Tales of Oscar

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1. Christian was a dude who lived in the same apartment with me and a couple other guys in a shitty two-family house in New Brunswick, NJ (the home of Rutgers University). Blonde, waifish, generally nice guy from California but not always so with it. He was the kind of guy that would leave his socks to dry in the oven and then fall asleep.

2. Christian started to work for Oscar, a 30-something hispanic guy (I think he was Salvadorean but I don't remember) at a Spanish language newspaper called El Americano. El Americano, in fact, consisted only of Oscar and Christian. It was printed tabloid style, came out irregularly and infrequently, and consisted, largely, of pictures of attractive Hispanic women, taken by Oscar. There would, however, be the occasional random article (

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 02:44 (twenty years ago)

such as "Mars: La Planeta Roja"

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 02:58 (twenty years ago)

3. During this time, Oscar would frequently call the house for Christian. Oscar had an unusually raspy voice, yelled every word, and sounded like someone suffering from severe hypertension: "HALLO! IS CHRISTIAN HOME! I NEED TO TALK TO CHRISTIAN!" Of course, this became great fodder for entertainment, as we'd often immitate Oscar's voice, or even leave fake messages on the machine.

3a. This one, however, was not a fake message: "CHRISTIAN! I NEED YOU TO COME TO THE OFFICE! THERE IS SMOKE COMING OUT OF THE WINDOW! PLEASE COME RIGHT AWAY!"

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 02:59 (twenty years ago)

4. Eventually, someone was moving out of the downstairs apartment, and Christian had the great idea to recommend OSCAR. Our landlord, by the way, was almost totally hands-off, and also hadn't raised the rent in years so that it was about half of market value.

5. Oscar not only moved into the downstairs, but moved El Americano there as well. He bought more office-like furniture for their living room, and apparently even hired a cleaning lady a couple times to come in.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:03 (twenty years ago)

(last part, containing the punchline):

6. Oscar also shared our internet connection, and would sometimes come upstairs at odd hours to ask us to plug him in.

7. I moved out eventually, but friends of mine stayed, and so did Oscar.

8. According to one of my former housemates, two hispanic families that Oscar knows also moved into the apartment (this is a four bedroom apartment, which now houses Oscar and his newspaper, a twenty-something guy, and two couples with at least one child each)

9. A guy named Jordan moved in upstairs. At first, he did not meet Oscar, nor did anyone make him aware of Oscar's presence. Then, one night around 11pm, there was loud banging on the door.

Jordan asked through the door, "Who is it?" A raspy voice shouted back "CAN YOU HOOK ME UP!? CAN YOU HOOK ME UP!?"

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:09 (twenty years ago)

(bump)

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 01:30 (twenty years ago)

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