Sheldon

I lived in Post Landing for something like 6 years. It’s a small, white painted wood and brick apartment building on the edge of downtown Fargo and I guess it used to serve some function of the Post Office, hence the name. The individual apartments vary wildly in size, seemingly built at random like an eccentric widow’s dilapidated mansion, but mine wasn’t one of the big ones. It was definitely among the smallest, but the one across the hall was even smaller. I know because I trudged amongst the wreckage inside of it once. We’ll get to that in a bit. My home was a strange one. In the basement, underground, as I am nothing if not an underground person. It’s where I feel most comfortable. The apartment was longish but very narrow – essentially a wide hallway vaguely divided into rooms. Not a utility, but close. A living room with a tv about 2 feet from the couch, separated from the kitchen by an arched outcropping of the ceiling, then a door into the bedroom, and then the bathroom. If you stood against the wall in the living room and walked straight for 30 feet you’d be in the bathroom, which was so small you could wash your hands while sitting on the toilet, which was kind of nice. You weren’t supposed to smoke in Post Landing, but almost everybody did, and the Landlord was this big dopey guy that told me he wanted to be a writer within 5 minutes of meeting him. He was pretty lax about the rent, but he was also pretty lax about repairs, which was irritating but understandable. It was cozy there and I loved it, even though I was miserable most of the time, and it was conveniently located within walking distance of about a dozen bars, two liquor stores, and the library, which pretty much covered all of my needs in those days. Two liquor stores was perfect, because if you’d already been to one that day, you could go to the worse one about a block down the road and not be judged for buying more booze at 2 PM when you’re already noticeably drunk, which I was about 60-70% of the time. The residents of Post Landing were - and are, I suspect – your usual combination of hipsters, the mentally ill, mentally ill hipsters, and borderline homeless. All the way homeless people surrounded the building – I’ll tell you their stories another day – as Post Landing is conveniently located between a homeless shelter, The Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, and Fargo’s only strip club – kind of a Bermuda Triangle of sadness and desperation. I felt very at home. These were my people, all of them. I loved nothing more than to post up on the front stoop with a case of beer, a pack of smokes, and a pizza, and offer any combination of the three to whichever transient was passing by, so long as they would tell me their story. This was very effective. Anyway, I tell you all of this to set the scene, as more stories of Post Landing will follow. But this story is about Sheldon. I was absent from Post Landing for about a year and some change – maybe more, everything from this time is a bit hazy - basically living with a girl in her much nicer apartment, but continuing to pay the rent in mine, not fully committed. We broke up and I trudged back to my old squat, possessions in hand, to see how the place was holding up. It was holding up all right. A little musty, but not much worse for the wear. As I was loading in my stuff, a man ambled down the long narrow hall separating my apartment from the one across from it, coming from the laundry room. He was short, squat, and hairy and he wasn’t wearing anything but Tobasco print pajama pants. I immediately noticed there was a swastika tattooed on his doughy left breast, which was alarming, but his amble was amiable and my last name is Messerschmidt, so I’m usually given the benefit of the doubt by these people. I was going to ignore – as is my wont – but he was clearly going to engage. He walked up to me, confidently, smiling – terrible teeth, but not without charm. “You new here?” he asked. “Actually,