The Loxapac chronicles
Memoirs of a recovering ex-roommate part 1
“Fuck! She’s got a knife!”
Drunk and wild-eyed, my roommate came at us with a large kitchen knife. Luckily my friend François was trained in hand-to-hand combat, so he had the knife off her in moments. She started to thrash around, so we wrestled her onto the bed and sat on her, pinning her arms and legs.
“Untie me! Untie me!” she whined, in spite of the fact she wasn’t tied up. “I want to fly! Let me flyeee!”
François looked at me incredulously, as if to say, “Holy shit.”
“Holy shit,” I said, as if to look at him incredulously.
It would be an interesting night.
* * *
At first, I thought Tanya would be a great roommate. She was 20 years old, a concert-level pianist, an athlete, and a brilliant student with a future in medicine. But in the days after her arrival, I learned that there was much more to her than she revealed in our interview.
The night she moved in, she informed me that she was bipolar, and also had a nut allergy so severe that exposure to even a few nut molecules could make her asphyxiate and die. “So what you’re saying is that you’re nuts, and you’re also allergic to nuts,” I deadpanned, to her great amusement. As she unpacked, my friend François dropped by for a visit. Next thing I knew, she’d followed him upstairs to his apartment and fucked him.
The second night, I learned that Tanya was embroiled in a twisted love affair with “James”—by the way, most names in Wasting My Youth have been changed, especially this one—a player on the university football team. How twisted, you ask? Well, the previous year she’d deliberately got pregnant by this dude in a bid to monopolize his attention, but the scheme backfired when he said he’d never speak to her again unless she got an abortion. So she got the abortion and went back to fucking him. That twisted. Anyway, after a one-hour monologue about how James was a bastard and she would never sleep with him again, she wandered upstairs to his apartment and fucked him.
The third day, I learned that she’d recently given up her gig as a stripper—for fear that her parents would find out what she was doing—and had taken a more respectable job as a server in a local Tex-Mex restaurant, where she was fucking her boss. That night she brought home her boss and fucked him.
The fourth night, she brought home an off-duty police officer she picked up at the restaurant, and fucked him.
The fifth night, she went out drinking—which was strictly forbidden on account of her mental disorder—came home stinking drunk, had a psychotic episode and came at me and François with a knife.
* * *
“The-bad-men-are-com-ing,” Tanya said in a strange, disjointed, childlike voice, as if she were channelling herself at age four. “They’re-go-ing-to-tay-kme-to-the-ah-see-lum.”
“Ah-see-lum?” François asked, still sitting on Tanya’s midsection.
“Asylum,” I replied, still sitting on her legs.
“Shit,” François said. We considered calling an ambulance, but decided against it because she was so terrified about people coming for her. Instead, we opted to sit on her until she calmed down and rejoined the human race.
“Please-give-me-my-Lox-a-pac,” she whined. Loxapac was her anti-psychotic medication. Unsurprisingly, a check of the label revealed that it is dangerous to mix Loxapac and alcohol. For all we knew this was what set off her psychosis in the first place, so there was no way we’d give her any meds until she sobered up. In the meantime, Tanya was a long way from sobriety. And sanity. “Get off me! Let me fly!” she moaned for the fiftieth time. “Let me fly away!”
“Sorry, Tanya,” I replied. “Friends don’t let friends drink and fly.”
* * *
When Tanya was home, her mood variations controlled my life as much as they controlled hers. When she was ‘up’, she was unbearable. She displayed a laundry list of classic manic traits: crazy ideas, pathological lying, attention-seeking, promiscuity, reckless behaviour. When she was up, it was impossible to study, write, or do anything other than watch the madness unfold.
When she was ‘down’, on the other hand, Tanya looked like she’d taken a long roll down a hill. She slept incredibly long hours. Her face bespoke a profound sadness, as if she had never smiled. She walked in a slow shuffle, her feet barely leaving the floor. Her voice, when she spoke at all, was a flat monotone. When I spoke to her, she’d often just shuffle past as if I weren’t there.
