That Asshole Down the Street

Our house is an old Victorian that was built in 1884, and has bay windows, a large porch, three fire places, two stair cases, and stained glass windows. We love our house and consider it to be a member of the family. When I got divorced, it was the only thing I really fought for and I ended up paying Ken a shit ton of money for the privilege of keeping it. Before the ink was even dry on the new mortgage, I painted her pink, knowing that no man would ever want to live here again unless he truly loved me.

The only reason I can afford such a house on my salary is because the neighborhood isn't the greatest. Don't get me wrong, we chose this neighborhood because of its ethnic, economic, and social diversity. House's range anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 dollars, mine being somewhere in the middle.

Unfortunately, it's not the kind of neighborhood where you would ever leave your door unlocked or windows open at night. So, there I am, a single mother with two young children living in a pink house two blocks down from crack alley. I may as well hang a neon sign on the porch that says "rob me". So I need me some junk yard dogs.

The junkyard dogs are a black lab named Samson, who is the size of a farm animal, and a beagle named Gracie, who will bark at just about anything including the wind. We affectionately refer to Gracie as "that damn Kentucky beagle" because she comes from a long line of Kentucky hunting dogs.

Anywoofwoof, the ruckus they create is part of the deterrent. We want the errant crack head walking by to know they'll get eaten, which they hate because it's such a buzz kill, and crack heads hate a buzz kill.

There is some collateral damage though, such as this guy that lives about five houses down from me. Since I don't know his name, I always refer to him as "that asshole down the street". Man, this guy hates our guts, and we've learned to hate him back.

One day, I'm looking out the window to see what Samson is barking at and there's the asshole from down the street throwing rocks at him. I go out on the porch, followed by my 11 year old son, and I say to this dude "Hey, don't throw rocks at my dog, he's just doing his job, he barks for a living. How would you feel if someone threw rocks at you while you were doing your job?" and he screams back "Fuck off bitch". I had no idea he could be so witty. After yelling "Fuck off bitch" a second time, he informs me that he should call the police on me because of my dogs. Right about now, you're probably wondering if I called the police, and, no, I didn't. I should have, wish I had, but at the time calling the police on my neighbor just didn't seem, well, neighborly.

Flash forward a couple of weeks. It's Friday night and me and the aforementioned 11 year old are watching Ghost Whisperer (we love dead people and overlook bad acting in order to see them). Samson starts barking, just going nuts, so I ask the 11 year old to see what in the hell fire he's barking at. He asks if he can wait till the next commercial, which is something I totally get because Ghost Whisperer has a cliff hanger before every commercial, so I stupidly say OK.

All of three minutes later, he goes to look out the window at Samson, and says "Um, mom, the police are here." Well, that can't be good. I go downstairs, out onto the porch, and there's two police cruisers. Two cruisers for a dog barking? What the fuck? In our neighborhood you're lucky to get even one cruiser for a triple homicide.

As I step out on the porch, one of the officers, a woman, with her hand on her gun, starts yelling "MOVE AWAY FROM THE HOUSE!! MOVE AWAY FROM THE HOUSE!!", and believe me, I moved away from the house. This was a bummer for me, because I had come out of the house barefoot and there was four inches of snow on the ground. As always, the 11 year old is right behind me, with the 13 year old right behind him.

Besides the lady officer, who was about to shoot me, there was a second officer. He was like twelve years old and his hat was too big and practically rested on his nose. He did not utter a single word the entire half hour they were there. He didn't have to, because Officer Polly Po-Po was doing all the talking.

First she told me they had been out there for 5 minutes trying to get us to come out of the house. Then she told me that a neighbor had called about my dog barking, and that the dog had been barking non stop. What she failed to notice was the asshole from down the street standing by my yard taunting the dog which is what he was barking at. She said "Mame, I'm trying to talk to you" in that condescending you're hysterical and I have to arrest you cop voice that always annoys me when I tried to explain this to her. Once she started talking to me that way, I saw this was only going to go somewhere bad, and boy did it ever.

Meanwhile, the asshole from down the street is standing by the cruiser with a smug look on his face because he thinks he finally got me. In my best mediator voice, I tell Polly Po-Po that I need to be able to communicate with her and tell her my side of the story. I explain "look, I'm a single mother with two young children living in a pink house two blocks away from crack alley. I have to have these dogs or I wouldn't be able to sleep at night".

