through my peephole

Did you know that a Norwegian scent artist actually took bacterial cultures from people’s armpits, belly buttons, even their toes, and made cheese out of them? Real, edible cheese. True story. The odor from Limburger cheese—often considered a delicacy—and a smelly foot, come from the same germ: Brevibacterium linens. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a scent artist.

Too much information? I agree.

Hi. My name is Arlen Schmeck, and I’m a perfectly normal human being. At least, that’s how I look on the outside. If there is anything wrong with me, I guess you could say it’s that I know too much.

For instance, I wish I didn’t know so much about germs. Mysophobia, or Germaphobia, as it is more commonly known, is no laughing matter. Even though most people associate the constant washing of hands with OCD, I know in my case it’s simply a matter of having too much information in my big fat brain. Like the fact that a toilet seat has over seventy thousand germs, a kitchen cutting board twice that many. The average kitchen sink has half a million germs per square inch in the drain alone.

I wish I knew what it feels like to be close to somebody, but to do that first I might have to touch someone, and the human epidermis is literally crawling with trillions of bacteria, like Erythrasma, Carbuncle, and Cellulitis, which imbeds itself deep into the skin.

I wish I could fall in love, but falling in love would require a first kiss, and human saliva contains more than thirty-five million individual germs, the human body in all more than one-hundred trillion total bacteria. I wish I could do all the things most people do, but because I know too much, I simply cannot.

Besides knowing too much—thinking too much—there’s really nothing so out of the ordinary about me. I’m forty-nine years old, single, and I live in Santa Monica, California. More precisely, the Hacienda Palms Apartments, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the beach.

The Hacienda Palms is one of the oldest buildings in Santa Monica. Perhaps you’ve seen it. It’s that big turquoise monstrosity over on Ocean Street. Built at the turn of the 20^th century, it was in its heyday an oasis for movie stars like Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino. When I heard that the old building used to be a luxury hotel for Hollywood royalty, I just had to get an apartment there.

Bashes held down in the basement of the Hacienda were the stuff of legend, almost as famous as the people themselves: John Barrymore, Pola Negri, Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow, John Gilbert, just to name a few. Eventually, even WC Fields showed up.

The Hacienda Palms is said to have been the original setting for Fatty Arbuckle’s 1915 silent film classic, Miss Fatty’s Seaside Lovers. Why not? Roscoe lived just around the corner.

Legend has it they worked out the whole skit, Arbuckle, Harold Lloyd, Joe Bordeaux, and Edgar Kennedy (Arbuckle dressed in drag), right there in the lobby of the Hacienda. Just for giggles, Chaplin, Al St. John, even Buster Keaton, got in on the gag.

Arbuckle, Lloyd, Chaplin, and Keaton were all regulars at the Hacienda Palms, often working out their routines before setting them to celluloid, that is if they weren’t already half in the bag over at the Sunset Inn.

Stories of the masher foursome getting blotto all night, then slapsticking it through the streets of Santa Monica before heading down to the beach and passing out, were as celebrated as they were sad: the original Lords of Dogtown.

Those were the days, before Will Hays and the whole studio system ruined everything, when movie stars reigned supreme. And if movie stars like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford really were royalty, then the Hacienda Palms was their Summer Palace.

The Hacienda Palms is where Mabel Normand came to escape the paparazzi after the 1922 murder of her lover, and famous Hollywood director, William Desmond Taylor. It’s where Fatty Arbuckle hid out in between all three of his murder trials, falsely accused of squashing to death aspiring actress and known trollop, Virginia Rappe.

Musically speaking, legend tells of Rudy Vallée, Al Jolson, even Frank Sinatra playing impromptu sessions down in the Red Griffin Room. Bruz Fletcher. Gene Malin. Tex Ritter, too. There was just something about the Hacienda that made it a haven for the new American royalty.

The Hacienda Palms remained a favorite hideaway for Hollywood celebs from the 1930s all the way through the 1960s. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard used to sneak off to the Hacienda in those early days. Tracy and Hepburn, too.

Maybe it was the soothing sound of the sea. The ocean breeze. Maybe it was because you invariably knew: whatever your troubles, you could always sail off into the sunset.

Or maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with the hotel’s proximity to secret tunnels—built during the Prohibition era—that allegedly ran all under Santa Monica. Legend has it the Hacienda Palms not only connected with the beach via these tunnels, but to favorite watering holes like Harvey’s, Big Dean’s, and the old Rapp Saloon over on 2^nd Street.

But the red car doesn’t run here anymore. The 1970s saw the Hacienda gradually then suddenly go into decline. It ceased being a hotel in 1982.

Today, after more than three decades of neglect, it’s a rent-control unit. Nothing fancy anymore, just a decaying old high-rise with a slight hitch in the foundation that will one day be its ruin. Until then, I live on the ninth floor there: in Apartment 9B.

Besides going to work and the occasional errand, I pretty much spend all my time at home. That does not mean I’m Agoraphobic. I’m not some sideshow freak who goes into a panic every time he walks out the front door, like Keith Brunsmann in Blue Skies Are a Lie.

It’s not that I can’t leave my apartment, I just choose not to. Why would I? I have everything I need right here. If it’s a view I seek, the Pacific Ocean is just outside my window. Venice Beach, Route 66, the Santa Monica Pier too. If it’s the rest of the world I’m missing, I have TV. Other than that, I have my peephole. That’s how I keep up with all my neighbors.

Through my peephole. That’s how I came to know the Professor. The Professor was always talking to himself, carrying way too much in his arms and fumbling his keys. After watching him for about a year, I finally decided to knock on his door one day. He’d dropped something important-looking and left it out in the hall.

Through my peephole. That’s how I know Timofej and Tatiana, the couple in 9F. The Professor calls them TNT because they’re always fighting. ALWAYS fighting. They’re Russian or something, and when I say always fighting I don’t mean just yelling and screaming; I mean dishes breaking, pots and pans flying, everything but the kitchen sink. Timmy has always got some kind of red mark on his face, or a black eye. Last week he came home with his arm in a sling.

Through my peephole. That’s how I know Old Lady Noogieburger in 9H. Old Lady Noogieburger is so old legend has it they built the Hacienda Palms around her. My only fear is that she may actually be a load-bearing wall, and that one day when she dies the whole building will suddenly come crashing down around her, taking me with it.

Through my peephole. That’s how I know Madam Maui in 9J. Madam Maui thinks she’s Norma Desmond. She’s one of those people who say they came to Hollywood when it was still lemon groves. Her face is all wrinkly from cigarettes, and she claims to have once even entertained Joseph P. Kennedy himself.

In something right out of a Dodie Smith novel, Madam Maui has this odd fur coat she claims is a one-off from the 1960s. It’s a hodgepodge of different colored furs that this couple from the second floor swears used to be their cat. One section of it, anyway. It seems their cat, Gary, went missing about a month ago and they’ve accused Madam Maui of kidnapping it, skinning it alive, then adding it to her fur-coat ensemble.

The way I see it, that’s what you get for owning a cat in Dogtown. I’ve seen a lot worse. And besides, who the fuck names their cat Gary?

Then, of course, there’s the young couple next door in 9A. Those two have a lot of energy and they’re always fucking. ALWAYS fucking. Maybe they’re newlyweds. Maybe they’re cousins. Whatever it is, they fuck so hard they’re constantly knocking the pictures off my wall. Since they live next door, there’s no peephole involved. Too bad.

I’d complain, but who would listen? Anyway, I kind of like it. It’s better than TV, and always has a happy ending. Truth is, I’m jealous as hell.

Through my peephole.