PORTLAND APARTMENTS, A BOOMERPDX LEGACY

Renting three consecutive Portland apartments over five years on the same city block means you’ve either found the right neighborhood, or you’re a NW Portland kook.

I knew I wasn’t the kook when I first moved in. That guy lived in the house across the street, a large older man dressed in crotch strangling overalls every day. Kept ’em hiked way up there.

He rented the upstairs to a biker with a dashing yellow Ducati.

As a duo, they were more characters than kooks, but leaned toward the kooky side. I was just another brick in the neighborhood wall, a transient tenant in a low rent Lovejoy studio apartment, third floor center facing east.

The difference was I stuck around. I liked the place, I liked the people, which isn’t always a great recommendation coming from me.

I liked the first manager. He was a semi-pro pimp. I signed the lease in a bar. The next day I checked out the view of the parking lot, or cement beach. I bought a lawn chair, met the neighbors.

The downstairs neighbor furnished his place with a cushy corner chair for his girlfriend’s yoga, and two stick chairs in the middle of the room. He sat in one with a guitar, I sat in the other.

He kept falling asleep.

“It’s the methadone,” girlfriend said while she twisted into a yoga pose. Then he nodded back and took up where he left off. Methadone, or narcolepsy?

He’d heard me playing my guitar and came up to invite me to his place. He said he knew some slick guitar tricks. I followed the stranger out the door to the staircase and down one floor, trusting the music.

While we tuned up, he asked, “Have you heard of Drugstore Cowboy? Yeah? I know James Fogle, the writer. He’s in prison. I was a drugstore cowboy. We robbed the place on Glison, I think. They might make a movie.”

Then he took a nap in his chair, guitar on his lap.

We played a little when he woke up. He had a hard time concentrating while his girlfriend did hot pants yoga in the big chair. I thanked him and left.

Portland Apartments: II

The first place faced Lovejoy, my second place was directly behind the first and faced Marshall. I moved after my rent jumped from a great deal at $155 for a dump in a shitty neighborhood to $240 for the same place.

The neighborhood had been changing for a while. The dive bar Lovejoy Tavern, famous for heart-clogging breakfasts, turned into Lovejoy Cafe. Heavy Number Taco got paved over for a parking lot. Nice cars full of nice people in nice clothes started showing up.

They were a problem when they left. Drunk and lost and loud, these people had no consideration for the locals. More than one neighbor screamed at them to STFU and go back to their big house up in the West Hills.

When the rent jumped, another apartment came up. A guy in the neighborhood told me he was moving out of the Lee. It was a one bedroom for $150. The catch was he’d just given his notice. So had I, which is why I got a new place for a month before moving into my ‘real’ new place.

The bridge apartment was filthy even after the official cleaning. It was flirty after I gave it the works. From the sticky carpet to the stained walls, it carried the history of a certain type of renter. And it wasn’t me. After a month of stink, and dirty socks from walking on the carpet, I was still moving.

Have you driven around and seen people carrying and pushing crap that makes you wonder where they’re coming from and where they could possible be going? I have, then I was one of them. If I didn’t know me better, I’d say I looked homeless. I think a homeless tent would have been better than Portland apartment #2. It was a stinker.

I made the move with a borrowed hand truck.

NW Portland Apartment: III

On the ground floor, my bedroom window was right above the eight garbage cans that served the building. Every morning a garbage salvage crew came early to see what they’d find in the trash.

One can after another slamming around was my alarm. It got louder when the cans were replaced with a dumpster. Then I had that lid slamming down even louder.

At night a man on the other side of the interior courtyard practiced his piano with the windows open. He was good, playing and singing show tunes. On weekends he invited friends over for a singalong.

I asked him about it. He said he was giving us all a gift with his music. Sometimes the gift kept giving after midnight. And he had a no return policy.

My neighbor next door asked if I wanted his collection of bootleg VCRs. I said I didn’t have a VCR. He gave me one. Then he gave all the rest of his stuff away. I asked why, and he said he did this every few years.

Then he bought an old car with a bad engine that smoked when he drove. He said he bought it because he was breaking up with his roommate. Then, like so many times in a transient neighborhood, he disappeared.

A few days later I ran into the roommate and asked him where the other guy went. He said his roommate rented a garage for his car, pulled in, dropped the door, left the engine running, and killed himself.

The death of a neighbor cast the neighborhood in a whole different light. There I was walking around with a head full of wonder and appreciation, while others walked it down.

There’s a lesson to learn here, but I’m not sure what, except that’s how it was in my Portland apartments during the early and mid-80’s.