Won’t you be my neighbor

-to begin with-

Some of the most terrific* experiences in life are our neighbors. They come in such a wide assortment of flavors, eccentricities, abilities and decibels. They are after all, humans just like us but all to often, so very much not like us. Take what wisdom you can from each and every experience, like you should with everything in life. There are times it will be like a trip to a local fair that you have to sell your home below fair market value to get away from. There are times you will wonder if they’re invisible because sometimes their vehicle is gone and sometimes it isn’t, but you never see them. The proximity of strangers sleeping, or not sleeping near our homes can change us in ways we’d only expect family and war to do. Of course I’ve never been to war, I’m just guessing, but I do have family. This is dedicated to those neighbors that walk to the beat of a different drum. Sometimes figurative and sometimes literal. The ones that makes us pause regularly in the middle of what we’re doing and feel like we just swallowed a frozen treat too fast. Have you ever been walking from your car to the front door and hear or see your neighbor doing something so odd that you stopped mid step and just stared open mouthed. You find yourself parked in the middle of mowing your yard as you watch your neighbor, dressed in underwear only, having fisticuffs with two dogs in his yard. No? How bout this? It’s a cool evening at your apartment so you open your windows to enjoy the cool air. Then, through the screen, you hear your neighbors discussing with their teen children about how and when they were conceived. A pain pulls downward from your brain stem. It feels cold. Right then you swear you’re gonna start packing your things and move away, just as soon as they finish this story about the Motley Crue concert. -I do wanna say that all of this is mostly true but not all the same neighbors-.

Recently I was walking to my front door from the car and heard what sounded like an 8 cylinder small block trying to escape from its vehicle while skipping through the forest. I looked back and there is my neighbor driving backwards down his driveway with obvious malicious intent towards what’s left of the asphalt that’s desperately trying to be a driveway. Mr. Neighbor cuts the engine and has one foot out before fully stopping. The door falls open and out he jumps armed with an axe. A tornado of rust and dust swirling around him like a bodyguard on alert for any trouble. It’s honestly hard to tell if it came from inside or outside of the truck like vehicle. My left eyebrow raises involuntarily with a fight or flight and WTF response. He swaggers up to the mailbox pointing an Adam’s apple and bony, accusing finger at it. I’m trying to make out what he’s saying when he suddenly swings the axe down on his mailbox as though he caught it on a date with his wife. Splinters are flying through the air. The metal bill & message portal is being bent and riddled with gashes and dents from the axe. Somewhere a postman is suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and has no idea why. The mailbox is soon lying on the ground, never to date again. He picks up the adulterous, splintered and defeated postal corpse and throws it in the back of his truck. He slides back into the cab of the truck and the driveway seemed to inhale both man and truck back up to his house. All of this only takes about 53 seconds. I stood there blinking at the splintered mailbox nub sprouting from the earth. I turn and look up at the address on my front door hoping I’ve made a mistake and I’m at the wrong house. I’m not, so I step inside, dizzy with the world and it’s inhabitants that make me feel better about myself but scared for my children.

Right now I want you to picture in your mind the neighbor you have that this relates to. See them in your mind. Say their address to yourself. Say their name if you know it. Their voice is the reason you can’t sleep with your windows open.  Just yesterday she was outside chasing and screaming at the squirrels to stop torturing her and to leave the bird feeders alone, at 2:13am. After dinner, you and the fam take a walk around the block to enjoy life. And look, there they are passing a brick of what you now know is weed -not a homemade loaf of bread- out of their car window to someone parked next to them. You can’t tell how you know this, obviously, because you know that’s how you get shanked. If you can’t remember ever having one of these neighbors, then quite possibly you’re that neighbor. Or maybe once upon a time you were this neighbor.  Remember that day you went outside and had it out with the contractors that dared to do work at your neighbors home at 11am? That day you were working through an entire cake and every season of The Great British Baking Show. You’re awakened at 4:30 am one ,or I gotta to someone yelling. You get up and go outside and stare at this person that’s screaming a name over and over. They see you staring at them and ask,” hey man, have you seen a dog out here?” There is no answer besides what will lead you to prison, so you say nothing and go back inside.

We can all have an occurrence like this but that’s not what I’m speaking of here. I’m talking about the ones that are chronically off kilter, with chronic often being a double entendre.  And entendre almost always meaning completely out of their minds and completely unaware of any of it. II’ve found there is usually at least one of these neighbors in every neighborhood. Sometimes you’ll get super lucky and have one everywhere you live. If not then I hope you have an exuberant neighbor at least once in your life just so you can appreciate life more. If not, then you unfortunately have less to complain about, fewer dinner table stories and that isn’t fair at all. A lot of awesome stories begin with; so, let me tell you about my neighbor. Of course, so do migraines.

