The man in the bathtub.

On the 2nd floor is the half briefly know as "Bichon Alley" for the many Bichons who lived there. A Bichon is a little fuzzy white dog often mistaken for a Poodle or Maltese. This is not relevant.

But on "Bichon Alley" lived a a very pretty older Japanese woman and her husband. Old enough that she had been held in the Assembly Center at Santa Anita Racetrack, built to contain Japanese Americans before dispatching them to internment camps. When World War II was over the racetrack returned to being a racetrack and is still active today.

She told me her mother was once interviewed about her time at the center and gave the reporter a wrong impression. She told the reporter she took piano lessons while she was there. This was true but at the same time wrong. She did take piano lessons there, but they were taught on pieces of cardboard with drawn on keys. She never saw a piano. It must have been a very quiet music class.

But back to the woman and her husband. He was less pleasant than she but just as interesting. He had a medical degree but the only work he ever discussed was when he interned at the morgue. In fact, the mortuary workers recognized him when they came and picked up his body.

"Assembly Center" barracks at the Santa Anita racetrack, 1942.

Alternately charming and mean, modes probably beyond his own control, her husband had remained charming long enough to woo her into her 2nd marriage. They had lived in Castle Green for some time before I moved in, yes, with their two Bichons. Her husband could not be jollied into friendly conversation, at best it would draw a glare, except certain days, then he would wax enthusiastic about things, like his love of decorating for the holidays.

His holiday display was fantastic, the building hated it, but I loved it. It was a mix of 99 Cent Store decorations and a few classic adornments. He did it for every holiday, Halloween or Christmas, and he did it throughout his entire half and then of the hall. After he died, a like minded neighbor and I tried to show tribute by decorating his portion of the 2nd floor for Halloween. It was more tasteful than he'd ever done but replete with 99 cent store items, because that seemed right.

It was down in a couple of days, as a result of a resident complaint. They complained when he was alive too, but they were scared of HIM.

A year before his last decorating season he got a dog. There were the two Bichons, but those were girly and as much his wife's as his. "Luna" was a man's dog. Bigger and darker and almost wolfy looking. She started out a nice dog, receptive to stray caresses as they passed on the stairs. It wasn't long before that changed and petting her would have been outright stupid. He began to walk her with one of those pronged collars, the kind of training collar that stabs a dog, rather than the choking variety. Supposedly those don't hurt, but if they don't hurt why do people use them? I don't believe the little prongs are decorative. He said he walked her on this to control her, and that was probably true, but wouldn't training her have been better? Still, she loved him and he was never seen again without her. They even went on errands together. They were a very prickly duo, which may have been the point.

He would snarl at his wife, his dog, neighbors, the castle staff. I think all were terrified of him but at least two loved him. His neighbors bitched in vain about his decorations. Saying "hi" to him was scary, if he noticed at all it was only to focus on the speaker long enough to glare. But one night he joined the regulars in the downstairs parlor, drinking and gossiping. Apparently he was completely charming, sharing stories and Scotch with the others. He was friendly, funny and one participant even says "likable".

About our parlor, referred to in seating plans and events as "The Grand Salon". The parlor is very pretty, it's like entering an inviting time warp, with its elaborate drapes and completely antique furniture, some original and some left over from the various period movies and television shows that have shot here, "The Sting", "The Last Samurai", etc. Residents are encouraged to use the parlor and consider it their own, unless there's a wedding. Come weddings, we are barred from the parlor.

I've been to gatherings, parties, recitals and board meetings here. My wedding reception extended to the parlor, impressing all with its Victorian decor. Among which is a settee or love seat (I looked it up, it's not a "divan" those have no backs) we suspect is haunted, as castle pets grow vicious when they sit there. Fortunately castle pets are typically very small, like my 4 and 8 lb. dogs. There's a size limit for pets in the castle. This man's dog was much larger than that but, again, no one complained.

Castle Green parlor from http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorimarsha/

He wasn't less friendly to staff than to neighbors. After all, there's a finite level of unfriendly. But I suspect he, and "Luna" his dog, always took the stairs to their apartment to avoid interaction. Not necessarily without effort, as he was frail seeming and in his 70s.

Not quite Molly Dodd's building (NBC's fictional brownstone with an elevator man), but undeniably the elevator operators are part of our population. Not residents, not white, but part of Castle Green as an organism. They more than occupy the same niche, they interact. Estevan, Jesus, Raimundo, those I know better because their English is better. And a single Caucasian elevator operator, Benvenuto, old enough and with a name distinguishably Italian enough, than he can occupy the operator position without making anyone uncomfortable, except that he's going deaf and slow service is an expected part of his shifts.

Talking with them is inevitable during elevator rides, either from white liberal guilt or enjoyment of the guaranteed company of another human being, if only for a very short stretch. We only have six floors and only four of them are occupied. The roof does see action though, either from the perpetually changing business venture on the 6th floor (that suite can only be rented, not owned) or our roof, designated for summertime drinking, viewing holiday fireworks and dining/drinking when the lobby and porch are occupied by wedding guests, and residents burrow up to the 6th floor like very soon to be inebriated rats.

I think my husband enjoys the brief contact with others the elevator provides, he's a shy man and wouldn't naturally plunge himself into a social arena, however small. I don't think the man on the 2nd floor felt any need for social contact nor do I think he would have troubled himself with white liberal guilt.

