The House Next Door
It was windy today.
I leave the front door ajar for Butters so that she can exit and enter when she needs to. It opened and closed with each gust and outdoor furniture slapped and thudded against the porch.
Butters is not brave, but what she lacks in courage she makes up for with volume. Startled barks peppered the morning and when startled turned to alarmed, I would go to the door and check that it was in fact just the wind.
I don’t always assume she’s barking at nothing – and try not to get frustrated at the nine out of ten times that she is.
After all, she’s guarding her territory. And, in turn, us.
No one needs to know she’s all bark and no bite. It’s comforting that she is on duty, albeit, over zealously most of the time.
One such zealous bark had me looking out the front door and that’s when I noticed the man in the road.
He sat past the nearest cross street – his legs out in front of him, in the dirt.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this at first glance. A jogger resting? No.
He looked like he was injured – perhaps wincing. His hand on one leg, his head moving back and forth.
Then I noticed a pattern to his movements and the repetitive motions made it clear he was having some sort of a seizure.
I called out to Nic – to come with me to see what was the matter. Then decided the man needed help quickly – threw my flip-flops on and headed out the door.
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I went through my gate, shut it and started toward the man.
As I passed by my neighbor’s house, I noticed that two men were outside working on their cars.
How are they not seeing this?
I continued past them and called out “Are you okay?”
As I got closer – a voice from behind me “Be careful.”
I turned to see one of the men looking toward me.
“He needs help …” I kept moving forward.
“That’s his brother.” The speaker thumbed in the direction of the other man.
Why are they not helping him??
I came closer to the man in the road. Noticed the spittle and drool on his chin, his denim shorts caked in dust, a sheen of sweat on his contorted face.
“Are you alright?”
I saw his eyes – wild and unfocused.
“He’s got mental issues.” A different voice.
“Well, he seems to be having medical ones right now – is he having a seizure? What can I do??”
The first speaker suggested ice water, and both men now had phones in their hands.
I assumed one of the men was my neighbor, but didn’t know which. I really only hear him, when he’s yelling at the children.
I don’t see much of the people living next to me.
Regardless of who was who, it appeared they were calling for help, so I turned to head back to my house for ice water.
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I found a cup I didn’t mind not getting back, filled Nic in on what was happening and headed back out the door.
I saw now that the man was no longer in the road and felt a little better.
Until I reached my neighbor’s house and saw what must have been the brother (my neighbor – the puzzle pieces were fitting now) yelling at him.
The man who was no longer in the road, still looked awful. Shaky on his feet and eyes still wild.
I didn’t understand why this was a good time to yell at him.
I held out the water and it was taken. I can’t recall who reached for it, but it ended up in the right hands.
“He needs help, not reprimanding!”
“He has mental problems.”
Again with this!
“Regardless of any mental problems, he clearly needs help!”
“Go back inside your house lady.”
It wasn’t said with any room for debate. My racing heart and hot body suddenly felt chilled. I had been dismissed and I was not to continue questioning or inserting my opinion.
Having had a past with these particular neighbors, and knowing what they’re capable of, I once more headed back to my house.
As I walked away, the man who was in the road said to me “I’m sorry … I’m sorry.”
The walk back was uncomfortable, surreal and daunting.
I felt like a child who had awoken to fighting in the house – seen someone they cared for being hurt, only to be commanded back to bed by the aggressor.
Helpless.
Small.
Submissive.
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Some time later, Butters started barking again. This time at my back door.
I peered out to see only a hand and the cup I had taken over earlier.
I told Nic to hold Butters and slipped outside.
It was the woman who lives in the house.
The one who yells at her children almost every night:
“GO TO FUCKING SLEEP!!”
The lullaby of dysfunction.
The one who told her children that daddy was trying to kill mommy – and then brought them back in the house.
The one who said she was leaving when she could, and never did.
As time has passed, I notice that she is an instigator in the chaos.
I am not saying she’s ‘asking’ for any of it – I just notice (from my couch, yes, she’s that loud) that she does the majority of the screaming and yelling.
So she’s standing on my back porch with the cup and for some insane reason, explains to me what had happened.
The man in the road had been staying with them for four months while he sobered up.
She explained with feigned ignorance of the topic “He does those rocks, you know, the ones you crush and smoke?”
Just say CRACK woman! I see your teeth, I know you know what it is!
He relapsed apparently and what I thought was a seizure was – but of a drug induced kind.
“We were trying to get him sober.”
“You know you can’t get someone sober? He’s going to have to want that for himself.”
I suggested a local mental health location in our town as a possible resource for her.
The whole time I stood there – holding my cup that now had crack saliva on it – and hating her. Hating her for having that man in an already horrible environment around her children.
“You should be careful – having him around your children.”
Oh God. I said that out loud.
