Quantum 7: a peaceful reminder

I lived in a duplex about ten years ago in the east end. It was a red brick building, a split level, up on a hill against the foothills. There were always earwigs in the kitchen, big spiders in the living room, and enormous flying beetles outside that resembled cock roaches.

The landlord was a nice woman, who I am still in contact with. And Jim, the gay old man on disability, lived next door. He smoked like it was going out of style, and every time I opened the dishwasher, it was an olfactory tunnel into his apartment, which I only entered once when I needed to borrow something (I forget what). The walls of his half of the duplex were yellow, and looked as though they would crumble with a touch. A man that lived with him at times (perhaps his boyfriend)--though I don't think he was supposed to for housing subsidy reasons-- was tall and thin with gray hair: I don't remember his name. He loved Tina Turner, though, and we had a lengthy conversation about her once. I remember this because I worked at a record store at the time.

A lot of people I worked with lived in that duplex, too, at different times in my living there. First it was Kristen, the only roommate louder than me, who sometimes ate Dinty Moore out of cans late at night after she arrived home drunk from the bar. Then it was Justin, my closest friend, who would smoke cigarettes with me in the kitchen on the floor when it was raining. Jim loved Justin, and sometimes, I see Jim around town (he's moved, now), but he always asks about Justin, still. When Kelley needed a place to stay, she moved into the living room, just off the kitchen, and we made her walls out of tiger-striped sheets. Arwen moved in after Justin left, and she never complained about my bad habit of leaving my dried clothes in the dryer. Rushton lived with us for a brief stint while he was looking for a different place, and while he ate cereal at the alarming rate of a growing teenaged-boy, he was my Cosby Show counterpart when Nick at Nite ran reruns. I loved those nights.

Rushton ended up moving into a house that was the northend version of my eastend duplex. Almost as many record store employees lived in that house, if not more, and the parties there were definitely bigger than the ones on Krall.

But none of these facts are the most important about the duplex on Krall street. The most important was the architectural wonder that was the "sex closet." The closet was in my bedroom, the bigger of the two, and the closet had a brown wooden door. But when the door was opened, there were three stairs, covered in orange and yellow shag carpet that lead to nowhere. There was a flat area of carpet, probably about 5X4. No one ever had sex in the closet (at least on my watch--and by that I mean time, not voyeurism), but the closet was deemed the "sex closet" by my mother.

On moving day, when we were loading things into my room, the closet was one of the first things she noticed. I don't know if she was drunk or not (she had a problem, then, afterall), but she said, "Renea (thats what she calls me), you could have sex in that closet." My reply, "Mom, why would I have sex in the closet when I have a whole house to have sex in?" I still stand that it is a good point. But I didn't neglect the closet. I donned it with a wall-sized poster of Captain Kirk and Spock. I remember they were poised, just so, standing, waiting to solve an epic problem; yet, I don't remember what they were standing in front of. To this, I added a big, red beanbag chair. I made the space inviting, and while I never remember spending any quantity of time there, it did provide a space for practical jokes, though, like the time Justin thought it would be funny to hide in the closet and jump out and scare me. I was naked, and had just gotten out of the shower: this he didn't expect--he had just woken up, and I am not sure he knew where I was in the house, maybe downstairs, but he didn't expect me to emerge freshly washed from the shower. When he jumped out from behind the closet door, we both screamed, and I remember he shouted "Oh, god!" And I shouted, "I'm naked." And he shouted back, "I'm not wearing my glasses! I can't see anything." I imagine he only saw a blur of flesh, as his eyesight isn't very good, but enough to discern that I was naked (hence all the shouting between us).

Shortly after I moved into the duplex, I started getting mail for "Quantum 7." I don't think the mail ever stopped. Every once in a while, a piece of mail would show up--nothing important, usually just junk, but I was convinced the closet was actually a portal to another dimension, and that its occupants could pass freely back and forth; maybe they only came out at night after everyone was asleep. So, when I left, I left the poster of Spock and Captain Kirk to serve as a liason between the inhabitants of "Quantum 7" and the new tenants: a peaceful reminder.