and blood splattered on the walls. Running away and leaving your roommate to deal with your shit is SO not neat-o.

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