 To those neighbors that pay no mind to the guidelines of culture, balk at lines drawn in the sands of couth behavior; the world needs you. Most of us don’t realize it, but you, amongst everyone, knows this to be true. You have to know this, otherwise I don’t understand your blind conviction to tune chainsaws at midnight. Some, nay, many, may challenge this but deep down, in the tobacco stained and alcohol marinated cockles of your heart, you realize you do what you do for the greater good. You fill the void that most won’t dare go near. If there is darkness, you will fill it with light. From your 1987 Chevy-Ford-Dodge looking truck, you boldly point your rows of halogen L.E.D. deep space exploration headlights towards bedroom windows at 2 am. I have resorted to sleeping between the mattress and box springs to stifle the light of Earl. I’m not sure how you manage to make us all feel as though we are the only bedroom window you are choosing but I know it’s greatly under appreciated. No burglar or vagrant would dare cross that path. And if they did, they would be disassembled molecularly via light. A metal halide death. Thank you for keeping us safe all night.

If there is silence you will overcome. When the last of us in the neighborhood have laid our heads down on our pillows, you will let us all know we are safe and that none may pass by firing every caliber weapon into the early morning hours. All while standing between every 8 cylinder Chevy Scottsdale truck with half finished race car engines you and your family owns. You’re noise frees us from the sins of stagnation. We all collectively give a sigh of relief as we look at the clock and read 3am knowing there can’t possibly be any intruders or additional ne’er-do-wells anywhere around. Not even the sandman ventures this way anymore thanks to your unceasing vigilance.

Occasionally we take turns standing outside on our porches, shaking our fists and screaming towards you to take a break and give someone else a chance to watch over us. Perhaps silent baby Jesus. You’ll simply remain oblivious, unable to see or hear past the end of your Busch Ice 24oz. Also likely due to all of the noise you make 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We secretly talk about how we could have you sent somewhere you’d be more appreciated. Some of us have suggested taking up a collection and buying you a home in Hell, California where you and the Prince of Darkness could battle for control of the night and the damned.

Who else but you would know that throwing 2x6x10 boards off the roof of your house at 11:21:46am, 11:21:48am, 11:29:43am, 12:13:34am, 1:41:35am, 3:15:12am and 4:15:00am are the most effective times for producing as much resonance as possible? I lie awake wondering if the work is easier during the witching hours. And then I wonder if you might be a witch that needs to be drowned. Now you’re cutting the boards up with some sort of electric saw. With a very dull blade. If pressed I might admit that on occasion I have said small prayers that there isn’t too much midnight dew on your roof that could cause you to slip and fall to your quiet demise. And then maybe a short giggling fit at the thought of that righteous vengeance. At least until an explosion outside scares both my bladder and that short lived dream away. Again.

I have come to certain conclusions. A small catharsis. I now realize that before you, I was wasting a good portion of my life. I think on all those nights I used to sleep away 6 hours or so of my life, every night, getting nothing accomplished but the reparative REM cycles. Now that time is filled listening to the cacophonous meth induced music that you create every day and night. You’re a true artist in the mediums of light, noise and behavior modification. Pavlov has nothing on you. If I ever start getting sleepy I simply play sounds of chainsaws or amateur rusty race cars revving up and down and then exploding. It’s better than coffee but leaves a bad aftertaste. I’m now able to be awake so that I can see and hear each and every second pass. Before I was only aware of the hour hand on clocks. Now I get to witness the tumultuous second hand as it counts down my ever growing past. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Life will no longer sneak past my unconscious self. Without your presence and presents, I never would have been able to witness my sanity take on a corporeal form, gesticulate wildly and then storm out the door with both of my pillows.

I, and several other neighbors have mapped out our entire neighborhood with all of the quickest and quietest ingress and egresses to your home in case anyone ever needs to quickly and quietly bring you a gift. Perhaps another box of tannerite, just in case, or some extra black powder for your cannon. My wife doesn’t like that the blueprints take up our dining room walls but she understands the eventual need to bring you a final gift to say thank you for keeping us woke for more of our lives. It now sounds like your car is dead so I could bring you some gasoline. I only have glass bottles so I’ll fill those up. I don’t have caps to keep gas from spilling out so I’ll use these rags. And since it’s so dark outside I’ll light the rags so that you can see them better when I toss them to you. Sorry if I throw to hard. My wife says I don’t know my own strength. I can honestly say that without my neighbors I wouldn’t appreciate the absence of things near as much, such as peace of mind, sanity, and happiness. I also never would have made a list of the pros and cons of prison. And certainly not 47 times. You’re not the neighbors we want, nor the neighbors we deserve but you sure are the ones we have. At least until our loan application goes through. Then we will load the moving trucks and spin the roulette wheel to see which hellish manifestation of humans we receive next. Amen

*I use the word terrific with its first known use in mind. From the Latin terrificus, from terrere to frighten. -exciting or fit to excite fear or awe // a terrific thunderstorm. This wasn’t necessary to add in but it made me happier to have it. So, there it is.