The Neighbors: Part 2

When Alberto and I first moved into our apartment in May we thought it was cool that we enter from a communal courtyard, the neighbors seemed quirky and interesting... until we got to know them.

Alberto with Fabrizio

Exhibit 2: the head case upstairs


Oh, where do I start?


When we first moved in, our 70-something year old neighbor upstairs, Rosetta, warned us about her son. "He's not well.. and don't worry if he doesn't say hello when you see him, he really doesn't like many people." As the story goes, Fabrizio was a totally normal, functioning individual... until his 27th year of life. Apparently, at 27, he had some sort of nervous breakdown, or 'psychotic break' as psychologists like to call it, and he was never the same again. Now, at 47, he's like an overgrown kid, with a drinking problem, a gambling problem and a coffee addiction. 



Fabrizio, it turns out, took an instant liking to Alberto. I can't blame him much, Alberto is a great guy. They met before we moved in, on one of Alberto's trips to the apartment to get it cleaned up before I arrived. Fabrizio, like Alberto, is a soccer fan, they both root for Milan... a common bond was formed. 


On one of my first days in the apartment, I was getting lunch ready. I wasn't working yet, and Alberto still had an office job at that time, but he came home for his lunch break. I heard a voice outside the door "Alberto, Alberto, Alberto, Alberto". It continued, monotone, steady, uninterrupted until I opened the door (think Sheldon, from the Big Bang Theory).


"Alberto's not here right now, he's at work."


"Oh....ok" and with that Fabrizio turned and walked back up the stairs to his apartment. But half-way up the stairs he turned and asked "What's your name?"


"Dana"


He turned again without responding and continued back to his apartment. 


5 minutes later, I heard the voice at the door again. But this time it was "Dani, Dani, Dani, Dani" he was calling. 


I opened the door, before I could say anything he blurted out "They killed him! They killed him!"


"Who?"


"Bin Laden! In a bunker... they got him, the Americans!"


"Oh, wow, really? I hadn't heard..." but as I was speaking, he was already halfway up the stairs.  


He knocked on the door at least 3 more times within the next hour, each time with an update for the Bin Laden story. 


But this was just a preview of what was to come. When I started working in June, I left the apartment around 7:30 every morning to catch the tram into town. Fabrizio saw me leave every morning, and every morning he asked me if I would join him for a coffee in the bar in the square outside of our courtyard. I always declined, telling him that I was in a rush to get to work. Then, one day, I didn't have any tram tickets on me. I had to stop in the bar to buy them anyway so I told Fabrizio that I would join him for a quick coffee since I had to go to the bar anyway. After this first coffee date, Fabrizio knocked on my door everyday, until I agreed to have coffee with him again. On a Friday evening, I finally accepted to have coffee with him on Monday morning. 


On Saturday, he came to our apartment 3 times to confirm our appointment. On Sunday, he confirmed our coffee date 5 times.


Monday morning at 7:30, I was surprised to not find him waiting outside my door. I went upstairs and knocked. His mother said he had already gone to the bar. When I walked into the bar, a big, child-like grin spread across his face. 


"Fabri, why did you confirm this appointment a hundred times if you weren't even going to wait for me to drink your coffee?"


He looked away, all shy-like and said "My mom told me you already have Alberto."


Times like these are almost touching. His innocence is pure and you can't help but smile at a line like that. 


Other times, however, like now, we can't wait until his next stint in the psych ward. Luckily for us, his mom has assured us he will be admitted on Monday. 


I know it sounds harsh to wish for him to be locked up, but Fabrizio works in cycles. He spends a month at the hospital, he comes out and acts "normal" for about a month, then his behavior starts to degenerate. He starts drinking and gambling again, driving his mom crazy, driving us crazy, until his finally his mom is able to get him admitted again. It's a vicious cycle but his mother, in her late 70's, widowed last April, needs a break too, so I wish it for her just as much as I wish it for us. 


In these days, we are nearing the end of the cycle. Fabrizio has been knocking on our door every morning at 7:30 in the morning. If we don't answer, he goes out to the courtyard entrance and rings the buzzer... the incredibly loud buzzer... and holds it down until we get out of bed to answer. He typically just wants to talk to Alberto about soccer, but lately he's been barging past me when I open the door and demanding that we make coffee for him. On Monday, he showed up drunk at 9:00pm, a time when he is typically in bed. He demanded coffee, despite our insistence that he wouldn't be able to sleep if he drank coffee so late. Indeed, we could hear him pacing back and forth in his apartment well into the early morning, but at 7:30, there he was at the door, wanting more coffee and advice on which soccer teams to bet on this week. 


Ignoring him doesn't work. We've tried to explain politely that we don't appreciate being woken up by him in the morning. We've tried telling him much more harshly that he's really bugging the crap out of us and that he can't come over anymore. Nothing works. Lately, we've had to start locking the door, because he stopped knocking and started to just walk in. What kind of sitcom are we living?


On Monday, Rosetta has assured us, Fabrizio will be admitted again. His last wish, before being locked up, is to eat pizza with me and Alberto. When we said that we would not go to the pizzeria with him (I can only imagine what that would be like), apparently he threw a fit. Rosetta told us that he ran around their apartment, ripped up the admission forms for the hospital, threw a coffee cup against the wall. She begged us to humor him, to save her sanity, "please, just eat this pizza with him!" we could see the desperation in her eyes. We struck a compromise, we'll get a pizza for take-out and eat it here, at our place. He seems happy for the time being. He's only knocked on our door 3 times so far today. 
Tomorrow night pizza... Monday the psych ward. Please let Monday come soon.




update... he just rang the doorbell... AHHHHGGGH!!