My Stinky Room

I now know why people move to East Moofongong, New Hampshire in a cabin with no television set, no furniture, no place to shit...

...and no neighbors.

Yesterday morning, at 6:55am in the pouring, cold rain, I was screamed at by an overweight, blonde woman who was wearing black stretchpants and some kind of small trash bag on her head. I had my two dogs with me, and, in my right hand I was clutching a bag full of their combined feces.

"HEY, (my name)!"

I was standing across the street from her, wearing one of those Gilligan bucket hats-- so I didn't look so chill myself, I don't mind admitting.

"Yes?" I said.

"HAVE YOU BEEN HERE LONG?!" she shouted across the street at me. High school kids were waiting for the bus at the corner in a cluster, and one or two turned to watch us. Great, I thought, an audience. Or maybe, actually, witnesses.

I didn't know what she meant by "Have you been here long?" Did she mean "in this neighborhood?" Because, no, it hasn't been too terribly long-- we moved here last February. If she meant "in this town" then, yeah, I've lived in this town my whole life. But her tone didn't seem to jive with some innocuous casual inquiry about my life's story. I didn't really want more information, but I felt that I needed more information to accurately answer her question.

"What?" I asked. Good, Apron. Prompting and probing questions-- just like you learned in grad school. Very good.

My neighbor freaked, gesticulating wildly to the general area surrounding her house.

"HAVE YOU BEEN OVER HERE!? HAVE YOU BEEN HERE IN MY STINKY VIOLETS?!"

I froze in place. This conversation had officially descended somewhere unfamiliar to me, and unsettling. I'm no horticulturalist, and I don't know what Stinky Violets are. I know what Stinking Bishop is-- it's a kind of cheese referenced in "Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit." But Stinky Violets? Wouldn't know them if I snorted them.

Which I didn't.

Not knowing how to respond to this question/tirade, I just stood there, looking at her. Her trash bag headpiece was starting to fly off in the wind.

"HAVE YOU BEEN IN MY STINKY-ROOM?!" she roared, pratically apopleptic.

Uh-oh. I was no longer sure that this wasn't a nightmare. I suddenly wished that I was a teenage girl, outfitted with a minican of mace and/or a rape-whistle.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I replied calmly.

"NO?! YOU DON'T?!"

"No. I don't."

All of the kids at the bus stop were now looking at us, probably placing bets. She cocked her head and stared at me for a moment before shouting,

"WELL THEN GOD BLESS YOU! GOD BLESS YOU, FOR YOU ARE MY SON!"

I stared at her, my mouth agape.

"SEE YA LATER!" she yelled, and walked back into her house where, I can only presume, all of the walls are covered in feces, shaving cream, and egg-yolks.

Walking back into the house I unhooked the dogs and announced, "Well, we can add one more house to the list of places/people/things/animals I need to avoid on our morning walk."

When I leave my house in the morning to walk our two dogs, I have to immediately duck with them into the back of the house to avoid a potentially volatile confrontation with the guy who owns the muzzled black dog and the cairn terrier who is, without a doubt, on crystal meth. This little dog, this Toto, this crazy fucking fuckhead could eviscerate a German Shepherd in a matter of seconds if the two were left in a room alone together. His snarling, wretching, growling, gnashing can be heard from streets away. And he hates my dogs. Maybe he hates anything and everything that isn't his meth dealer. Maybe, though, it isn't meth. Maybe he's into steroids. Maybe he's got the Roid Rage. Whatever it is, I avoid him, his foaming, muzzled, black compatriot, and the asshole owner who still insists on walking past my house at precisely the same time I have to leave in the morning before Molly steam-pisses our rugs.

Walking down our back-alley is also something I try to avoid, because the mixture of feral alley-cats, squirrels dive-bombing into trash-cans and obsessive-compulsive birds beaking themselves to death on trees and poles is enough to drive poor Molly, a mere 9 months old into an absolute distracted panic. A fluttering leaf falling from a tree is enough to transfix her and make her forget why we are outside in the first place: pissnshittime.

If I walk past Cliff's house, it's invariably when he's leaving for work, and this often results in a fifteen minute conversation, during which I fantasize about removing both of my eyeballs with my bare hands and inserting them into Cliff's mouth to get him to shut the fuck up. Cliff's a jovial, no worries kind of guy, and that type of person drives me nuts. When I talk to Cliff, I think, "Isn't he going to be late to work?" and, if he is, what excuse does he proffer to his employer?

