My neighbor grunts. A lot. To call it a grunt, however, doesn't really do it justice. Maybe growl—or even bark—would be more accurate. Want to know what these noises sound like? Here, try this: imagine if somebody (for this exercise, it might be helpful if the "somebody" was the type of "somebody" you might find at a biker bar in Montana) were attempting—very enthusiastically—to imitate a bear. No, that's not quite it. How about Frankenstein . . . no, no, too human. Ah, I know: a werewolf. Imagine he's trying to imitate a werewolf. Now, I don't know exactly what a werewolf would sound like, so largely, this exercise is something open to interpretation. But I think it paints a pretty good conceptual picture of what we're talking about here.

I hear the noises mostly at night, when I'm doing my stretches. I do my stretches on the floor of the long narrow hallway upstairs. A long, narrow hallway that, no doubt, butts up against my neighbor's long, narrow hallway. I do these stretches on a thin air mattress used for camping. I position the mattress just outside our bedroom door so I can use the door frame as a prop to stretch my hamstrings, one at a time. When my ears are next to the hardwoods, my leg up against the door frame, the sounds of my neighbor's growls are difficult to miss. Because believe me, I do try to miss them. Because they sort of scare me.

There are several possible explanations as to why my neighbor makes these sounds. At first, I was worried they might have to do with sex. I say "worried" for three reasons. First, and most importantly, with the possible exception that one day I might find myself living next to Salma Hayek, I can honestly say that I don't want to be privy to my neighbor's sex life. Ever. In my many years of apartment dwelling, it's happened on more than one occasion that I've accidently heard the stray moan or scream. And no matter who it is, it's just weird. And creepy. It makes for awkwardness when you run into them outside. It's one of the reasons I like to sleep with a fan on or the A/C running—to drown out background noise like that. The second reason I was worried about the sounds being sex is that they were never accompanied with the sounds of another person, which would only imply that the sex was being had with himself. And that would multiply the creepiness factor by several times. Third, if these were the sounds he made while having sex—either with himself or with somebody else—I'd hate to hear the sounds he made while sick to his stomach or dying.

Which brings me to another possibility: he is ill. For a while, this definitely ranked up there high on my possibility index until I began to realize that these sounds weren't a "temporary" condition. They have continued for some time. And I suppose this could signify some kind of chronic condition, but I've sort of ruled that out because, as I've begun to notice, the noises are far too ludicrous and affected to be anything serious.

So that leaves a couple of other possibilities:

• He plays X-Box, and he grunts and growls each time he loses or does something stupid (which evidently is a lot).
• He's watching some kind of sport and expresses his frustration vociferously when his team loses (which again, seems to happen a lot).
• He's drunk (I know. You get it . . . a lot).
• He is indeed practicing to be a bear, Frankenstein, Big Foot, or a werewolf for Halloween. If this is the case, I really admire his dedication since Halloween is still a good ways away.
• He's not practicing at all. He is a werewolf.

Now I don't mean to poke too much fun here. I mean, there might actually be some logical explanation for all of this. And maybe it is something serious, in which case I'd feel kind of bad. I mean, I make noises in our house all the time. Noises which are natural, but nevertheless if other people heard them out of context, they might be disgusted or offended, or both. They might think somebody was ill, or dying. Certainly the word "unwell" might come to mind. When I sing, for instance. This is one noise that could certainly be mistaken for some serious sickness. I also tend to carry on conversations with myself. Most often these conversations involve some coding problem I'm working out in my head, but there is usually at least one conversation a day about poop. And I'd be really embarrassed to know anybody was listening in on one of those. Which is why—given the fact that I live in a row house—I use my "inside voice" at all times. Because if I didn't—if I spoke loudly—then I'd realize that almost anything I uttered could be heard by anybody on either side of me or—if I'm near an open window—across the street, even.

And maybe he realizes this too, my neighbor. And maybe he just wants to make me think he's a werewolf. Well, it's not working. Because werewolves don't exist. I'm almost 100% positive.

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