Ultra Champ is the fictitious pseudonym I have assigned to our new landlord who, if cartoons were less lifelike and prone to crass portrayals of superheroes, would include a popular depiction of said character, defined in bold color and action strype. Often you can hear this individual outside of the building, listening to popular rap jams as he does yard work, and talking in his gravel-y baritone as he explains to Miles Pangburn that he should augment his drinking routine by consuming a glass of water in between every mixed beverage to eliminate hangover. There is a bravado in that voice, a self-assuredness marked by a lack of failing and throwing up. It is this sense of sophistication which lends an air of all-knowingness to his revelations that makes you want to believe in his obsessive pressure washing tips and lack of hangovers. An individual who is and will continue to be, cruising the neighborhood for a parking space in a vehicle the approximate size and fuel efficiency of a small third world nation, the personification of the American Dream, crushing your hopes and pressure washing them down the drain.
Inside, I am a nervous wreck, carrying out a very different type of routine. I watch the coffee maker as it insidiously wheezes its way through one more pot of black coffee which will fight off the effects of a night of drinking. Quickly I peruse the classified job board and then have the accompanying anxiety attack which comes with looking at the online classifieds for me. Here I find myself being reminded of Alicia Miller and her visible shaking. Smoking ten thousand cigarettes and blowing a plume in your face, she would explain to you that she was a nervous person, and that smoking provided a temporary balm for the ill feeling.
Maybe I should give it a try, I think, sticking my head into the vice of the nerve-wracked and unemployed, like one of those informational commercials they play on children’s television stations, explaining what not to do. On said commercial would be a cartoon drawing of me, rendered with ten cigarettes sticking out of my mouth, and undulation marks rising above my well frazzled head. Which is a very different kind of animation.
Simultaneously as fun as it is to make fun of our landlord, I cannot help but locate something endearing in his plight—the later life fraternity party leftover, and the logical extension of that dream. I imagine him writing letters to the editor of Men’s Health magazine and contributing weight-training tips, in between conducting a well-researched grooming routine in the bathroom mirror. A one thousand push up contest with himself before leaving for work in the morning. Or looking for his own name in an alumni newsletter, with the concrete absence of doubt.
In the end, though, as almost everyone has figured out, you can never trust these kinds of individuals. They always end up letting you down in some magnificent way. A late night conversation would reveal the shrieking insanity behind the veneer, and the skeletal remains of some sweat lodge group thinking seminar conducted in college. Or if not that, something else you did not want to know.
In the end, I might just have to find out the hard way. The neighbors have informed me that the Ultra runs some kind of employment staffing concern, and nobody seems to be actively seeking my employ at the moment. Which is a bad rent situation to find oneself in, mutually.
