Tenth Musee

Last Friday night, I grabbed a bottle of vodka from my freezer, a jar of blue cheese olives, threw on my coat and climbed upstairs to GFI’s place for some ‘tinis on the terrace.  Before I could even made it to her door, Slick poked his head out his screen door and said, “OOo!  Are we having martinis?  I’ve got my own vodka!” and he ran over like an eager kid with his own bottle of Kettle One.  So, there we were, neighbors hangin’ out, having vodka. 

About half a martini later (I know, I don’t know what was up with that), I left to go to Target but when I came back, there was some guy up on the terrace with GFI and Slick. It was dark and I couldn’t see who he was, but GFI shouted down to me, “This is Chester!  You’ve got to come up and meet Chester!” I wasn’t really in the mood, it was cold, but she sounded like she really wanted me up there and I didn’t like her being up there in the dark with two guys, one a total stranger.

So I got up and there’s Chester.  He’s an older guy, like in his 60’s with white thinning hair, a golf shirt, jeans and white tennis shoes.  He looks slightly grizzled, like he’s spent time in a whiskey bottle and smelled a bit like it, too.  He was swigging a beer and moments after introducing ourselves, he tells me he’s had half a bottle of tequila before he came upstairs to meet the neighbors.  Charming.

Anyway, this guy is kind of creepy.  He’s lived in our building for 3 years on the opposite side and is a chauffeur. He’s got a town car and a Corvette he parks in the back. We’d never met him or even seen him before Friday night.  Something about the way he looked at me made me really uncomfortable, same with GFI.  He has this wide thin smile (slightly open-mouthed but doesn’t show teeth) and kinda beady eyes that make him look like Robin Williams and Jonathan Winter had a lovechild.  He was nice, so I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I’m usually a pretty good judge of character.  I usually know how to call it and this guy… he just didn’t sit well with me.  But again, I didn’t want to make snap judgments about a half-drunk stranger in the dark.

(Why do I feel like I’ve said that before?)

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