Lawton Housemate Hell of Fame: Little Nicky, the Fish Prince
How can one man eat so much fish and not die of mercury poisoning?
Nicky moved to Lawton in 2011, during the Dark Wizard years of Lawton Estates. The Dark Wizard era of Lawton began in the summer of 2010 when I began working as a legal case manager for disabled hobos, in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. A job that I felt, at first, was Divine Punishment for something, but later ended up saving me from being smothered to death by my own ego.
It was a difficult time to be sure, but boy what an exciting one! Would I be accompanying one of our clients to a Psych Eval? Would I be mopping up period blood from our bathroom floor? Would I need to de-escalate a tweaker? Would I read something in someone’s medical chart notes that would give me nightmares for the rest of my days? (There was this woman, for instance, who believed there were spiders living in her vagina…)
Recently, in an effort to purge myself of unnecessary belongings before I move, I began digitizing all 10,000 of my old journals. Here is an excerpt from a typical day at the Tenderloin Law Office.
“Yesterday I escorted (NAME REDACTED) to her SSI Clinical Exam in the Mission. Over the course of my time with her, she sexually propositioned a cab driver, demanded ice cream, and told me that she loved me. Then she proceeded to eat her egg mc-muffin while being examined--then nodded off several times on the ride back, apparently high on methadone.”
My workdays were so intense, that all I wanted to do at the end of the day was to come home and hug the house. Lawton Estates! My safe space! My sanctuary! Where it doesn’t smell like ball sweat, donuts and death. Where I can rest my weary head on the kitchen countertop and groan while bashing my skull in with a meat tenderizer. Unfortunately, the housemates I lived with during this time (with a few notable exceptions) were a huge pain in the ass.
My first impression of Nicky was that he seemed like a sweet little gay dude. He had long Kenny-G hair, fluttering mannerisms and a friendly lisp. He expressed a great love of baking muffins, Aikido and Scottish folk music. He was also 19 years old and had brought his mom to the interview. Something which I found sweet, instead of the red flag it should have been.
Now, I have lived with over 50 strangers at this point in my life. Strangers of all ages and walks of life. Over that time I’ve come to one conclusion: Age really IS just a number. I have lived with people in their 20’s who seem to have wise little grandparents living inside of them, whispering to them to keep tidy and eat roughage. I have also lived with people in their 50’s who thrived on drama and chaos, who could tell you the name of every hot local DJ in San Francisco, and then neglect their cat to death. Nicky struck me as one of those young-old young people; perhaps a bit of a misfit, but certainly welcome under the banner of our eclectic household.
The other housemate at the time was a bright, energetic graphic designer named Pollyanna who was as relentlessly sunny as her namesake. Pollyanna at first seemed to regard Nicky as a surrogate son of sorts. There was a white erase board on the kitchen wall where she had listed all of the foods Nicky doesn’t like. She called him “Little Nicky” and liked to give him motherly lectures on things like getting adequate sleep and nutrition which he seemed to take in good stride.
I’d say the first 6 months-ish things were just fine with Nicky. He wasn’t much of a cleaner, but he was pleasant enough to talk to and that counted for something. He baked a cherry clafouti for us one night while the dulcet harmonies of Enya wafted from his room and I didn’t have the slightest reason to think anything would change.
Then one day, he announced to us that he was going to start hitting the gym regularly. Maybe he had grown weary of the name “Little Nicky” Or maybe he just wanted a healthy outlet to channel the stress and indignity of being an intern at an environmental nonprofit after having lived as a pampered mama’s boy his whole life. Whatever the reason, he began working out 2-3 times a week. Which soon turned into every day.
“Well, good for him!” I thought. “No harm getting fit.” Plus, it meant he was out of the house more often.
After a few months of regular gym workouts, Nicky had completely transformed. His body type went from welterweight to husky. His neck grew thick as a ham hock. He chopped off his long Kenny-G curls. He stopped dressing like an extra on Dawson's Creek and started dressing like a gay Guido. He stopped listening to Enya and started listening to EDM and top 40 drivel. Cartons of whey powder arrived at the house weekly. So much whey! And his diet became almost entirely composed of whey shakes and fish.
All of this would have been just fine had his personality also remained sweet. But with the new gym-toned body came a new attitude. He stopped cleaning common spaces altogether. We tried several iterations of chore charts and he failed each time. When I would ask him to please at least not leave empty tuna cans and salmon bags in the sink, he’d say “Whatever, I’m just super busy right now.” and leave it at that.