I came to relish her down times, for they were times of peace.
* * *
François and I had been sitting on Tanya for two hours. Thankfully she’d passed out, but we knew that she could start thrashing again without warning, so we had to stay vigilant.
“So, have you fucked her yet?” asked François in a low voice.
“Nope,” I said. “Was she any good?”
“Not really. I was tired and didn’t really want to do it, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I barely got it up.”
“Bummer,” I replied.
“So, do you want to do her?”
“What, now? You sick fuck.”
“No, not now, you idiot. I mean in general.”
“She’s got a nice body, but she’s too messed up,” I replied. “I’m really not into her.”
“You’ll do her,” he said with a knowing smile. “She will not be denied. Your time will come.”
“Yes,” I said. We slowly nodded in unison, in almost regretful acknowledgement of the ultimate futility of the male condition, the inescapable truth that I wouldn’t be able to resist her advances if they came. “Yes, it probably will.”
* * *
Tanya sat before me, eyes glassy with shame and regret. As her roommate, I was both her captive audience and confidante, and this was merely the latest sordid episode in Tanya’s endless cavalcade of sins and perils.
On the work front, her affair with her boss had recently soured, and since he had violated company regulations—not to mention his engagement—by fucking her, she was attempting to blackmail him for extra pay. And she loved every minute of it. For hours on end she danced about the apartment, singing “I’m gonna make his life a living hell.” I don’t know about him, but she’d certainly succeeded in making my life a living hell.
Then there was the ongoing saga of her nut allergy. In the six weeks since she moved in, she’d had three allergy attacks at the university, all requiring evacuation in an ambulance. All three times, the culprit was nut-contaminated pizza from the same restaurant. After the first and second incidents, I suggested that she shouldn’t eat pizza from that restaurant any more. After the third incident, she announced that she wouldn’t eat pizza from that restaurant any more, as if this were a radical new idea she’d just had. I wonder if this is what it’s like to be a parent.
But tonight, she was upset about her latest romp with James. Earlier that night he’d talked her into a threesome with his roommate, another member of the football team. And somewhere in the midst of the testosterone orgy that ensued, she realized that she wasn’t enjoying herself. Apparently, they didn’t double-fuck her in a respectful fashion—she said it felt like they were showing off for each other rather than trying to please her.
“And the worst thing about it,” she said, “was that, well, the whole time they talked to each other about me, sort of like I wasn’t there. There was this time when they said, ‘So, do you wanna turn her over?’ and I thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’”
And so, Tanya went off to bed, terribly upset with herself. She once again declared that she was never, never, ever going to see James again, but just like before, her resolve evaporated with the next bipolar high. As she skipped out the door a week later, bragging that she was going to give James the best fuck of his life, my only thought was this:
She says she’s going to be a doctor someday. Oh my dear, sweet Jesus.
* * *
The birds were singing outside, and the sky was brightening. We’d been sitting on Tanya for almost four hours. Tanya woke up, and after a short conversation that contained no crazy shit, we set her free. She thanked us for not calling an ambulance, took her Loxapac, and went to bed. François and I sat up in his apartment for a long time afterward, silently staring at each other as if to say, “Did last night really happen?”
The next day, I made it clear to Tanya that I tolerate only one knife attack per roommate, and she’d used up hers. I said that if she did any more drinking, I’d have to ask her to leave. “Oh, yeah, sure, totally,” she said, with a glazed, perky look in her eyes that reason bounced clean off. Of course, she came home drunk several times after that, but there were no more knife attacks so I didn’t push the issue.
Tanya was supposed to live with me for four months, but in the end she lasted only two. One night I came home to find that Tanya and all of her stuff had vanished. Another runner. Oh well. At least she’d left a bad check to cover the money she owed me.