He did have one interaction with the elevator staff though. Cupcakes and cookies, appearing almost daily in the staff part of the lobby, where they sort mail, greet visitors and open the great gates to the street, when not ferrying people to other floors. The constant bake goods appearing in their lobby were so plentiful and pretty, I figured it was some other benefactor like the neighbor who bakes for all "resident events", or our building manager who worked in occupational therapy and design and has tendencies toward den mothership and decorating.

It wasn't the den mother manager though, or the resident who bakes though she claims the smallest kitchen in the castle.. It was that surly gentleman from the 2nd floor. He came down every morning, bearing a bounty of beautiful cakes for the staff. Then he went back upstairs, not speaking to them. He baked the cookies and cupcakes himself, seemingly every day, and decorated them to irresistibility. But, at the same time, he was starving himself.

cupcake castle from http://www.lisascakemodels.co.uk

One would think as a doctor he would know better than to live on strange stringent diets but I think as a doctor he thought he knew everything and and didn't question his own judgment.

If I were to guess, which I would, he was an aesthete, attempting for an above the average mortal body expectations to something purer, like eating very little but still exercising. I'm sure there were other rituals too, I just know it. Were they baths or vitamins or skin care rituals, I don't know. I don't see him as enema inclined (sorry, but it comes to mind), because I think it would have been too messy for his liking. I'm sure his kitchen remained pristine throughout the cupcake baking process, I can even see him wearing an apron. He was active, walking Luna and of course always taking the stairs, but he was active on little or no fuel besides the stress he channeled in to being hostile.

Not surprisingly his wife sought breaks from him, visiting her daughter upstate taking the Bichons with her, leaving the man to his own devices for seemingly increasingly long periods of time. Not forever, just a week or two, but her presence became rarer in the castle. He and Luna managed on their own but I think they missed her. Actually, I don't think Luna missed her, she had the man that was more than enough. I had a dog like that too, a Yorkie so devoted to Leif that I was unnecessary, even a hindrance, coming between herself and her beloved Daddy. I missed her horribly when she died but it was nice to sit by my husband without being growled at.

As his wife's absences increased he began to fear she would leave him, after all whenever she went out of town she took her children, their Bichons, with her, leaving the man and Luna. And of course he had given her ample cause to leave him, something the castle pretty much thought should happen, just by being himself, angry, ritualistic and, like most men, right. She told me she found in his journal these fears. That she and the Bichons would not come back from one of her trips. But she told me she always intended to come back, never not.

She stayed with him because she was from a culture with different expectations than ours, of men and women and their interaction. It may be why she was more ok than someone else would have been with letting him rule the roost, but I don't think that was her primary reason. I think the  reason she stayed with him was because he was her husband.

Without her to supervise him, or a least present to influence him even a little, the man gave full reign to his odd practices. Eating and drinking still less, experimenting with extremes of his regimen, maybe in his mind making himself better and worthier of her, so she would return.

He stopped bringing cupcakes downstairs, lacking even that tiny bit of joy or hope in his life. I know cupcakes aren't hope, but they're a luxury, a warm and cozy food from childhood, no doubt the reason behind their fad status.

No one heard much from this man or inquired for a time, which wasn't unexpected. He had no friends or family besides her, though he did have a beautiful pioneer quilt his grandmother had made, which they never used so his wife offered it to me. It was beautiful. I will forever feel bad that our little dogs were so happy digging into it that its pretty quilted days were numbered. All I can say in their defense is, at least the quilt was finally used.

There came from his apartment one day a terrible sound, a keening, crying animal sound which indeed it was. It was Luna standing by her master's bathtub, where he'd slipped into a sleep he couldn't rise from. I don't know if the water was especially hot or cold but I imagine it was, as part of his cleansing ritual, it was some extreme that hastened the toll he was taking on his body. Paramedics and police were called, in addition to the mortuary staff mentioned earlier. The police weren't called in because of suspicions of foul play. I'm sure he had enemies but I know he would have made himself unpleasant enough to keep them, like his wife and the Bichons, a distance from him. The police were called in along with animal control, because "Luna" refused to leave his side, in this case her perch on the rug by the bathtub. She attacked the first officer who tried to move her.

Luna was taken to the pound, not because of her understandable attack, but because there was no one to take care of her. His wife and the Bichons were out of town. Upon her return, his wife and I pulled Luna from the pound where her life expectancy was nil given her prickly hostile ways. It's legal to kill pets for antisocial behaviors. When his wife came to the pound to retrieve her, pound staff were amazed by the change in Luna, she quieted and was totally approachable, even wagging her tail. Luna was placed with a rescue, requiring a $1000 bribe/donation. This wasn't unreasonable. The waiting list for homes for unwanted pets is long. Several rescues had turned her down even with the proffered donation. Last I heard, after extensive coaching with an animal specialist, she was calm and gentle enough to be placed in a home. Maybe if one saw her one now, one could safely pet her.

Her master (and arguably his wife's) left the castle a legacy, not a distraught pet or relieved wife. It was holiday decorations, not the 99 Cent Store ones but classic wooden decorations. Classic enough for the Castle to want to display, when his wife offered them as a donation. You can see them if you take the Castle Green Winter Tour, early this December. Foremost among his decorations are countless wooden nutcracker soldiers (I actually tried and lost count), like the one who comes alive and dances with the little girl in "The Nutcracker". They're different heights and colors, but otherwise they all look alike, thin with white hair, a white beard and an angry expression. They look just like him and they glare at us, by the dozens, in our lobby. It sounds silly, but look in their angry eyes and feel bad for them.