Sometimes I would see the shadows of half-naked men darting from Nicky’s room to the bathroom late at night. And yet, never in the two years of living with me, did he ever come out of the closet. Which is wild considering I have an invisible PFLAG sign taped to my forehead at all times. Anyway, the physical transformation coincided with the personality change making me wonder if it’s more than just whey powder he’s freebasing in those locker rooms.
I can’t describe to you the misery of coming home from a buck wild day in the Tenderloin Law Office and finding the kitchen sink full of fish chum. Or hearing the aspartame thumping of his workout playlist. Sometimes he’d cook an egg on the stove with a can of tuna and the entire house would smell like fish farts. There was no way to avoid it. I’d sit in my room gagging on low-tide fumes and resentment. All I wanted at the end of my crazy workdays was peace and quiet, but it never came. And my hatred of him grew deeper and deeper.
You know, it’s a funny thing about hate. In many ways, hate is no different than obsessive love. I found myself thinking about Nicky constantly. I had many angry conversations with him in my head. I became hyper-tuned to the beep-beep of his car lock--a sign that he was either leaving (rejoice!) or coming home (hide!). There was something about his entitled rich kid behavior that chafed against my poverty-kid mentality. How can he treat the common spaces with such thoughtlessness? Why does he think he can barge into the bathroom when someone else is in there, and insist they leave? Why does he roll his eyes and walk away whenever I ask him to be considerate?
In 2012, Pollyanna moved out. I guess she had had it with Little Nicky. I, however, was stuck with him for another year. Another year of brooding. Another year of hiding in my room. Another year of gagging on low-tide fumes. But this time, I didn’t have Pollyanna to complain to. Our new housemate C.K, a human skeleton who kept only a single bouillon cube on his food shelf, was even more scarce than I was. I think I saw him about twice the whole 6 months he lived with us. I was on my own.
My obsessive hate grew deeper and deeper. But one day, it occurred to me: With all that fish he eats, I bet he’ll croak one day from mercury poisoning. The thought cheered me considerably.
“Nicky, aren’t you worried about mercury poisoning from all that fish you eat?” I asked one evening, watching him chuck another empty salmon bag in the sink.
“Nope, my doctor said mercury poisoning is a myth.” he grunted. “Fish is good lean protein.”
“Hmm,” I said, “Well, then I guess you better keep on eating it. As much as possible!” I added with a hopeful gleam in my eye. “Just remember to throw those salmon bags away”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Sadly, Nicky did not die of mercury poisoning. And when our lease was up for renewal again the following year he came dangerously close to renewing again. Fortunately, my friends had the good sense to smack me upside the head with encouragement to KICK HIM OUT. It was very difficult to do this seeing as I’m as conflict-avoidant as a hermit crab. But eventually he agreed to leave, and his departure signaled THE END of the Dark Wizard Years of Lawton and the Beginning of a New Era of Light.
To celebrate this new beginning, I decided to get rid of some old rusty fixtures in the shared bathroom and replace them. When I took down the towel rack, I was shocked to find, on either end of the towel bar, about an inch of hair wrapped around it. Long, curly, Kenny-G hair. Now, I know what you are thinking, “Well, maybe that’s just the hair that came off Nicky’s towel when he dried his hair,” but if that’s the case, how did it get so tightly wound? Why so thick? This was something beyond what a wet towel could produce. It looked intentional. Dare I say…ritualistic?
“Hey Pollyanna, I have a question for you. When you shared that bathroom with Nicky, do you remember any hair wrapped around the towel bar?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I always just cut those hair hunks off.”
I blanched.
“So you mean, it happened repeatedly?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have no idea how it got like that, but I just cut them off the towel bar because they’re so gross”
And with that, I tossed the whole towel bar in the trash, shuddering. Then I made a formal declaration to the universe:
“I hereby make a declaration” I shouted to the ceiling“That there will be NO MORE SHITTY ROOMMATES at Lawton EVER AGAIN!”
And for a good seven years or so, my declaration held strong; the next few generations of housemates were kind and considerate and mellow. I also left the Tenderloin Law Office job and started working at a friendly housing non-profit in Berkeley. Life became peaceful. My home became a sanctuary once again.
And then, Alanna moved in.