Knocking on Heaven's Wall

 

When I was stationed in the Army at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, I would travel to New York City to see the fast life in the Big Apple.

The only part that I hated was that if I told my father, he would remind me to stop in and see his sisters, or my hellish aunts, who lived in Manhattan.  The bitchiest of the two was Lillian, who nobody liked.  My relatives would come to New York on vacation from Jacksonville and then return home laughing about how pretentious they were.

One day I had the sad doorman buzz her that I was in the lobby.  She came down to get me because she probably thought I had never seen an elevator before and would get lost.  When she got to the lobby, she saw me talking to her next-door neighbor.

She told me not to talk to her because she was a snotty woman who was always complaining about something.

Lillian had a little peephole in her apartment door and could see who was outside ringing her doorbell.  Lillian despised our family, but she despised Sheldon Young, my cousin, more than me.  Sheldon was my father’s brother Harry’s son.  Sheldon was eccentric as he was protest marching in the 70s and teaching school in Harlem to the schvartzas.  Lillian took her time opening up the door for either of us.

The doorman began to recognize me and would watch me take the elevator up to my aunt’s floor.

I made a habit of banging on the neighbor’s wall in the hall right after I rang Lillian’s bell.  Later, once I was inside Lillian’s apartment, I would wait until Lillian went into her bedroom or bathroom; then, I would sneak over to the wall separating the two apartments and bang my fists on the wall as hard as possible.

Of course, the neighbor would call or come over to complain about the thudding sounds.  Lillian would say to me, “Are you banging on the wall?”  I would look back at her blankly with my best “what the fuck are you talking about” look.

Lillian realized that this occurred only when I was there.  One day I waited until my gay cousin Charles showed up, and I did it in front of him.  He was astounded and thought I had just lost my mind, and I never explained to him what I was doing.

The neighbor fought with Lillian after that, and I laughed all the way back to New Jersey.