Who is Claptrap? Part 2

April 2008
I am living alone in a two-room apartment. I earn enough money to pay the entire rent myself, but I have 20,000 dollars in college loans, and paying for two rooms is a waste of money. I need to find a reliable roommate, but among my circle of acquaintances only Charlemagne is looking for a flat. My landlady, who is trying to pay her daughter's way through university, is greedy and honest. She is acquainted with the British owner of a language school I worked at previously, so she knows what an English teacher in Moscow gets paid, and charges a correspondingly high rent. She knows that I cannot pay the rent alone indefinitely, that I trust no one and don't want to move, and that if she finds another foreigner to pay for the empty room, she will have a steady stream of income.
June 2008
I decide to go to walk the length of the Pyrenees, but don't want to lose the apartment, so someone needs to rent at the very least one of the rooms. Charlemagne is getting threatening letters of two types: one is from Home Credit Bank, is addressed to the absentee landlady, and threatens to repossess her apartment if she does not make her payments; the other type is from the landlady and threatens Charlemagne with expulsion if he does not pay for imaginary damage he has caused- scratched floor, water damage, broken pipes... So I invite Charlemagne to live in the flat while I am hiking the Pyrenees- he pays the rent and I do not lose the apartment while I am living my dream. Afterwards, Charles is to leave and find another place to stay.
August 2008
I come back from France, and find out that Charlemagne never moved in to the Soviet-style apartment, because "I am not a russianigger, and can have nothing less than European decor." He never had any intention of informing me of this. It is by the grace of God that my landlord and landlady have not decided to simply throw me out. I need to find a roommate. I begin searching by posting ads in expat sites; the only taker is a Canadian omnisexual who has orgies once per week. "Don't worry, after three or four hours, we're all worn out, and I make them leave."
Claptrap has finally broken up with his girlfriend, and is looking for a place to live. He is the only taker. I ask him several questions:
"Do you drink?"
"I like to have a good time."
"Will it be a problem? Because if it is, I will throw you out."
"Don't worry, I can keep it under control."
"Do you smoke?"
"Yes."
"Ok, fine, can you do it outside or on the balcony?"
"Yeah, it's no big deal."
"Are you loud?"
"Not particularly. I don't like loud music or anything like that."
"I know you get prostitutes sometimes. You can do that and it's fine with me as long as it you do it away from the apartment."
"Yeah, that's pretty dangerous bringing them home, it's not really my style."
"You have to understand that if you bring them home I will throw you out."
"Of course, we'll shake on it."
"Ok. The rules are clear then. Let's shake."
"Deal."

Claptrap's First Sunday at the Flat
Tamara spent Saturday night at my place, and the next day at around 10 we wake up to the sound of blaring country music. Claptrap is in the kitchen, sitting on the windowsill on the fourth floor with all four panes facing outwards. Liter cans of Tuborg Green, and 33cl of American Busweiser, are lined up on the sink. His state does not bely drunkenness, though- he is exuberant, ranting about freedom, and debt, how he needs to get back home to Michigan and do some huntin' 'n' fishin', he is screaming yee-haw, ninja cowboy. I tell him he should go to sleep, and in an ecstasy he tells me we are going to win in Iraq, after all, and that Cousin Bubba sells spring retrofits to make the M60s fully automatic.
The M60 is a US-produced machinegun which is a direct descendant of the Wehrmacht's MG42, which is in service to this day with the Bundeswehr, often with the swastika crossed out; its rechristenment as MG3 is a figleaf from behind which the outloud nickname Hitler Saw crimsonly juts. The American M60 is small enough to be carried by one man, but powerful enough to be mounted to the open doors of transport helicopters landing in the jungle.
Tamara is visibly confused but amused by this behavior, as Claptrap is acting like a complete child. Periods when I try to impart reason to beings not susceptible to it are an unhappy refrain in my life, and a naive desire to grasp and resculpt this particular black hole in a shape corresponding to a hologram of myself begins to accrete.

Incident One: Early October 2008
I spent a week working hard at making my students speak better English, eating between classes at the 45 Seconds Crepe Shop, racing into the school to keep in touch with my parents, and earning good money. Then, after that week was over, I did the laundry and the dishes, cleaned my room, went with Tamara to the park. Then a new week started, and on Tuesday I come home from work and go to sleep. At midnight, around one hour after going to sleep, I hear the door to the stairwell being unlocked from outside, then cautious footsteps, and the clinking of a multitude of glass bottles. The door closes and locks, the footsteps lead past my room and then into his. I hear a hiss as one of the bottles opens. Twenty minutes later, I hear another hiss, and twenty minutes later another one, and so on. I fall into an uneasy sleep. At around 2am, I hear the heavy thud of a man falling to the floor, shattering plates, then abject anthropoid moans. I am cheap and never do anything that costs me money, so I laugh a bit thinking about how we will pay for this.
Around 4am I hear a stentorian shattering originating from the bathroom, followed by a prolonged groan evoking dull pain. I again go back to sleep.
At 645am, I wake up and go to brush my teeth and take a shower. I open the door and see the ceramic sink lying shattered on the floor; there are shards everywhere. I feel an anger well up inside me, but I have to make it to my first class so I decided to have the discussion later. I take off my clothes, take a quick shower, get dressed, and as I am walking out in bare feet, I step with the full weight of my body on the jagged edge of porcelain, which slices through the thick skin on the outside of the ball of my foot next to the right big toe. A large quantity of blood exits my foot, and I run into the kitchen to find a paper towel to stop the bleeding. The kitchen is littered with juice cartons and around a dozen empty bottles of beer. I can't find anything to stop the bleeding, so I take a t-shirt and mop the blood up; there is a considerable amount of blood on the floor.
The rage overtakes me and I limp and stride, limp and stride, limp and stride, and then surge righteously through the chocolate-colored French doors to Claptrap's room. I scream at him to get dressed and get the fuck out of the apartment. He is laying in bed on his side as if he were crouching and shielding himself from the rain with a thick blanket, from beneath which he mutters aloud that I should get out of his house. I scream again, and directly to my right on the couch next to me I see someone stirring from beneath another blanket. It is Dana, an American teacher from central Michigan. She has passed out as well; I look around the room and see several more beer bottles on the table in the middle of the room. I keep screaming at him, this time in German, which he takes as proof that we have something in common. I go to my room and take an old shoe, completely loosen the laces and put my foot in, find the keys, and walk outside.