The best kind of house party is an eviction party, a good shaker that literally raises the roof, burns down the kitchen, and cancels the lease all in one grand gesture. Sure, it might be inconvenient but, like a messy one-night stand, any decent party should leave behind a dramatic mess to clean up the next morning.
An eviction party is perfect for those who are committed to never leaving on good terms with anyone or anything. It meant blowing the apartment a last kiss that was more like a swift kick in the cupboard than a tender endearment. This arrangement was suited to a grand and disastrous exit rather than a well-executed first impression. An eviction party was a guarantee that you could never go back to an infested crap-hole of a house even if you wanted to — just like quitting a job with a gob of gooey spit in the soup.
Unfortunately for them, my roommates never did learn how to throw a real party. When the lease ran out, I took it upon myself to make all the arrangements. By ten at night, a sketchy collection of creeps, weirdoes, and drunks had blown in off the street. When midnight struck, the party was already dead and the house was destroyed.
I was sick of life in the wasps’ nest that our house had turned into. Before we became roommates we were the best of friends, but in the course of a few days we were at each others throats. Suddenly, my comrades had become the bane of my existence. While they complained about the beer bottle caps on the floor that cut their feet, I threw out every dish that sat in the sink for over a week. We might have been best friends but we were better enemies.
Of course, everyone was pissed off about the party except for me. I had never expected to make any of the damage deposit back, thinking it more as a license to get drunk and rip a door off the hinges. When I woke up the next morning, I was baffled as to the source of the mess and even more confused that everyone blamed me for it.
“Seriously, I don’t think it was me that tipped over the shelf or threw the table down the stairs,” I tried to explain to my roommates. They just looked at me.
“Whatever, if it was me then why don’t I remember? Must have been someone else that just looked like me,” I muttered. Whoever it was, they sure knew how to trash a room. I’d have to find them and congratulate the shit out of them.
After giving up on cleaning anything, we gathered up whatever wasn’t broken and moved out. I wished my roommates the best of luck, silently bestowed them all a hearty fuck you, and ran out the door to a getaway car.
Kyle was one of those friends that I was a little afraid of. Thankfully, we had managed to avoid living together. Kyle managed to go through apartments like most people went through dirty socks. Every time he casually mentioned he was looking for a new roommate, I would have a near-anxiety attack until he would continue with how he had a lead on a new place. Kyle’s irony was that he needed a constant flow of people in his life, yet he managed to alienate them all at a rapid pace. This, of course, was one of the reasons that I loved Kyle.
His last arrangement had him moving into a suite with a complete stranger. They had arrived at the same time for the apartment viewing and the landlord, the crafty devil that he was, decided that in lieu of turning one away he would play matchmaker and set Kyle up with a new roommate. The arrangement went swimmingly for the first twenty-four hours until the roommate freaked out, left, and never came back. At first, Kyle was a little worried. He clearly didn’t have the means for paying both halves of the rent. Citing the recent events as unfair, he decided to let the landlord worry about it for him. He chose to celebrate his new home by moving in and seeing how long he could go without paying any rent at all. A month limped by and on the second day of the next month, an eviction notice was taped to his door.
“Fucking landlord,” he scowled. “He kicked me out after only one day of not paying the rent!”
“Didn’t you go a whole month without paying rent?” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but he only thought his rent was late for one day.”
“When do you have to be out?” I asked.
“Midnight tonight. By the way,” added Kyle, “want to come to my keg party?”
Editor’s Note – This is a chapter from OHNO!THEROBOT Zine #9. There aren’t anymore copies of the original zine, but Ominocity happens to have a copy of the OHNO!THEROBOT Anthology, of which only 50 exist. Imagine that!
Oh yeah, the photos were taken by Chris and feature Montreal band Grand Trine at a house party in Halifax back in 2009.