She replies that she doesn't want to hear it because she knows the police have been to my house before.

What the fuck?

I tell her the police have never been to my house. She says I'm lying because she knows for a fact that they were just there last week because I was "having a domestic dispute with my boyfriend and there was a gun involved" and that's why they called for back up because for all they knew I was laying dead in the house.

WHAT THE FUCK?

Didn't I just explain to her why I needed the junkyard dogs? Remember, single girl, living alone with two young children? In a pink house?

This was so disturbing, I couldn't let it go. I demanded to know where she had heard that because it never happened. Meanwhile, my other neighbors, who love me and I love them, are out on their porches. When one started to come over, the asshole from down the street tells her not to come over because "it's a domestic dispute".

Turns out, she got her information from the asshole down the street and never bothered to question it.

Finally, after standing barefoot in the snow for 30 minutes (did I mention that I had broken both my feet a few months before and had just gotten the casts off?), the police started to see the light. I'll never forget my kids walking with their arms around me back to the house, as I just cried and cried. It makes me sad because I know they feel responsible and protective of me, but they're so young that I don't want to burden them with such grown up emotions.

Now, the whole neighborhood is watching that asshole down the street. He's moved on to harassing the dogs up the street as well, which gives me a sense of morbid comfort because it's not just me anymore. He needs a burning bag of dog shit left on his porch. Not that I would ever do that.

If there were a man living here with us, I know that asshole down the street wouldn't treat us the way he does. In my world, there is no less a man than the one that takes advantage of those he sees as vulnerable. Damn, I feel sorry for his wife. So there you have it.

Folding Newspapers

The last time I was at my mother's, I opened a closet door, and an avalanche of old newspapers almost came down on my head. When I asked my mother how long it had been since she had done the recycling, she said "last month". If you were the average person, it would probably take you a year or two to accumulate that many old newspapers.

My mother has read two to three newspapers a day ever since I can remember. It's actually kind of ironic, because my mother is not necessarily a fan of reality. While she may have been oblivious to the importance of paying the bills, she always knew what was going on in Washington.

As far as media goes, the newspaper is going obsolete. Everyday, you can read about another newspaper going out of business or down-sizing. Most major cities in America have always had two newspapers, kind of a point-counter point approach to news. Today, the major cities only have one local paper, and the death watch has begun to see which will be the first to have none at all.

Actually, I've never liked reading the newspaper. The ink rubs off on your hands, and if you are holding the center page open, the only way to refold it is with a head butt to the middle because your hands are full. My biggest use for it has always been the dog's cage, and I've always been thankful for it's absorbency.

Having said that, I find the folding of newspapers both sad and alarming. Sad, because it will be the end of a great American era. Some of these newspapers have been published twice a day for 140 years. One of the backbones of democracy is having the freedom and ability to spread news, and newspapers have always been the way we did it.

Everything is going digital, causing the demise of paper media and that includes photographs. Sure, the spontaneous joy of seeing my pictures as soon as I take them is great, but it doesn't exactly motivate me to get them printed.

At work, we no longer give out paper documentation, everything is online, including my pay check. We don't write checks, we use debit cards. The art of writing love letters is almost dead. If there's no more paper media, what the hell am I supposed to read in the bathroom while I'm taking a poop? Not reading while I poop can cause a disturbance in what is the delicate balance of my inner eco-system. What's next, digital toilet paper? Would digital toilet paper be the same thing as a bidet? Just asking.

When Alice went through the looking glass, everything was out of balance and surreal. Could viewing the world through the looking glass of a computer monitor do the same thing to our sense of balance and reality? If it does, will it have the same affect on us that the drink me bottle had on Alice? Actually, I would probably enjoy that, but that's not the point.

Just when we finally got good at recycling paper we don't need it anymore. Figures. Does that mean that we no longer need to "save a tree"? Well, good for us, now we can move on to saving ourselves. So there you have it.

Patrick Irresistable

Joe and Patrick at the time of the story.

We were talking on the phone a couple of nights ago, and Patrick told me a story I had never heard before. On top of that, I was actually at the party where the story takes place and had no idea any of this was going on. Damn, I hate to miss a show!

We were at a party in Clifton in our early twenties. Our friends who lived in the house were musicians and had several bands playing in the basement that night. At the time, Patrick was the guitar player in a popular local band called The Thangs, and they were one of the bands that played.

