home for lunch

The guy who lives downstairs drives up to the apartment building with rap music blaring. The red car wades comfortably through the early afternoon sunshine.

The only lyrics I caught that were spoken by the bouncy, bass-accompanied voice were "dental floss".

He sucks on a cigarette as he lifts two flat white boxes from the car, two pizzas. Actually, I think it is a pizza and garlic fingers. The horizontal stripes of his collared shirt -- which are melting into waves over his belly as he walks up to the door -- clash with the wide vertical stripe on his basketball shorts. He wears his keys around his neck and a toy skeleton hangs from his rear-view mirror.

His eyes -- squinting in the sun -- show focus, peering out over a rather bushy beard as he balances the pizza boxes with one arm and a small grocery bag in in the other.

The door slams behind him and my lamp shudders.