Neighborhood, Scene 4: A Hot Mess

Apartment #18 used to be a favorite of mine.  The long-time residents, a couple named Tim and Vicky, always had a smile and a “Hey, how are ya?!” ready every time I saw them.  They had the annoying habit of parking on their front lawn, but I limited my feelings about this to a quick scowl and a shake of the head.  It was worth it to have a couple next door that I could trust – and who loved my dog.

            Even when I came back from vacation to find that their cat had been locked in my house all week, transforming my sunroom rug into a hazardous waste facility, I wasn’t fed-up.  Perfectly logical people, they realized their culpability, having thoughtlessly put her outside whence she immediately slunk through my open door as I was loading my car. Vicky apologized profusely and paid for a replacement.

            After they left, however, I would’ve invited every stray cat in the neighborhood to defecate in my house just to have them back.  The owner of #18, let’s call him Jethro just for kicks, is a strange mixer of idiot, greed, and sloth. Perhaps I do him no justice, but if a landlord is to be judged by the quality of his tenants (and the names they call him after a month’s habitation in his property), then I’ve understated the matter.  Tim and Vicky had once been family friends of Jethro’s, but after battling him over leaky pipes and an ancient A/C unit for about four years, “friend” became ironic.  They only remained long enough to save up for a house.  Needless to say, the series of new tenants who came and went, each hanging on less than a year, kept going downhill from there.

            There were the compulsive smoker-fighters, who left cigarette butts on their front porch and screamed at each other twice a week like a pair of mating cats; the invisible slobs whose faces you rarely saw, but whose mysteriously mounting trash wafted from the can like a tidal wave of pure shit; the smoker-kids who left their oversized puppy crated outside night after frozen night, until I called animal rescue; the friendly fat girl with the abusive little boyfriend whose giant dog left mountains of crap in my backyard.

            And now? 

            At first, I was heartened to see a family move in.  They had a darling little black boy just starting kindergarten.  A man I assumed was his dad took primary care of him; he was always at home.  The mother (again, my assumption) was a sweet-looking woman, small of frame, with a downcast eye and a timid smile.  She was quite pregnant, often leaving for somewhere or other (perhaps a prenatal appointment, I supposed) in a taxicab.  She, too, seemed jobless, but she spent less time at home with the little boy than the father, who was always out on the porch grilling and chatting with another neighbor from one of the front buildings.

            So far, so good.  Then the arguing started.   Much storming about outside ensued, and extended family members often came by to pick up the little boy and “father”.  On a few occasions, we’d see a patrol car outside, and hear talk of a restraining order.  As Ashley shared a wall with #18, she heard the worst of it:  “Girl, I ‘bout banged down my wall last night!  I don’t know WHAT they gettin’ up to in there, but I am tryin’ to sleep, you know?!  Some people got jobs, yo.”  Once, I saw the woman looking injured.  She told me she’d fallen down the stairs.  The little boy was with her; they looked to be on their way off somewhere.  She was worried about the baby.  I guess it was only a matter of time.

            Then, one day, I noticed that the little porch grill was gone.  The neighbor from up front stopped coming back for evening chats, and the “father” and his little boy were absent.  Still, the pregnant young woman kept trudging out to her waiting taxi every day, apparently alone.  I felt bad for her, and wondered what had happened.  I hoped it was all for the best. 

It wasn’t until this past couple of weeks that things started to get really interesting.  One night, I came home from an evening of wine and tapas with the pals to find the taxicab parked and cold out front of #18.  Curious, I thought, but it still hadn’t occurred to me that the “father” had gone for good, and I hoped he’d gotten a job as a driver.  As it became more and more obvious that he was no longer in the picture, however, the taxicab’s presence became more and more blatant.  It was there when I left for work before dawn, and there when I came home after an evening out, there on the weekends, and there in the middle of the day.  Once, I happened to glance inside and noticed a tiny child’s t-ball glove in the passenger seat, a little ball nestled inside, and I knew that it had nothing to do with the little boy who had lived there.  The thought came unbidden to my mind: Taximan’s cheating on his family with my neighbor!

            And he wasn’t the only one.  Before I knew it, other cars began to appear parked outside of #18: A white convertible mustang last night, a faded taxi-van a couple of nights before, and all the while the regular taxicab – always parked the wrong way, at any time of day – but none of them at the same time.  Mr. Mustang looked quite at home on the front porch as I walked the path to prune Nearly Wild, my rosebush.  He appeared to be laundering some clothes, and asked after my rose.  He seemed nice enough, but I thought, Wait a minute, that’s not the father-dude, not taxi-dude, and not the same dude I saw the other day, either.  What is going on here?

            My suspicions came to a head (as it were) today when, windows open to catch the cool evening air, I overheard Don giving someone hell. 