I could conclude this tale of cohabitant peril with a heartfelt passage about how sorry I feel for this poor young woman, and how deeply I despair for the ravages of mental illness in our society—but that would, undeniably, be a bit of a downer. Instead, I’ll conclude by telling you how offended I was that she never tried to seduce me. Not once. And I’m not a bad looking guy. What gives?
* * *
Nine months after Tanya ran off, and one week after I wrote about her in The Peak:
From: Tanya
Subject: What the hell do you think?
Dear Glen,
Although many of your articles are funny, I found your last one quite offensive. To have you know, I’m doing great. I’ve been with the same guy now for about 8 months. He’s a great guy, and I love him. We’re now engaged, but we’re not going to tie the knot until we’re both done school.
As far as James goes, I’ve moved on. I haven’t seen or heard from him in ages, and I’m glad. I’ve finally got my life back in order, after many many many hours of counselling. I don’t appreciate your comments in The Peak, as if you’d endured what I’ve endured in my life, you would of been fucked up too. Last summer I was on a path of self-destruction. You being a psychology student should understand that. You have no idea who I am, or what I’ve survived. That is exactly who I am, I am a survivor. I will win in the end. I will be the best doctor that I can be, and I’m going to help as many people as I can help. I’ve learned to love and respect myself, and I am proud of myself for how far I’ve come. I wrote my MCAT earlier this month, and I’m hoping to enter medical school in September 2000. I’m free of all medications, and I’ve found God. My church family is fantastic, and I love them, and I know that they love me.
I didn’t appreciate that article, it did not make me feel good. Thanks a lot.
Tanya
To: Tanya
Subject: Re: what the hell do you think?
Dear Tanya,
My apologies if my article hurt your feelings. That was not my intention. In fact, I did not think you would even be here to read it, as I thought you had transferred to another school out East. I was simply writing an article about bad roommates I have had, and you cannot deny that you were a terrible roommate.
You were very unstable, loud and obnoxious most of the time. You lied constantly to everyone about everything. You were stupidly promiscuous. You openly planned criminal acts of blackmail against your ex-boss, and pranced around the apartment singing “I’m gonna make his life a living hell” to the tune of “Camptown Races”. And who could forget that alcohol-inspired psychotic break? This was the sort of thing I had to put up with for two months.
Then, of course, you suddenly moved out, which you tried to do sneakily, without giving me notice. This cost me money. In the end you technically owed me a little over $160, between outstanding rent, the penalty on the bad check and extra charges on the phone bill I didn’t find out about until later. But since it was so obvious you were trying to avoid me, I really didn’t feel comfortable about chasing you down for it. So I just let it go. But I didn’t appreciate the trouble and financial loss you caused me.
Anyway, I wish to stress again that I bear you no ill will personally. I am genuinely glad that you are doing better now than you were last year, and I hope that you get to a place where you find happiness and mental stability. I understand that you were just doing the best you could under the circumstances.
But that isn’t what my article is about. It is about bad roommate experiences, and my time with you certainly qualifies. Living with you meant constant disruption, you were totally insane most of the time, you were dishonest with me, and you cost me a pile of money. In essence, you were a shitty roommate. And that is what my article is about.
Good luck in the future.
Glen.
From: Tanya
Subject: apology accepted
Dear Glen,
Apology accepted. I was doing the best I could do under the circumstances I was in. It will take about 3 semesters for me to get into all the required courses for med school. Then after that... maybe I’ll be able to help somebody just like me.
Good luck yourself
Tanya
And that was the last I heard from Tanya. I found it mildly hilarious that her shiny happy new Christian self didn’t see fit to pay back the cash she’d cost me with her dishonesty, or even to apologize for ripping me off.
Not that I think Tanya and Jesus lasted for long. I hate to ruin an otherwise happy ending with my party-pooping pessimism, but I’m sure she just fucked His brains out for a while, and then moved on to the next poor sap. •
Completed in 2004 for inclusion in the Wasting My Youth book, expanded from the original version of There can be only one.
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