After I’d shared a cubicle with Alan for a few months, a young kid named Rico moved in to the cube next door.  Like me, he slept on the top bunk, and we shared an appreciation for pushing people’s buttons when we knew we could get away with it.  Rico had his favorite target in a large, one-eyed guy named Big Jim who was finishing up a twelve-year bid.  Big Jim and Rico worked the same detail, and while in some ways Rico regarding him as a father figure, in others he was like an older brother.  You’d never see a bigger smile on Rico’s face then when Big Jim was shouting at him or chasing him away because of something he’d said or done.  Rico’s pranks were usually childish and harmless: a favorite was to sit at the same table as Big Jim during dinner when there was something sought-after for dessert, such as a small piece of cake.  Rico would eat his entire meal, and then sit there staring at his dessert until Big Jim would finally ask if he could have it.  Inevitably, Rico would then destroy the dessert, either by pouring soda on it, or spitting on it, or covering it in pepper, before looking up and saying “Sure Jim, you can have it!”  To Rico, the shame of having the cake smashed in his face by an angry Big Jim was a small price to pay for getting the desired rise out of Big Jim.

Rico’s other favorite habit was to sit on his bunk and sing along with his walkman radio.  Unfortunately for those around him, Rico couldn’t carry a tune with a wheelbarrow.   He’d croon along while wearing his headphones, mangling or randomly changing the words and completely ignoring the song’s key.  At first I found this a bit annoying, although there was humor in it.  But soon I discovered that Alan hated Rico’s singing.  It drove him absolutely nuts, to the point that Alan would bang on the wall and shout at him to stop.  Of course, that did no good, because even if Rico could hear Alan over the music and his own singing, I highly doubt he would have quieted down.  If nothing else, he’d be more likely to sing louder.

One song in particular set Alan off like no other: the Barenaked Ladies song that goes something like “Another postcard with chimpanzees I never wanted, addressed to me.”  The local FM station we were able to get decent reception from seemed to play that song at least once an hour.  So I found I was able to relieve some of my suppressed resentment towards Alan by inducing Rico to sing along whenever the song came on.  Having discovered Rico’s love of M&M’s, all it took was three or four hard candy shells filled with sweet chocolate middles to start the performance.  Pretty soon Rico decided irritating Alan was even more fun than raising Big Jim’s blood pressure.  He no longer waited for the song to come on the radio; now he’d often walk over to our cube and ask Alan if he wanted to hear the “latest remix” of Chimpanzee, which consisted of the chorus repeated ad nauseam, broken up only by the occasional turntable “cutting” hand motion and Rico calling out “ch-ch-ch-check check check.”  I would try to surpass my laughter, but the sight or Alan’s pale skin turned bright red, clumps of thinning black hair in his clenched fists, and his teeth gnashing like we was a shark trying to bite through a line was usually more than I could stand.  I’d burst out in a fit of laughter, and Rico would run away to the sound of Alan’s curses.

I no longer cared much about having a friendly relationship with Alan by this time.  Any hope I had of feeling anything but loathing for him was crushed by his latest inappropriate habit: public masturbation.

(to be continued - watch for Part 3 in the next few days)