Notes from Stony Brook: the silence of suburbia

I greet you from the lobby of the Melville Memorial Library, on the main campus of Stony Brook University.  After several failed attempts to connect to the internet via WIFI, I am typing this on Word, and hoping that WordPress will not give me problems with pasting text.

I moved in last Saturday.  Although it is about an hour and a half from Staten Island (not bad), the drive made me realize that I’d be a little farther from New York than I would like.  As I was approaching my exit on the Northern Parkway, my radio, tuned to 105.9, started sounding fuzzy.  The static soon turned into a battle for frequency between a Chopin waltz and a kitschy rock song, the latter eventually winning.  Soon enough, most of the available radio stations were being broadcast not from New York but from Fairfield, Connecticut.  By the time I reached my destination, WPXR was gone, succeeded by rock radio, Q 104.3 was hanging on by a 100^th, and I was surrounded by trees, sidewalk-less roads, and the eerie calm of Long Island suburbia.

I will not rant too much about my living situation (those who have heard from me in person can testify to my dissatisfaction) but I am renting a room in a one-floor home of an older lady.  For now it is just the two of us.  My neighbors are quiet houses, empty streets, and the ceaseless drone of crickets.  I am not used to rural life, and the lack of human activity freaks me out.  Last night was an especially difficult one in this respect.

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Yesterday at around 6:00 PM I returned from shopping to an empty home.  “Great,” I thought, “I could make my stir fry and not worry about being messy.”  I made a charming concoction of chopped chicken breast, baby Yukon potatoes, green bell peppers, Portobello mushrooms, broccoli, Grannysmith apple, and a slab of butter.  The dish came together well, and I enjoyed a large portion in my room while watching television.

By 9:00 I had finished watching a CBS documentary about a medical student who led a secret life of rape, robbery, and murder.  I turned off the TV and soon became aware of the house’s emptiness.  Audible only was the turbine of crickets through the open window.  Then, something fell.  I jumped, but soon crept out of my room to investigate.  I could not tell what had happened, because the floor was cluttered as it was.  I telephoned my girlfriend to break the silence.  As I was sitting on the couch in the den, adjacent to the garage, I heard the murmur of a man and a woman talking in what sounded like Korean through the door leading to the garage.  Thinking that my landlady had for some reason left a radio on, I opened the door.  Down the darkness of a small hallway I saw the shadows of a washing machine and dryer.  Past them, the door to the garage.  Light was shining through the door’s crevice.

Approaching quietly, I knocked.

The conversation stopped.

The sudden silence gave me chills.  Someone was there.

“Hello?” I sighed.

No answer.

“I’m Jack.  I’m living with X. Who are you? Can you come to the door?”

Silence.

Relieved that my request was not granted, I sprinted for my keys and darted out the front door.  I locked it after me in case the intruder wanted to pursue me.  I ran through the darkness down the driveway to my car, ripping the door open.  Around me, nothing but trees and droning crickets.

Driving away, I phoned my parents.  After I had calmed down a little, I decided to stake out the house from 500 feet away until the landlady returned.

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By 11:30, all had been resolved, and I was back in my room.  She was renting the garage-turned-studio to a Korean medical student.  She apologized for not telling me about it.

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Poor guy…he was trying to woo a woman and was interrupted by a strange man knocking on his door.  I thought we weren’t allowed overnight guests?  I wonder if he managed to get to first base…

In any case, no more crime shows before bed.

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