It’s nearly one a.m. and sleep avoids me like the ex-girlfriend I once stalked in college. The mice in my kitchen have reached a new level of audacity as they hold their third rave this week. I wouldn’t mind so much, but they never buy ecstasy and what… still no invite? Mental note to self: see Lenny the landlord and break his kneecaps.

It’s during these late hours that misery comes knocking. His name is Brett and he lives down the hall. I owe him twenty bucks and half an onion so he figures now is a good time to collect as any. He doesn’t need the money, or the onion, just someone to annoy until he gets the sleepy-sleeps. I decline his offer to enter my apartment and speak to him through a securely chained door because once admitted he won’t leave until I threaten to call his granny. He is a bit offended by my poor hospitality, but I appease him by complementing him on his new pajamas with matching bunny slippers. My kind words are of course insincere, but he is nevertheless overjoyed and breaks into a little Scatman Crothers soft-shoe shuffle. He is left cold in the darkened hallway as I slam the door in his face.

Two seconds later, on cue, he angrily pounds on my door demanding an onion or other bulbous vegetable of equal weight and flavor. I ignore him, hoping he will go away or at the very least be felled by an acute aneurysm. He only stops banging when the large bearded woman in 4C begins hollering. Brett hurriedly whispers, through the crack at the bottom of my door, a parting "Up yours!" and I hear him and his new bunny slippers scamper back to his hutch before Big Bertha throws him in a chokehold.

Brett and I have what you would call a love-fear relationship. He loves me, as in, man-wants-to-hump-man-love and I fear him. We moved in the building on the same day three years ago. He held the door for me when I was carrying some stereo speakers and I haven’t been able to shake him since. He visits me, or tries to, a few times a week, but I have yet to see the inside of his apartment. I got as far as his darkened doorway, but a six sense told me to retreat when I saw some mannequins in his living room holding martini glasses and frozen in small talk. Brett is harmless I suppose, but my eyes linger a little longer then the average person when I come across police sketch artistry of serial murderers. Fortunately, he is easy to identify. He looks a lot like B.B. King, except white and gay.

It’s a dark and hellish hour in my kitchen – a moth spars with a bare light bulb just above my head, an insolent cockroach lethargically does the backstroke across a filthy saucepan, the floor is stickier than a Chinatown porn theater. I check the mousetraps before giving sleep one more try. All present, accounted for and untouched, except for one trap where the aerosol spray cheese is missing and replaced with a neatly folded dollar bill.

A quick trip through the refrigerator leaves me unimpressed: milk, nineteenth century spuds and triple-A batteries with no corresponding appliance. I settle for a pair of Rolaids, a glass of lukewarm tap water infused with sea monkeys and double down on the sleeping pills, knowing I will be fully paralyzed when my alarm goes off in a few hours.

The trouble with chronic insomnia is not so much the permanent state being tired. The real problem is that I am awake and therefore miserable for longer periods of time than the average New Yorker. I take some consolation in the fact that many of the world’s great minds were also insomniacs such as Napoleon, Thomas Edison and Mr. Benjamin Franklin to name a few. Unfortunately, I’m also reminded of some not-so-brilliant insomniacs like Marylyn Monroe and Brett from down the hall.

Outside my window all is quiet in the East Village except for the hum of the tattoo parlors, the tinkle of breaking glass, a few passing taxis, souped-up Harleys, ambulance sirens, fist fights, police car screeches, Celtic marching bands and kitty cats being eaten by feral pit bulls.

A sudden snap-crack sound coming from behind the refrigerator can only mean one of two things: I have slain a mouse or lost a quarter ounce of Cheese Wiz. I soon find myself both pleased and appalled that a young mouse, nearly hairless, is caught in a trap – the one that held the neatly folded dollar bill. Eerie. He looks like a pencil eraser from a novelty shop and is still very much not dead. After a quick physical examination I realize his patella is shattered and his condition, grave. There is only one course of action to take when confronted with injured, squealing, money-hungry vermin: First, scoop into plastic bag without making physical contact. Second, beat bag and contents against kitchen wall until squealing stops. Third, dispose of bag in proper receptacle or toss out window whichever is closer. Notify next of kin.

I now feel like I will sleep until Thursday morning, which just happens to be in a few hours. Wild thoughts trip across my brain as my head sinks into the pillow… Hell’s Angels playing hopscotch. "Who the fuck stole the potsy!" Knives are drawn. Villages plundered… Who would win in a fight? A narwhal or a unicorn? …A narwhal or a salamander? I guess it would depend on the venue. Location is everything.