After The Thangs had finished their set, they started tearing down, and Patrick was putting his new guitar away, a woman we knew, named Velma, came up to Patrick and purrrred "can i see your new guitar, it's soooo beauuuutiful" . He said OK, and with that, Velma picked up the guitar and began to caress her face and body with it, as she rubbed the guitar neck all over her face, moaning. Our friend Jon looks at Patrick and says "You know, that's not a guitar she's rubbing her face against."

While the bands were taking a break, everybody went upstairs. Patrick went down to the basement where he had left the guitar unattended. Having made sure the guitar was where he left it, he turned around and came face to face with Velma. He had not even heard her come down the steps, let alone within six inches behind him. As Velma tried to make small talk with him, another women, named Louise, who Patrick had noticed staring at him all night, came down the steps as well.

As the women realized they were both after the same man, they eyed each other with animosity, as if both had been caught stealing something from the other. Patrick said it was so intense that both of them, for a split second, seemed to forget he was even there. He took that opportunity to slip behind their backs and run upstairs to the party, leaving them alone.

Patrick went back upstairs, and tried to get lost in the party. But everywhere he went, there they were. He said he felt like they were hunting him, he kept hiding, they kept finding him. He would chat with each one of them for a few seconds, excuse himself politely, and try to get lost in the party again. Within seconds, the other woman would appear at his side and he would do it all over again. Over and over.

Feeling exhausted from women hunting him, Patrick found himself hiding outside on the front porch step. Unfortunately, Velma had found him too, and Louise soon followed. There he was, with a women on each side, each vying to be his date for the night.

Velma reached into her pocket and gave him a piece of paper with her phone number on it and asked if he would go out with her some time. He took the scrap of paper to be polite, as Velma began to beg him to please call, "please, please call....please don't say you'll call and not....you took my number, right, that means you'll call..." as her voice cracked and she almost began to cry. Finally, Patrick promised to call, which he eventually did, because back then he actually believed that if you said you would you had to.

As Louise sat listening to this, Velma asked if the van parked in front of the house was Patricks. Then she asked for a ride home, even though she lived in walking distance. Having heard this, Louise said "can I get a ride too?" Not wanting to give either of them a ride, but not being able to say no, Patrick had a brainstorm. As he was walking to the van with our friend Joe, he whispered to Joe "I'm gonna pretend i lost my keys to the van, and then I'll ask you for a ride", thinking the girls would find a different ride.

So Patrick announces to the girls that he'd lost the van key and asks Joe for a ride home. Joe says "sure" and Patrick thinks he's been saved. In unison, the girls say "can u give me a ride home too?" And Joe say "yes" and Patrick thinks "what the fuck Joe, thanks for the help".

As they're walking to Joe's' little car, Patrick has another brilliant idea, and asks Joe to let him drive. His logic was that if he drove, Joe would sit in the front seat, because it was his car, and Velma and Louise would be forced to sit in the back.

In theory, it was a great idea. Unfortunately, Louise gets to the car first, and puts the seat down, and says "Joe get in back" and he does. Louise's logic was that if she sat in the front seat, it would force Velma to go to the drivers side to get in back with Joe. So Louise puts the seat up and hops in the front seat, leaving Velma standing on the sidewalk.

But Louise didn't close the car door fast enough. Without saying a word, Velma sits down on Louise's lap in the front seat. To really appreciate how hilarious this is, you have to keep it in mind that this was a two door Datsun compact. Every time Patrick hit the break, Velma's head would smash into the windshield. By now, both of their pride was gone and they didn't care if Joe was sitting alone in the back seat of his own car.

And so began the contest to see who would get dropped off first, assuming the one dropped off last would get to spend the nite with Patrick. It turned into a very hot debate on who would be the last woman standing.

Just when Patrick thought it was going to come to blows, Velma folded, Louise was victorious, and Velma was dropped off first. Did I mention that Velma lived within walking distance of the party? As she got off of Louise's lap, and out of the front seat of the Datsun, she cried "call me Patrick" and waved goodbye. Soon after, Louise was delivered to her place, where she also cried "call me Patrick". Ultimately, they both seemed satisfied that the other one didn't get him.

Patrick never said if Joe finally got out of the back seat of his own car and got up front. I'll have to remember to ask him.