THE MAN WITH HALF A FACE

Last night, we here at Jordans Room were sitting outside (near the still standing wasp nest - we here at JRP are idiots that never learn our lessons, apparently) and we noticed a man.......

I'm starting too late in the story. Give me a second to tinker with my flux capacitor and I'll roll us back a few months.......






We just moved in. This place is new. Who are our neighbors? We don't know.

What we DO know is that EVERYTIME we go outside, the human who occupies the apartment next to our house is taking a shower.

"Surely, you jest! A man cannot be showering EVERYTIME you're outside!"

I jest not.......and don't call me Shirley.


This man - we assumed it was a man - earned himself the moniker "Mr. Clean" - as he MUST have been oh so clean ALL THE TIME.

Thinking about it now though - I suppose Mr. Dirty would have been an equally fitting name - certainly someone that lathers and scrubs THAT often has to be........dirty, right?

I'm drifting.

I'm ranting.

I'm coming back.


So Mr. Clean. He showers with the window open. It's a high window, set towards the ceiling so we can't see in (not that we tried, okay?). We don't know what he looks like so this sort of becomes a weird running joke for us. Months pass and we only ever hear him showering, this faceless stranger with a mysterious name.

What does he do? What does he look like? Who is he? Is he a he?

One day we're outside and the female says "Look! Mr. Clean! I saw the top of his face!"

I missed it and became angry. I became obsessed with seeing his face. She says he's hispanic - a latino.

She says neither of those words, though. She says he's Mexican.

This makes sense. Everyone here is Mexican.

Everyone except us that is....living in our honky paradiso.


Strangely, we start seeing him more - well.....we THINK it's a him, judging by the top of his head. And so now it turns into this weird Wilson Dilehmma - you know, Wilson....from Home Improvement.

He was giving us JUST enough of his face to want more.


The man was a sicko.



Back to the flux capacitor. Let's head back to the present.....well - the past - last night....the future past - just.........c'mon.





So last night we're outside and LO AND BEHOLD!!!!!!!!! MR. CLEAN IS STANDING IN HIS KITCHEN STARING AT US AND THE FEMALE SAYS TO ME, 'MR. CLEAN! HE'S LOOKING AT US!'

I turn around and sure enough, there he is. He looks a bit like Mario of Super Mario Bros. if Mario were Mexican and not Italian.

He smiles, waves, and opens up his fridge, pulling out two Coronas. He lifts them up and points to me.

I smile and nod.


He comes out and we meet by our fence - a four foot high cement brick monster......and there we stand for the next 30 minutes. Me and The Female and Mr. Clean.


Let me take you back again - a few years - I guess now it's been more than a few - to High School.




I'm in Spanish class. For the life of me I can't remember my teacher's name and this bother's me in a strange way. She was from Portugal or Chili or somewhere down south (way south) and she was married to the Algebra teacher who taught upstairs.

Anyway, I failed her class. I'm saying FAILED. Like.....I had a 36%, I remember.

I never took another semester of Spanish and I never understood a word of it.

The Female is A LITTLE BETTER. She can say "How do you say" and "What is your name" type stuff. Very basic - and I got the impression that we were sort of slaughtering that.

Mr. Clean - who's REAL NAME is Filipi, but his friends (us) call him Lupi. He was in the same boat, except on the opposite end. He knew probably ten words in English and that was it.


So back to last night - Lupi doesn't speak English and we don't speak Spanish so, like I was saying, maybe "talk" is a little loosey-goosey for what we did. It was more like "Win, Lose or Draw" or "Taboo" or "Scherades".


Mr. Clean, as it turns out, is a 35 year old man that came to America four years ago and has been laying tile in bathrooms and kitchens ever since - granite, marble, etc. He drives an hour to work and back and works ten hour days. He lives with his three friends and they love beer and football. He's never been married and has no kids.

The Female and I relayed a little information about ourselves to him and that was that.

It felt good talking to a person in some new, strange, hybrid language. Trying to communicate thought and friendship with no words. We'd point and laugh and make gestures. I tried to explain to him that I was an editor, but, as it turns out, "editor" is an almost impossible scherade.....go ahead.....try. I ended with "TV" and pointed to his football game I could see through the window.

He knew the word "work", so I just said, "TV, work" and then I shrugged and laughed. We all knew we weren't going to get any closer than that.


We stood outside, neighbors, humans, whatever. We drank Mexican beer and we learned a little bit about each other. At the end, we clinked empty bottles together, lifted our hands and walked into our own houses.


Another mystery solved.