            “This is private property!  Who do you think you are, drivin’ up in heeah like that?!  Drivin’ ovah people’s yaaads and all this mess!”  There was a slamming of doors, and an indistinct but heated reply.  I looked out of my window to see Don’s pearly white Chrysler parked across the end of our drive, blocking that same old taxicab’s way.  Just then, the taxicab reversed, jerked back into gear, and revved through the leafy ground at the side of the road.  He shaved between two pines and screeched to a stop in front of #18.

            Don had stepped out of his car, door wide open, cell phone pressed to his ear.  “I want his permit pulled!” he was shouting into the phone.  “Either you pull it right now, or I’ll pull it for you!” 

            By this time, I had made my way to the porch.  Standing at my heels, Pippin watched, enrapt, as Taximan stalked up the walk to #18, the young woman waiting for him on the porch.  She’d heard the racket, too.  I approached Don, who was still spitting into the phone at the cab company dispatcher.  His daughter-in-law, Tiffany, stood in their front yard with their little dog, Magnum, looking worried.  What’s going on? I mouthed to her.  She shook her head with a wide-eyed shrug and mouthed back, I don’t know.

            Finally, Don hung up the cell and I asked him what happened.

            “I’m ty-ahd of it!”  He said.  “Fool comes tearing up in heah like he’s NASCAR, drivin’ up the one-way – I’m ty-ahd of it!  I’m havin’ his permit pulled.  And ‘course he tells me ‘Imma kick yo ass’ and ‘F you, Imma do what I want’ – uh huh, right; we’ll see about that.  I’m not havin’ it nah more.”  He looked over at Tiffany, who hadn’t heard these words, and called, “I’ll tell you later.”  And with that, he got back into his car and left to pick-up a client. 

            As I walked back to my door, I noticed the young woman still on her porch in hushed conversation with Taximan.  Something was different about her.  She wasn’t as big as she had been…

“That girl is a HOT MESS!” said Ashley twenty minutes later, as I stood on her porch.  I had come over to gossip with her and her brother, Javon.  They looked intent as I told them what had just happened out front.  “That place is a revolving door,” she went on.  “She’s got so many guys up in there, I don’t even wanna think about it!  What about that white Mustang dude? He’s supposed to be her UNCLE!  Ha!  And then there’s that OTHER taxi driver – you know the one with the minivan?  They all stayin’ the night, girl.”

            Half an hour later, I watched #18 walk Taximan to his cab.  I looked more closely.  She was definitely no longer pregnant.  Had she had the baby?  Lost the baby?  When had this happened?  Did I just fail to notice?  I texted Ashley. 

ME: Hey! I think she had tht baby! She’s def not as big as she was. Maybe thts why she’s in business ;). Wonder wht happened w the pregnancy?           

ASHLEY: Whhaaaaaaaaattttt!!!!!  Girl when did she have the baby? I just saw her this weekend & she was still preggers. Yo she has soooo many guys over there!!!!  Eeeeeeewwwwww :)

ME: Well I dunno, but I just saw her walkin taximan out & she look ½ th size, so…Maybe a trick of my viewpoint.  Anyway, s’pose sh’s gotta liv, jus hope she’s wrappin ‘em up frm now on! :P

ASHLEY: Girl she is a hot mess!!!!  Eeeewww! I’m not trying to judge but I wouldn’t touch her with a 10ft pole!  She is soooo prostituting!  I wish I new her name so I could look her up to see if she has a criminal history…ie...prostitution

ME: Well, either that lil boy was the first man’s or th state took him. And she def not preggers now. So…

ASHLEY: That is crrrraaaaazzzzyyyy!!! Girl she is something else…LOL.  You should blog about this. We could make a book with all the characters back here lol!

I immediately closed the novel I had been reading, opened my Macbook, and started typing.

My problem now was what to call this new neighborly drama.  The Borrowers were easy.  They borrow, steal, and hide their car from the repo-man by parking it in the backyard.  But how to nickname this young woman without following in the crude, misogynistic footsteps of… well, all of Western society from about as far back as we have written record?  A collective culture of hatred and fear for those women who make a life out of selling a most basic human desire: sex. 

The fact is, I don’t care if she’s prostituting.  She made friends with the taximan, she fell out with her boyfriend.  No job, pregnant, no prospects, alone.  Maybe she even lost the baby because of her boyfriend’s abuse?  Whether her pregnancy ended as a miscarriage, an adoption, or a ward of the state, she’s still to be pitied more than judged, and at least she’s not on the street.  Besides, she’s always been pleasant to me.

Ashley’s right about one thing, though: she IS a hot mess.  Anyone in her position would be.  And maybe that’s the best name for her, at least until I learn her real name.

Neighborhood, Scene 3: Can You Check My Head?

