Since You've Got the Pistol You Get the Pesos

Paulie Gonzalez bought a house in the 'burbs.

I want to go back to the city. Fuck this country living.

I have monsters in my fucking house. After I moved in I started hearing them in the walls. Walking, scratching, bumping around. I pretended not to hear them. I saw squirrels in the yard and assumed it was them just napping in the walls. Squirrels are cute. I was willing to share the heat with them while they work on their nut fortune.

Then last week I walked in the door and Pops was yelling about the lights being out in the hall bathroom. I went to the circuit breaker, nothing, unscrewed the socket, poked it with a screwdriver, still didn't fix it. Told Pops we need an electrician. I went back to my work, which I am about a month behind in. If I work hard enough, all this bullshit can be solved with money. This is not a problem to get emotional about. I was wrong.

The monsters got louder and much bigger as time went on. I could hear their footsteps in the attic. Big footsteps. You can't hear squirrel steps, they're crafty. These were monsters, I was sure of that. Again, I decided that I was too busy to deal with this shit, and completely unprepared. I realized that I am living in the country and hopelessly unarmed. This needs to change. Pops is anti-gun, otherwise I would have shot the shit out of the fuckers right through the wall. Sheetrock is cheap and easy. I had business to work on. My back expenses are closing in on 5-figures, I have millions of dollars in deals depending on me. I decided to drink more, and be home less, this was very effective at mitigating the problem.

Friday, the enormous TV in the living room went dead. Pops really went ape shit at this time. I told him it must be related to our electrical problems. Bad wiring. On previous occasions, we discussed the monsters a bit, but he didn't listen. He did not hear them, thanks to the ear-shattering TV. Pops did not put the electrical problem together with the monster problem. In fact, he seemed to be in more denial than myself regarding the monsters.

Yesterday evening, the fuckers were really loud. I ran out of alcohol, and the liquor stores were closed. I took inventory of the weapons in the house; Screwdrivers, Mag-light, several lengths of steel pipe, can of gasoline, and various household chemicals. None of these seemed to make a good weapon against the matter at hand. I had some pot, but decided that pot and monsters in the wall would only make the problem worse. Alcohol was the only proper remedy for the situation. I opened a bottle of very expensive 12 year old scotch. Anyone knows from watching horror movies, there are no sacred cows when you need to deal with monsters. Have a collection of silver bullets hand-made by Teddy Roosevelt? Passed down from your grandfather? Werewolf shows up, what do you do?

I was almost asleep when things went from distractedly drunk to bad. It was 1AM, and I had someone shouting and knocking on my door. Pops had heard them. After three fucking weeks he finally noticed the sound of busy monsters right above his head. "Are you sure it's an animal?" No Dad, maybe a homeless child broke into the attic and is busy walking around slowly, making a nest, and executing his plan to scare us from the house. At which point he will have the house all to himself. Sure dad, maybe it's Macaulay Culkin. It's 1AM, we have no guns, what do you want to do? "I want to call the police."

At this point, even I started to panic a bit as I was sure there wasn't enough alcohol in the house for this. My panic was justified. He didn't call the police, but he did say he planned to call animal control first thing in the morning. "Dad, we own the house, Animal Control doesn't give a fuck about our monster problem unless it escapes to the streets." To this, he accepted that I was not helping, he was on his own. He closed my door, and went away. I soon discovered his method for dealing with the problem was about as sane as mine. He took up arms in the form of a broom. For the next 1.5 hours he patrolled the house, every 5 seconds pounding on the ceiling. Occasionally, he would shout -"GET OUT OF HERE!" I wondered if the monsters might be illegal immigrants. Could they be sitting up there wondering, 'Que?'

I was happy in the city. Drug dealers would steal my parking spot, I would kick their asses, peace would follow. Now I move 2 miles away, and I'm in a horror movie. Me, in the master bedroom, drinking as hard as I can to drown out the insanity, my 72 year old father pounding the the ceiling and screaming, a family of small Mexican monsters in the attic cowering in fear.

After a couple hours at work today I got the call that the exterminator found evidence of a raccoon family living in my attic. They went in through the attic vent. They went in there to eat the squirrels that had broke in through the eaves. Supposedly, the 'coons did not eat the wiring, squirrels eat the wiring, 'coons eat squirrels. After my father explained this he told me it will cost $900 to seal up the attic. So by tonight, the attic will be sealed. I expect I'll need to patrol the perimeter. The 'coons were happy there, they want in. I need guns. This can only get worse.

I can't breathe! Another rodent-based incident! Poor Paulie! There's not enough scotch in Scotland!