She nodded at me – much like she did when I offered my home as refuge in the past. But I knew she wasn’t really listening to me.
I said I hoped things would be okay – and I meant it. She went down the steps and disappeared.
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I tell you this knowing my house is made of glass. I share my anger because I can, I have already been in their shoes.
My past is not perfect.
The difference is, I made a choice to change.
Even after I learned that the man in the road was there due to drugs, I hoped he would find help.
Even after I hear the woman screaming at her children, I tell myself “She’s lashing out at them because she is unhappy and feels powerless.”
Even when I hear her partner being violent in the house, I think “What horror must he have come from to end up so angry?”
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Nic and I had to leave the house to visit my parents shortly after the woman left.
I was uncomfortable leaving as there were repercussions the last time I spoke to her.
I decided they wouldn’t try anything in daylight and Butters could be trusted to deter anyone from entering the yard.
(I’ll admit, I fear for her too though. Who knows what they are capable of.)
In the car, we spoke of what happened.
“People like that should be wiped off the planet.”
“Nic, people can change … there’s a reason for their behavior. They were once children perhaps in that same environment. Besides, I’ve done drugs. I drank. And I changed. I chose good. “
I love that he knows this. I love that we can talk about anything. No skeletons in our closets.
“But you always had that in you.”
“Are you saying you think they’re inherently bad? Do you believe there are some people just born evil?”
“Yes.”
I hope not.
But I just don’t know.
My favorite quote by W.H. Auden comes to mind once again:
Sharp grasses
My mind buzzes like flying things – resting in sharp grasses.
A new thought becomes a rock, tossed into my nest.
Distruption – panicked flight.
In the air and frantically assessing!
Slowing to settle back onto ground
Bugs and Monsters
Just ate a bug.
I’m sat outside, with my coffee – reading and reach for my cup and … ate a bug.
Then I looked up (after not so delicately thrusting my finger in my mouth to fish out the foreign coffee additive) and suddenly felt very lonely.
I don’t do ‘lonely’.
I like my own company.
So let me tell you, this feeling was quite a surprise to me!
From spitting out an unidentified flying protein, to contemplating my shelf life.
Just. Like. That.
Ms. Independent will be Ms. Depends.
Tutting at ‘those kids today’ and shuffling around in house slippers.
Probably eating bugs and not even realizing it.
Good news is I’m good at ‘alone’.
Earlier a THUD came from my bedroom. Without even thinking about it, I calmly got up and went to investigate.
It’s seriously ridiculous how unafraid I am of bumps in the night. I’d make for a boring horror movie.
They’d start the ‘increasingly intense’ music, pan to me rolling my eyes and lazily getting up to check out the threat.
“Cut! Can you try to look concerned?”
“Yeah – sure.” *Sigh*
“ANNNND – ACTION!”
Thud. Eyeroll. Feigned mild concern.
“Cut!”
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Maybe it’s because I know monsters don’t live in the dark – and that people who mean you harm don’t wait for you to turn out the lights …
Or maybe, it’s because I’ve vanquished so many monsters that the only things that alarm me are bugs in my coffee – and the prospect of depends.
Monday Roadkill
“Have to remember to get gas.” I told myself this morning. I decided I wouldn’t do it on the way to work, but rather during my lunch hour.
Directly to work I would go.
Then this.
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I’m driving on the highway, which, in our town is 45 miles per hour as it’s pretty much ‘main street’ through several cities.
A desert highway with business and residential areas either side of the road for miles.
With a lot of stop lights.
I’m approaching a stop light when I see something in my lane just after the intersection.
Now, I’m a pretty decent driver. I haven’t had a ticket or accident in 28 years. When I was 16 I got a ticket for ‘inappropriate lane use’ (I should have fought that one – it was appropriate.)
And then there was the time I backed out of my parking spot in my private driveway and forgot my parents were in town.
I ended up hitting my moms parked Durango. No damage to her car, but I’m such a square, that I told on myself to my insurance company anyway.
Bottom line is – I’m cautious, aware, defensive and boring behind the wheel.
So I see this thing in my lane and I’ve gone over every scenario in my head an instant after assessing the traffic around me in each mirror.
‘Can’t drive around it – it’s illegal to change lanes in an intersection’
‘Must be something I can drive OVER because it’s there and I can’t be the first car to come across it’
‘Probably a plastic bag or a piece of cardboard’
The ‘thing’ was bright red – so I don’t know what store such a plastic bag would have come from. (Although, we do have two Adult ‘bookstores’ in town – so …)
I had only seconds to decide what to do and I chose to try straddling it and not switching my present course.
*CRUNNNNCHY DRAGGING NOISES*
This is a millisecond after I am on top of the damn thing and realize what it actually was.