"Oh, sorry I'm late Mr. Stuffnstuff, I just had to talk my neighbor's balls off about the dogwood tree on my front lawn. Won't happen again."

"At this rate," I said to my wife in the kitchen, "I'll have to walk the dogs on the fucking roof."

Of course, it's leaking, so that's probably not such a hot idea. And, besides: what would the neighbors say?

Tales of Suburbia: Leaves Me Alone

One day, my neighbors will probably call the police on me. It's pretty much inevitable.

First of all, our houses are all really superfrickingclose together, so chances are pretty good that my abberant behavior will not forever go unnoticed, even when inside my heavily mortgaged walls.

I play obscure Gilbert & Sullivan operettas on the phonograph (and not the normal ones, like "The Mikado" and "H.M.S. Pinafore"-- I'm talking about the ones only the hardcore buck-toothed gits know, like "Utopia, Ltd," "Ruddigore," or, if I'm in a really oddball mood, "The Grand Duke"). Not only do I play these on a phonograph, I do so loudly. And I always sing along, too. And I do so loudly.

Sometimes, when I'm in a playful mood, I can be seen (well, hopefully not seen) leaping about in various stages of undress, prancing around like a lemur, screeching in a high-pitched tone, eyes bugged, for no real reason other than boredom. Sometimes I just sit around at the computer and shout profanities when blog material doesn't come to me effortlessly.

It seems to help.

While my neighbors may think I have a personality disorder, or Tourrettes Syndrome, or a closed head injury, they don't bother me much-- and maybe it's because of that. This morning, I was out front raking leaves and laughing my ass off. My dog, who I routinely tie to the iron bannister while I'm outside, watched me demurely as I scooped up huge armfuls of wet leaves and dumped them into the bag, only to see about 75% of the leaves fall to the pavement again as the bag crumpled and shifted under their weight.

"AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!" I roared in hysterics. "Is this what my life has become!? Jesus fucking Christ!" I screamed to the clouds above.

I have no doubt that somebody would have called the police, if the rest of the residents on my block-long street hadn't been at work or AA meetings. I mean, I admit it, I'm strange-looking. Thanks to the show I'm in, the oddity that is me is only now compounded by a walrus-moustache and side-burns that would only look appropriate on a steampunk artist or Civil War colonel. And there I am, laughing, in corduroy pants, a dress shirt and sweatervest as I ineptly rake leaves. While my dog's tied to the steps, watching me, thinking, "No, that's not my Daddy."

I wonder which neighbor's going to narc on me. It'll probably be Kathy who lives next door. I can tell she doesn't like me. She thinks I'm queer, in every sense of the word. I know it. And that's okay. I think she's a passive-aggressive bitch. While I was conversing with her the other day, she clipped an overgrowth of hedge right in front of me, while we were talking. My hedge. As if to say, "You are too irresponsible to do this yourself. Faggot. Shall I come over and dust and Febreze and maybe wipe your faggot ass for you, too?"

At first I thought she was nice, and helpful. Pointing out poison ivy that was growing in our yard, and giving us a bottle of poison ivy killer to get rid of it. Then she started to get manipulative, and condescending. I mentioned to her that we were having some stumps removed from our flower bed.

"Oh, good," she remarked, "then you can finally do something in there."

Really? Maybe I'll come over late one night with no pants on and do something in your flowerbed, honey.

I guess then she'd definitely be the one to call the police on me.

I'm not altogether thrilled with the people on my street. Sorry, Mr. Rogers, but it's just not working out. The Asian family never says "hi." Ever. I even rang their bell one night to let them know that they'd left the lights on in their CR-V. All the woman said was,

"Oh no! Hurry hurry! I fix! Oh no, no, no!"

You might remember the guy in the black Passat wagon. He yells at his kids and his dog. A lot. One day, I hope I don't have to call the police on that angry, bald humptyfuck.

I don't like the self-described "part-time accountant, part-time comedian" because he's very nosey, and, one day, I saw him standing on the corner dressed in some sort of full-bodied, furry mascot costume. And, when you're sixty years old, that warrants a call to the police, just by itself.

I do like the elderly gay man who wears glasses with plum-hued lenses, tweed sports jackets and cologne. When he talks, his turkey neck flaps around wildly and his capped teeth gleam in the sun. He's married with four grown children, and he's gayer than Oscar Wilde's neckerchief collection. Unfortunately, I don't interact with him much. He doesn't rake his own leaves.

