December 4, 1998

The guys who moved my furniture from Hoboken to Jersey City were a vulgar lot. As they went back and forth between their moving truck and my apartment, they shouted obscenities without any regard for the young businesswomen passing by heading toward the bus top a block up the street.

"You see that broad Paulie? She'd had some major nippage goin' on. You see those hooters?!"

"I don't mean to be a dick, fellas" I finally said to them, "but would you try to watch your language when you're outside. In my apartment, I don't care, but out front there are ladies who can hear you."

"Yeah Boss, whatever you say" the lead moron told me. People call you "boss" when they think you're a big douchebag.

"Listen Boss, do you mind if I use your can?"

I actually did mind, but what could I say.

Ten minutes later, the guy came out.

"I wouldn't go in dare Boss if I was you" the big, fat, hairy, sweaty bastard warned me.

But I did have to go in there. I had to pee something awful.

The smell was obscene. It made my ears warm, my nose drip, my eyeballs perspire, and my throat fill with bile.

He really had dropped a greasy load.

"Jesus Christ!" I yelled out.

"Sorry about that Boss" the fat fuck said from the living room. "It was all that leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. Turkey don't sit with me too good."

That night, with all my stuff over in Jersey City, I came back to Hoboken to clean the old apartment. Let me tell you, it was real fun cleaning the bowl. But I did. In fact, I got the whole apartment spic and span, except for under the kitchen sink. When it came to that, I decided I'd leave the three pounds of rat droppings for the next tenant. I wondered how my landlady would explain that to them.

But enough about the old place. My new apartment is fantastic. It's got carpeting and central air and a dishwasher. After I'd finished cleaning the old place, I dropped off the keys and settled into my new home.

With Jack content to lick himself on the living room carpet, I decided to take a bath in the shiny, clean tub. With the water warm and toasty, I lowered by taut, muscular, nude body into the bath, being careful not to step on my flesh python in the process. I leaned back and rested my head against the back edge of the tub. Then I let out a big sigh.

"Finally! I'm finally in my new place. I got a new job, a new apartment, more money, a nice dog--life is good."

From my position, the toilet was to my front left. I admired the toilet for a moment. It was a nice, low toilet. Low toilets are important. They let you get into that maximum squat position for easy downloads of that morning's bagel. The toilet in the lobby of The Plaza hotel is nice and low.

"What a pretty toilet" I thought.

But then I noticed something wrong. Like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant and the spirits fly out and at first they are absolutely beautiful, but then they turn into hideous demons. I was staring at my beautiful new toilet, when I noticed a brown smear under the lip. (From my low angel, I could see under the lip.) That wasn't there when I signed for the apartment. I specifically checked out the condition of the toilet before agreeing to move in. "The bowl must have been smeared today" I thought. "But by whom? I hadn't fouled the water yet."

And then it hit me--like I was shot by a diamond, a diamond bullet right through my forehead.

It was the movers!!!

I'd left them alone for awhile while they were moving my stuff in. I took Jack for a walk around the new neighborhood, I went and bought sodas for the vulgar men, I talked to the Superintendent of the building. While I was doing all that, one of those sweaty dago, WOP, guinea, fat fuck bastards was pumpin' fudge into my new favorite chair. And I hadn't even had a chance to Christen it first. It's like getting married and having the hotel bellman schtupe your virgin wife on the first night of your honeymoon while you're going out for a bucket of ice.

I felt so dirty, so violated. I emptied a bottle of disinfectant into the toilet, scrubbed it, flushed, and through the brush out onto the curb.

God dammit! I'm still mad thinking about it.

I bid you peace,

Broadway Jim Jenkins