I indicate, pull to the right and crunch my way into a shopping parking lot.
I then IMMEDIATELY turn the car OFF!!!!!!!!
The red thing was this:
Which is why it was very important that I turned the car to the non-explosive ‘off’ position.
So I’m on the side of a busy road – in a long peasant skirt, pink sweater and knee-high boots – and approach the rear of my PT Cruiser.
On my hands and knees I peer under the car to find the ‘debris’.
Gas container was bigger than I thought, and it would not come out. Not only would it not come out, but wouldn’t you know it? It actually had gas in it.
HAD gas in it.
Now most of it was on the ground … and my hands.
I tugged and tugged – it would not give.
I went to the side of the car. Maneuvered my hand underneath and grabbed hold – all the while thinking – I KNOW someone is seeing a woman on the side of the road, dressed nicely, on her hands and knees and NO ONE is stopping.
The thing finally pops out – I place the container in an upright position and pick gravel out of my knees with my gas soaked hands and return to my car.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, except for all the jokes I was making in my head.
Stupid jokes like:
‘Well, I did need gas’ and ‘Been a while since I’ve been on my knees’. (My inner joker has a dirty mind – I try to ignore her – but I was inhaling gas fumes at the time.)
I’m retelling this to someone I work with and she says: “I saw that on the side of the road!!!”
“Yeah, well, I’m the one who killed it.”
Musings from the Laundromat: Little Basket, Blue Ticket and Panty Lines
8:15 a.m.
The ground is wet outside from a recent storm that passed through our thirsty desert – the sky is clear, birds are singing – and I’m sat in an almost empty laundromat at a table that is always my 3rd choice to perch at.
There is a couple at the ‘umbrella table’. I regarded them as I stuffed two washing machines to their capacity. (I was stuffing mostly because I was too lazy to stop half way through and go back to the ‘Value Transfer Machine’ and add more money to my laundry card.) As I was doing this, another couple came in the back door.
“Still here huh?”
“Yeah” said the umbrella table couple.
I wanted to interject some sarcasm – but kept my head down and stuffed. Why do we do that? Confirm that people right in front of us are, in fact, actually there? Or ask acquaintances that we see in a grocery store or a bank “Hi! What are you doing here?”
8:30 a.m.
I noticed this little tiny laundry basket unattended when I first sat down.
Can you see it? Barely? That’s how little it is. I sat and wondered, while typing, who the owner of the basket was and how much laundry could possibly fit in it to warrant a trip here.
I mean seriously, compare the hangers to the basket and probably, what, only 5 shirts?
Mystery was solved for me.
There are now bags on the folding table as the owner of the little tiny basket returned.
That’s more than 5 shirts.
The basket was a red herring.
He’s back outside in his car now – not before bending over at the dryers and giving me an eyefull that made a very clear point that Mr. Little Basket needs a belt.
8:40 a.m.
Time to check my washing machines.
8:45 a.m.
They were finished. And I ended up making that trip to the ‘Value Transfer Machine’ after I also stuffed the driers and realized they would need more time to successfully dry my stuffings.
Why do I have so much laundry today?? Nic must have worn every pair of jeans, shorts and t-shirts he owned last week. OR (and this is probably closer to the truth) I’ve just washed clean clothes that somehow returned to his hamper.
I found these in his pockets – another mystery!
The receipt is for Carls Jr. – no mystery there – but the ticket! Hmmm … wonder when he got that. Is there a prize on the line? Or did it grant him access to a meal somewhere. And if it is food related, why is he going to Carls Jr. and blue ticket places without me?
8:55 a.m.
Okay, since I’ve shared about other’s laundry, I’ll tell you a funny story about me.
Yesterday I was getting dressed while half awake – and as I was walking from the closet to my master bathroom, I noticed something in the mirror.
You know I’ve been working out, and I’m actually seeing results. There are muscles on my belly where no muscles have been before. It’s really quite exciting.
So I’m walking – and noticing – and my eyes widen and I think “Oh! That is a LOT of definition!’
I got closer to the mirror and felt like a complete idiot.
Here is a photo of what I saw (only much blurrier in reality)
It was the string of my underwear.
Hey! From across the room it looked an awful lot like that ‘V’ I see on muscle-y people going from their hips on down!
I laughed pretty hard at that before I took the photo.
9:05 a.m.
Time to wrap this up and do the ‘Drier Dance’. This is when I snatch dry items out, while leaving the damp items in to continue on their tumble, and shuffle back and forth to the folding tables.
Oh! Thought you’d like to see how capable ‘Little Basket’ was of holding things.
This looks like a complete set of bedding!
Morals of today’s musings:
Never judge a man by the size of his laundry basket
If someone is right in front of you, they’re probably there
Underwear is not a muscle.
Debauchery Soup 