Life in suburbia has its challenges, and I think, the more I live her, the greatest challenge I'm going to face is making it without getting the cops called on me. In the city, you can deal drugs to children, keep sex slaves in your basement and stockpile enough ammunition to put North Korea's arsenal to shame and nobody would ever even think to dime on you.

But, in the suburbs, you've got to watch your ass.

The Guilt of Suburbia

It only takes one.

One neighbor. One lawn-mower. One weed-whacker. One whiff of freshly-clipped grass.'

It only takes one.

Instantly, upon hearing a lawnmower roar to life two doors down, I am instantly filled with the guilt of suburbia.

It's a well-documented fact that, as soon as one asshole starts buzzing his hedges, seven other homeowners will gradually trickle out of their houses and sheepishly grab their clippers or their buzzers or their trimmers and silently, diligently go to work.

Today, I learned that I am no different.

Our street is one block long and it is populated by twin homes built around 1928. Our house is connected to another and the houses themselves are cuddle-up-close to each other, so, when one neighbor fires up the Toro, well, you just can't sit back and pretend it isn't happening. Because it is. The 60-year-old widow next door with her hairsprayed pompadour is sweating behind her John Deere and, brother, so should you.

Hell, you should be mowing her lawn for her, let alone your own.

Our hedges were severely out-of-whack and I had ignored them for three weeks or so, since the last time my wife clipped them. We pointedly refuse to purchase an electric hedge trimmer, because we enjoy the intimacy of getting lip-to-leaf with our hedges. Plus, really, our property is so small that, seriously, it's not that much work. That said, though, to clip the hedges with our manual clippers and to do it well, it takes around an hour. To do a shitty job, with the left side obviously higher than the right, it only takes around forty minutes. That's what I did today.

If you didn't know me better, you'd think I'd been drinking or inhaling ReddiWip.

I would love to bravely exclaim that I am immune from the guilt of suburbia but, obviously, I am not. I cannot stand knowing that there are others out there spending countless hours tending and mending while our flora casts a pall over the street. I watch these middle-aged and elderly people breaking their backs over weeds and and lawns and gardens and I feel responsible, not just to my home and my pride, but to theirs as well. I love to shop myself around as a don't-give-a-fuck guy, but I'm not. I do give a fuck.

I can't help it.

I don't give a fuck, though, about my hedges. I could let them grow until they're thirty-six feet high-- wouldn't bother me a bit. In fact, I'd probably prefer it that way. I don't like people looking at me, so a shroud of shrubbery would suit me just fine. But they'd still look at me, even with a thirty-six foot high shrub. They'd look through the fronds at me. The heat of their glowers and their glares would penetrate the leaves and twigs.

I know it.

See, the people who lived in this house for sixty-three years before us kept house very well for a very long time. They are mythologized by the neighbors who remember them in their heyday, through the rose-colored Victorian glass of sentimental memory. The neighbors recall the former residents of our home fondly, they recall a sweet couple who kept their garden and the gentleman who trimmed his hedges constantly and measured his work with a yardstick. Our next-door neighbor recalls them with a misty-eyed fondness that I cannot help but receive with jealousy and scorn because only my wife and I know the modern, unkind truth about the former occupants of our home-- deed transfers up the wazoo, second and third and fourth mortgages on the house, reverse mortgages, unpaid mortgage payments, unpaid school and real estate taxes, even unpaid sewer rental fees, summonses from lawyers, creditors, banks-- and the inside, left to rot in a detritus of old lady wallpaper, a hopelessly outdated kitchen with a fucked up oven, broken two-by-fours, roofing shingles left on the backyard lawn for half-a-years, all held together by strapping tape... on... everything.

And still, I am motivated to get out there and keep house, not just by the sounds of my neighbors lawnmowers, but by the undead spirits of the former owners of this house, whose tenure here ended in a personal shame that could not overshadow the great glory they had built for themselves amongst the diehards. I know that, no matter how hard I try, no matter how I may slice up my hand while tearing stumps out of the ground, no matter how straight I try to cut my hedges, no matter how much I water the pachysandra or keep clean the front porch that nobody will ever remember me when I'm gone with wistful and melancholy compliments of my yardwork, for a green thumb have I not.

And nobody sings your praises for paying your mortgage on time.