Guy is an interesting room-mate. Some Americans will ask you questions about The Beatles or The Clash when discovering you are an English chap. Guy was different. The first thing he ever said to me was, “So you’re from England, huh? Are you a Whitehouse fan?” Bizarrely enough, and believe me, Whitehouse are pretty bizarre, I had been to a Whitehouse gig in London once. I said as much and befriended Guy, whose musical tastes encompass a diverse medley of almost unlistenable music.
I hadn’t met Guy before I signed the lease to this house – the previous fleeing tenent made sure of that. It was with some intrigue that I went into Guy’s room to get to know him. The other tenents seemed shocked that I could communicate on some level with the guy. When you look at someone’s earthly possessions, things register in the corner of your eyes, and give you some mental picture of their lifestyle and character. The things that built my initial impressions of Guy included legions of pills and medication bottles, thousands of albums of industrial, techno, and extreme experimental music, pornography in a variety of formats. He showed me some photos of his trip to Japan, which centred around seeing the band Genocide Organ (“the heroes of german electronic chocktreatment” – whatever that means) and taking photos up skirts of unsuspecting Japanese women. The next thing I saw behind the porn and music was shotgun ammo.
The whole Guy experience was undertaken to an excrutiatingly loud soundtrack of industrial music. He complained about the leaving tenent, saying that he had told her that he like to listen to extremely loud music when he moved in, but that she hadn’t really been all that understanding. I changed the subject to guns, and Guy’s eyes lit up. He had moved from New York because it was illegal in NYC to protect yourself, and in Texas you can carry concealed handguns. He showed me his 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol.
“Fifteen rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber.”
“Oh. Is the safety on?”
“The safety? What would I want to put the safety on for?”
“Er. For safety?” I was going to add that the clue is in the name, but didn’t want to push my luck. Guy looked puzzled by this.
“Hell no. If someone breaks in here, I want to be able to fill them with lead as fast as possible. You know, in Texas, if someone is on your property you’re allowed to shoot them. By law. And if someone threatens you in the street, you can shoot them dead. No questions asked.”
Guy explained the types of hollow-point ammo he used, and the assault rifle in his car. And then dug out his knife and stun-gun collection to show me. It was like a scene from Bowling for Columbine.
I’ve lived here for three weeks now, and Guy is actually a really interesting person. Sure, when the landlord’s son came around to fix a tap I had to put out a note for Guy telling him not to shoot any strangers he saw in the house, but otherwise he’s fine. Guy is most likely to say things like:
“Man, I’ve been having so much sex lately. Do you want a do-nut?”
“See, that’s why you’ve got to protect yourself. You should get a gun. Criminals have guns. They don’t care.”
“That’s such a pain in the ass.” This covers all situations from utilities being cut off, to car accidents, to running out of cerial.
“These chocolate-covered strawberries are fucking disgusting.” As if they could be anything else.
Lately he has taken up the war on cockroaches as the weather turns warmer. Naturally, Guy is terrified of dead insects – he admitted today that he thinks that they could turn into zombie brain-eating insects after you kill them, so doesn’t like to go near their carcasses when he executes them. I haven’t seen his shotgun yet, but it could come into play if the roaches turn up in force.