‘Melrose Place’s’ quirky troupe of tenants made life like a cabaret
In old Melville, in the late 90s, across the road from The Mixer was a block of flats called Viva Court, or as we called it, Melrose Place, after the Hollywood serial of the same name.
It was a small and intimate complex with three-point turn parking in a cramped lot, and the strangest collection of people that I had ever met.
But that is what memories are made of, and tales to tell are worthless if you cannot share. On the roof of Melrose Place, call it a penthouse, a French contract worker lived in converted staff quarters.
He was a ladies’ man extraordinaire and because the only access to his abode was via a steel-stepped fire escape, everyone could hear when he brought someone home. And everyone opened their doors to look. It was before phones could take pics, lucky for the Parisian. It was a busy staircase, and several residents also kept notches on their own bedposts on his behalf. Love was his contact sport.
Clothes tossing was a pastime of the young couple that lived on the first floor. The boyfriend, let us call him Mitch, was not a quiet kind of guy. He was a party animal who danced on tables, had one too many spliffs too often and, like Frenchie, struggled to stick to a single partner.
One day, his partner, we will call her Janine, had had enough. Mitch’s entire wardrobe, followed by every gift he had ever bought her, followed by plants and all manner of household items, rained down onto Seventh Street.
Everything went over the balcony, along with yelling so loud that the House of Coffees across the road had to turn up their music to mute Janine’s anger.
It was a happy shopping day for the less fortunate passers-by until, of course, a red-faced Mitch rocked up on the tarmac and started collecting whatever he could salvage.
It happened to be a Friday afternoon, and near every resident of the building congregated in a small shop downstairs called the Mad Cow.
It was the social spot for us all and run by an Ethiopian that we will christen Jake. He always had the low-down and was gossip central at Melrose Place. It was Jake who told us that Janine caught Mitch red-handed with a waitress who worked a block down the road.
Then there was Thabi. She was an accountant who loved champagne way too much. And after a bottle or two, she would claim the walk of shame to Frenchie’s penthouse more often that she cared to admit, but frequent enough for everyone to have noticed.
Then, there was Mike. He was a comedian who also loved to cause mayhem in the streets. But he loved Colombian marching powder way too much for his own good. His dealers used to deliver, and he ruined his life schnaaf by schnaaf. A CD collection of a few hundred got reduced to a handful as he sold it off at five bucks a piece to fund his next gram. As times got leaner between shows, he bought on credit.
Mike had to eventually flee the country, because he owed so much to the drivers, who owed the dealers, who owed some gangster, who was about to shatter Mike’s kneecaps. There was a time when he was in permanent hiding in the building, and everyone else took turns to do his shopping.
Then he fled to another country. But it did him good and cleaned him up. Today he is on another continent and the dad of several offspring.
Viva Court aka Melrose Place was an experience I will never forget, where rich gossip made workdays end with a grin along with a lot of sex, drugs and rock ’n roll, vocal blasting and curious people who would never ask to borrow a pinch of salt, but rather a shot of Tequila.