Small Apartments

“If an Oscar were awarded every year for the most unique film, the most eccentric film, and the most unlikely-to-succeed-from-a-creative-perspective film, then …
Small Apartments
would be a shoo-in for all three …
Small Apartments
arguably the most unique movie of 2012.”

—Martin Liebman, Blu-ray.com

“
Small Apartments
is … a weird, oddly likeable, and strangely engaging little comedy about the imperfections of humanity and our inveterate need for connection.”

—Nathan Rabin, The Onion AV Club

“There’s a definite Coen brothers influence … Quirky is an easy word to describe
Small Apartments
, but the peculiar nature doesn’t undervalue the odd impact of this black comedy with occasional serious and poignant undertones.”

—Dan Bullock,
The Hollywood News

“If, like me, you dig the hell out of bittersweet, blackly comedic, quirky, intelligent, touching, character driven films, then
Small Apartments
could well be your new favourite movie.”

—Mass Movement Magazine
(UK)

“
Small Apartments
is a black comedy about a lot of black sheep. Almost echoing
A Clockwork Orange
with its garish domesticity, violent bursts and concrete stairwells, moreso it recalls Jonathan Carouette’s
Tarnation
or Hal Ashby’s
Harold and Maude
with their sense of ‘we’re fine, it’s just everyone else.’”

—Mark O’Connell,
Beige Magazine
(UK)

“From the beautifully weird performance of Lucas, to the darkly humorous, surprisingly emotional story,
Small Apartments
is set to be one of the sleeper hits of the year. A modern cult film.”

—Matthew Tilt,
Sonic Shocks
(UK)

F
ACE UP AND
smiling lay the warm, dead body of Albert Olivetti on the cracked, linoleum kitchenette floor of Franklin’s small apartment on the west side of Buffalo.

With a butter knife, Franklin tore open an envelope from the previous day’s mail and read the brief note scrawled onto the back of a Wal-Mart receipt for a hand-held tape recorder. It was Tuesday.

The note said: There are more where these came from.

Franklin tapped three fingernail clippings onto the lonely, simulated-wood table by the window of his apartment. It was another bizarre missive from his brother Bernard, who was crazy. There are more where these came from indeed, thought Franklin. But for how long? How did Bernard replenish his nails so quickly? His personal supply must be near exhaustion.

Three mailings per week made nine nails. Where did Bernard get all the money for postage? Did they have a postal desk at the psychiatric hospital where he was a resident? Franklin wondered if Bernard sent fingernails only to his brother. Perhaps there were others. Perhaps Bernard sent envelopes stuffed with fingernails and strange messages to his first love, Rebecca DeLeggio, from Miss Parson’s class at Grover Cleveland Elementary. What would prevent him from sending them to the clean-shaven, bald man with the profound stutter at the Rent-A-Centre on Hertel Avenue? Or even to the President of the United States, Himself.

Franklin sat in his underwear and wondered. His ample white belly spilled over his Fruit of the Loom waistband. He poked it and it jiggled. Franklin chuckled to himself.

Franklin assumed that he was the only one who received fingernail clippings and notes from his brother Bernard. But one must never assume, he thought. He was reminded of the lesson drummed into his brain in Miss Parson’s class. She would stand at the head of the class, her head like a wrinkled grape placed atop a stiff wool dress, and spell “
ASSUME
” on the blackboard, which was really green. She then circled three separate bits to make her point.

“When you
ASSUME
,” Miss Parson would say, waiting a beat for the class to drone out the refrain, “you make an ‘
ASS’
out of ‘
U
’ and ‘
ME’.”

“That is correct,” said Miss Parson.

FRANKLIN’S HOUND DOG
bit furiously at its ass.

Franklin heaved a heavy sigh, causing his white belly to quiver. His brother Bernard was insane. This was a fact, not an assumption. Franklin carefully replaced the clippings and the cryptic note and placed the envelope with the others.

