Crosstown: After Everything I’ve Done For You: The Absurd War Over a West Village Apartment
Darcy and Cole land their dream rent-controlled apartment, a cramped West Village jewel, perfect for unraveling emotionally and Instagramming desperation. But their peace evaporates when Tristan and Juan arrive, a queer couple with a militant Pekingese named AOC and a lease claim tangled in the mysteries of Omar, the elusive realtor-landlord hybrid who might hold every key in Lower Manhattan.
What starts as a housing dispute spirals into a hostage-art installation, a guerrilla war zone, and a sharp allegory for displacement, gentrification, and territorial conflict. Omar’s line—“He calls me the squatter, I call him the occupier, but the truth is, we both have keys”—cracks open the entire metaphor: this is about more than real estate. It’s the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 600 square feet.
Michael Arturo’s absurdist satire doesn’t just riff on queerness, urban survival, or rent hikes. It drills down into who owns the story of a place, who gets to belong, and what happens when peace is just a truce you can’t trust.
The characters fight over bathroom schedules and brunch spots while wrestling with centuries of history, identity, and power. The final punchline? A co-op vote—proof that gentrification is the slowest war of all.
No neat endings here. Just the uneasy truce of coexistence, a warning against erasing agents of conflict, and a militant Pekingese ready to enforce order.
Subscribe to Crosstown for the full breakdown of this dense, funny, and profoundly uncomfortable satire. Because sometimes the hardest thing isn’t choosing a side — it’s giving up the story that made you who you are.
“After Everything I’ve Done For You” concludes tomorrow, Friday.
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Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.
Get full access to The City Between Us at michaelarturo.substack.com/subscribe
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