Keaton’s Moving (part 1)

Keaton’s moving.

I reckon that should come as no surprise, given how he hates the place where he lives…and the damage he’s done to the building lol.

He put his fist through the wall in the laundry room, kicked in a door to save an upstairs neighbor whose boyfriend was beating her, and installed a heavy punching bag in his apartment by drilling in the ceiling. I don’t know if the management knows that he’s responsible for all that, although I know they asked for him to pay for the damage to the door upstairs. He answered that the motherfucker who was beating on his girlfriend should pay for it and consider he was getting off easy with a that and a few super hard punches to the gut.

Come to think of it, who wants to live in a building with some motherfucker who’d put his hand on a woman living right above you?

We still don’t know if the chick in the rental office knows about the laundry room wall. But the maintenance dude knows about the punching bag (he’s been inside Keaton’s apartment and taken a few swings at it), but he said he thought the bag was cool, and he probably wouldn’t narc on Keaton to the chick in the rental office. (I’ve never met the rental office chick, but Keaton hates her. I think it has to do with a huge late fee that she stuck him with one month. She’s just one more reason to move.)

Keaton’s main reason for moving is a pretty usual one: the rent in the place he is has gotten too expensive. The only real plus the building has is its location: it’s right behind South Lake Avenue and you can walk to Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, Basin Robbins, both a Winchell’s and a Dunkin Donuts, the bank…and Keaton’s gayass favorite, Pier 1. (Not to forget Mrs. LaSalle’s condo lol.) There isn’t much to the building itself, though…and, for what Keaton’s probably paying, they should at least have washing machines inside the units. (I’ve got one in my 1 bedroom, and I know I must be playing a lot less than Keaton is.) You can smell cooking in the hallways, and that’s never nice, especially when it’s all kinds of exotic shit like curry that really does smell up the place. Keaton’s apartment is also pretty dang dark. Sure, it saves money on air conditioning during the hot Pasadena summers, but it’s kinda depressing the rest of the year.

Keaton’s obviously not the kind of dude who discusses his finances, but it’s obvious that he’s not affording an apartment in a building like that on what he makes as a bouncer. I know he put a lot by working on the offshore platform in Alaska, and he’s probably got something left from working for the drug dealers…but that’s not gonna last forever, and why waste it on a place you don’t like?

Apartments here in Pasadena aren’t too hard to find, and I suggested that Keaton might want to try living over where I live, where rents are cheaper, in East Pasadena. (East Pasadena is just the eastern part of Pasadena, not to be confused with South Pasadena, where Sabrina and Jonas live, which is an independent city all its own.)

Turns out there’s an apartment in my building – not right next door though – and it’s coming up vacant on December 1. So I definitely wanted Keaton to take a look at it. He probably wasn’t going to jump at the idea right away, but the units here are nice, light…and have their own washing machines. (Ok, they’re not super modern washing machines, but, hey, it’s water and soap swirling around with your clothes. It’s not a high tech thing, and like Meemaw says, all the them bells and whistles on things like washing machines are just things waiting to get broke. Just think of Keaton’s luck with the fancyass washing machines they put in in his old building.)

He looked at a few other apartments in the area, and at a few that were too expensive over by where he was living…and came to the conclusion that the one in my building was the best of them. (Bonus: I get $250 as a referral fee off my next month’s rent. Me and Keaton are gonna split that.)

The one possible dealbreaker was the punching bag. When I asked about putting one into my apartment, Juan Diego, the on-site manager/handyman, told me I couldn’t have one. We know Keaton doesn’t bother asking about things like that, and would have put the bag in anyway…but I didn’t want the management getting pissed off at me for bringing in someone who fucked up their ceilings. Since it was so important to him, I talked Keaton into asking Juan Diego if he could have the bag. So he did. In Spanish. And, to my surprise, the answer came back yes. Seems like the issue with me getting a bag was that I was on the first floor and that my ceiling was someone else’s floor. The apartment Keaton was looking on is on the second floor, so there’s no issue with people stomping on the floor and making the weighted-down ceiling collapse.

Plus, when the manager found out that Keaton made his living with his fists, he even offered to help get the bag installed. Turns out the manager boxed as a welterweight in Mexico for years; he took to Keaton right off the bat.

That sold Keaton on the apartment.

“But on one condition, bubba.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“That you call or text before you come over. Don’t just fuckin drop in like we’re in some old TV sitcom. I like you, bubba…but I also like my privacy.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Keaton continued. “But there’s such a thing as too much togetherness. As it is you spend more time with me than you do with your girlfriend.”

“Oh yeah,” interrupted Juan Diego, “how is Miss Joyce?”

“Great.”

“You’re coming back later and later in the mornings,” he said. “I guess you’re keeping a razor at her place now.”

He laughed…although I wasn’t sure what Keaton would think about the manager knowing that much of my business. Actually Juan Diego is cool. I can usually fix the little things that go wrong in the apartment, but the one time that something went seriously wrong with the toilet, he had it fixed in less than an hour, including the trip to Home Depot to get a part. Sure, he knows everyone’s shit…which may make it a little like a sitcom…but it also means we’re a friendly building.

Not that we’re all neighborly like what I’m used to from the South, but I can at least say I know the people living around me. Keaton never knew anyone in the building he was living in…except for the domestic violence couple upstairs. I always thought that was kinda weird. You never know when you’ll need some detergent or have to make an important call and you left your charger at work. You don’t have to be best friends with your neighbors…but you should be on good terms with them. That’s not just Southern hospitality: it’s good sense, too.

So Keaton’s taking the apartment and moving in on the 7^th. I’ll keep y’all posted on the move and my new neighbor. Personally I think it’s great that he’ll be living so close by (maybe we’ll only need the Dodgers channel in one apartment), and I do get the thing about his privacy. We don’t need to live in a sitcom. Or a college dorm. Or even apartment 643. I’m not sure we’re exactly grown up…but, well…we’re getting there.

I’ll keep y’all posted once the move starts happening. I gotta admit I’m looking forward to it.