not testify against me . She agreed to say that since she was privy to so many conversations , she would forget about my benign threat .
I did not chill out when I saw Liam in person . Going out of my mind from noise torture , I had to be more forceful than usual . I resorted to a disguise . I wore a black wig and followed him into the lobby mail room . Because Liam could not open his mail box , I had time to figure out my best approach . Using another summer camp prank , I had put wire in his mail box key hole . I revealed my identity . “ If you do not turn off your air conditioner , this will be your life . I will scream at you whenever I see you . I will scream at you forever . You will have no peace . Not ever . All of your machines and electronic devices will torture you too .”
“ I can legally keep my air conditioner on . You can ’ t make me turn it off ,” insisted Liam .
I put my fingers around his neck using a circular configuration which did not touch him . President Bill Clinton did not inhale ; Professor Sondra Lear did not squeeze . We were cheek to cheek and chest to chest . Like a lover , I could feel him breathing . Love and hate are very close . Lucky for him , this was life — not art . I have read Leslie Fielder ’ s Love and Death in the American Novel . Fiedler , who had recently passed away , was on my dissertation committee when I was a graduate student at the State University of New York at Buffalo . Perhaps an intention to protect someone who was following in his footsteps as a maverick literary critic caused him to materialize in the lobby mail room .
“ Leslie , you ’ re dead . What are you doing here ?”
“ I put a great deal of effort into educating you . You are a prolific and needed a feminist science fiction scholar . Don ’ t throw away your life and your career . Sondra , disengage from this guy ’ s neck immediately ,” said Fiedler as he disappeared within the smoke of his trademark cigar .
Realizing that I should listen to one of the most eminent literary critics of the twentieth century , and appreciating the fact that someone who I had always emulated came back from the dead to order me to do the right thing , I realized that I was too close to Liam for comfort . He remained calm . Since I really did not want to choke him to death , I removed my hands from around his neck . I would later figure out why he could retain his composure during an attack . I immediately realized that Liam was not garden variety enemy . He could stand up to moi in full force fight mode . No one had ever before done so . I did not then know that I was using Sondra force against a United States military Special Forces officer . Sondra force has a limit ; a Special Forces officer is the limit .
The war continued . To disturb his sleep , I routinely climbed up on my bedroom dresser and banged pots together . I yelled at him through the bathroom air vent . I used the blood from my last period to smear a blood stain on a sheet of paper . I put the paper under his apartment door . This prank even shocked the door . Sentient doors do not menstruate . Nothing worked . The noise continued . Peace and quiet were no part of my life .
I will explain the history of this terrible situation . I will return to the past . I will describe Liam Muldoon ’ s predecessor .
Although I am a postmodern theorist , I never realized that I would ultimately define life as being post-Thwackaddle . Because she was very cheap , Mrs . Hilda Thwackwaddle , the widow who initially lived above me , never — even in heat emergencies to die from — turned on her air conditioners . My problems began when Mrs . Thwackwaddle died .
The post-Thwackaddle era to die from began when the new residents of her apartment enacted what was to me an equivalent of the shot heard around the world . Mrs . Thwackwaddle ’ s successors — Liam Muldoon , his svelte and snobbish Chinese Harvard business school