Outside his only window, which was between the kitchenette and the living room, Franklin could see bits of his neighbourhood on Buffalo’s west side. It was late August and the leaves on the maple tree outside Franklin’s window were beginning to turn orange and red. Soon they would wilt and fall, giving Franklin a clearer view of the yellow building across the street where the pretty single mother and her daughter lived. The daughter was no more than fifteen, Franklin assumed (there was that word again), and the mother barely twice her age. Oh, how Franklin had lusted over those luscious ladies these last four years. Franklin had traveled around the world and back again with both of them, though they never knew it. For instance, Sunday afternoon, moments after they unloaded the groceries in front of their building, they were both in the bubble bath with Franklin, slipping and sliding and satisfying him, and each other. At least that’s how Franklin remembered it.

Franklin lived at 100 Garner. His building was slate grey with a rusty, red trim. There were three apartments, two on the first floor and one upper. The first floor studio belonged to Franklin and the one-bedroom next door was occupied by the irascible Mr. Allspice. The upstairs unit was another one-bedroom rented by a twenty-four-year-old pothead who called himself Tommy Balls. Franklin did not know the names of the girls across the street, so he called them 101 and Little 101 because that was the address nailed beside their door. Of course he never had occasion to call them anything, their names were exclusively for his own silent reference. Staring absent-mindedly at the numbers on the side of their yellow building made Franklin remember his visit downtown four years ago to the Department of Motor Vehicles. He handed his form to the young woman behind the counter with earrings in her ears, nose, eyebrow and, as Franklin was about to discover, her tongue. She looked over the application and said, “Is that Street, Avenue, what?”

“Huh?” muttered Franklin.

“On your application here for a driver’s license,” said the perforated state worker. “You wrote just 100 Garner on your form for street address. Is that 100 Garner Street, 100 Garner Avenue … what is it?”

“I don’t know. It just says Garner.”

“Where?”

“Where what?” replied Franklin.

“Where does it just say Garner, fool!” barked the young woman, flashing her studded tongue.

“On the sign,” said Franklin. He looked around behind him to the weary souls in line and gave them an expression that said, That was an easy one.

The young woman, ignoring Franklin’s victory smirk, took a black BiC medium round stic disposable pen from behind her ear and wrote “Street” on the address line after the word “Garner.”

Franklin had lived at 100 Garner—now 100 Garner Street—for four years. Before that he had lived with his brother Bernard, who was now officially crazy, for twenty-two years at 57 Ashland. Not Street or Avenue, just 57 Ashland. For all that time Franklin had never needed a driver’s license. It just never came up. But now that Bernard was crazy, Franklin was responsible for driving his own fat ass around Buffalo.

Back in 1A, Franklin’s first floor studio apartment at 100 Garner Street, the dog yawned. It was almost noon. Time for Franklin to turn his energies towards a much happier pursuit, his music. As he padded barefoot across the apartment, his belly swam back and forth, challenging the integrity of his elastic waistband. He picked up his alphorn, closed his eyes, inhaled deeply—his circumference expanding to a freakish degree—and blew. He blew a long, low eerie note. The dog howled as the apartment began to melt away like a ten-cent candle.

Franklin re-opened his eyes beneath the crisp blue skies of Switzerland. He stood atop a green, grassy hill in only his white underpants. The Nordic wind parted his hairy back. A flock of California condors, unique to Switzerland, sliced the air above Franklin’s head. The birds cast a long, v-shaped shadow which Franklin and his mighty horn stood at the centre of.

Picture frames on the wall began to rattle. Franklin’s teacup danced in its saucer as the boorish thumping of Mr. Allspice in 2A shattered Franklin’s vision.

“This is a residential neighbourhood you fat twit!” screamed Mr. Allspice. “I’m going to screw that horn into your fat ass!”

The cries from next door were muffled, but Franklin could hear them plainly enough. He set down the horn. Better to lay low, he thought, especially with the dead body in the kitchenette. He returned to his chair by the window and rubbed the throbbing bump on his head. He had banged it with such force that morning that it was now swollen and tender. When he ran his fingertips over the bruise it felt like his skull had bubbled up. I should ice this bump, he thought. He shuffled over to the icebox and removed a plastic tray—empty. He filled it at the sink, replaced it in the freezer, and returned to his aluminum-framed utility chair with the hard orange vinyl-covered seat and back. The small chair, with its skinny metal legs, looked incapable of supporting his gooey, 235-pound, 5’5” anatomy.