 Some things in this neighborhood change way too often.  Take, for example, the rapidity with which my favorite neighbors move out.  On the other hand, some things don’t change often enough, e.g. The Borrowers.  This month, I learned (much to my chagrin) that Ashley, recent victim of “neighborly borrowing”, is making plans to get out of Dodge.  For some reason, it unnerves her that Borrower Girl can still be seen wandering the neighborhood from time-to-time, asking to borrow people’s phones.  (This is not an exaggeration; she asked to borrow my phone for the third time two weeks ago).

            I’d beg Ashley to stay, but when I try to think of a good reason why she should, all I come up with is: You don’t wanna move, moving sucks… I’ll give you some herbs out of my garden…?  Totally lame.

            And then there’s the fact that even better reasons to move just keep on coming.  Take this afternoon, for example.  I pull up in front of my townhouse after running errands; my foot is barely off the clutch, when I notice a scrawny-looking man approaching the car.  He’s skirting the bumper in this pathetic sort of way as I eye him in the rearview mirror.  He’s got Borrower written all over him, though I can’t be sure if he’s related, or just a satellite of the family.

            I think to myself: Only two kinds of men would come creeping up behind a person’s vehicle as they pull into their parking spot, arms full of grocery bags: a rapist/robber, or a complete moron.  Which one is this idiot?  I push the door open with my foot, staring him down as he rounds the bumper and stops about a yard or so away from me.  It seems sensible to just go ahead and load all my shopping bags onto my shoulders as I get out of the car.  After all, I do not want to look away from him, and I have the strange feeling that an armload of crap might come in handy.  It certainly makes a nice barrier between us, as I stand to face him, my eyebrows raised like the golden arches.  He speaks.

            “Hey, could you do me a favor?” Fat chance, I think, but say nothing.  “Could you look at the back a my head?”  He stoops a little and shuffles a millimeter towards me; the look on my face clearly stipulates that coming significantly closer may result in frostbite.

            “Look at your HEAD?” I say, “What?” doing some fast cogitation behind what I hope is a blank expression.  Was this one of those good-Samaritan-gone-bad ploys, where the soon-to-be-victim is lured into a compromising situation by agreeing to check her neighbor’s hair for lice or something? 

I size him up quickly.  He looks like he hasn’t eaten all week.  His size-small tee-shirt hangs from his shoulders, and his cargo shorts reveal a pair of chicken legs, each ending in a tatty sneaker.  His hair is cut in a half-inch buzz, making lice unlikely.  I’m at least an inch taller than him.  Frankly, he looks like a weakling.  Weaklings are dangerous, though, and so while I wasn’t ready to run from the guy, I wasn’t going to get within arm’s reach, either.

He’s stooping over now, turning slightly away from me, as he tries to answer my confusion.  “My head,” he persists.  “Can you see if the staples in my head are ruptured?  I need someone to check ‘cause I can’t see.”

“Uh?”

“I was in a car accident and had my head stapled.  But then, I got jumped by four guys an’ they stomped on my head, an’ I think they ruptured my staples.  Can you see for me?”

“Jumped you!  Here?”  His was the same, slow drawl of Borrower Girl, the kind of speech cadence that makes you think of Budweiser-by-the case, and marijuana pipes made out of soda cans.  

“Yeah, just as I was comin’ home.”  He turns to point at the Borrowers’ apartment.  I notice that the glass of the front window has been shattered.  “I was in a car accident today, and I jus’ got home from the emergency room, and then four guys jumped me and started hitting me.”

“Did you know these people??”

He looks embarrassed.  “Yeah, I know ‘em.”

This answers two main points for me: First, that whoever came into my neighborhood and beat one of my neighbors was not their for shits and giggles; they were there because my neighbors are scumbag magnets.  Second, that no robber/rapist could concoct quite such a brilliantly stupid story.  For some reason, this is a relief to me.  I sigh, and shuffle closer, trying to get the top of his noggin in view.

“Put your head down more,” I command.  He complies, and there they are: a bloody row of staples.  It looks just like he’s been the victim of a drive-by organ harvesting, except I seriously doubt there was anything in his head worth stealing.

“Can you see ‘em?  Are they ruptured?” He is whining now.

“Oh yeah, I can see them,” I say, and the truth is, I am starting to feel a little guilty for my behavior.  I am leaning towards him as far as my neck will reach so that I won’t have to step one foot closer than three feet, as if he were foul, dirty, or contaminated.  Yet, here he is, injured and bleeding, his left cheekbone sprouting what is clearly a nice fat, fresh bruise, and this is the best I can do?

So I give him a pitying look, and step to his side to get a decent view of the damage.  I notice that the staples are still in place, though the skin has parted somewhat, and has certainly been bleeding afresh, though not anymore.

“I think they’re okay,” I tell him.  “The staples aren’t ruptured, but there’s some blood drying around there and you’d better clean the area.”  It occurs to me as I say this that he may not have anything to clean it with, so I ask him.

“I s’pose I could go get some alcohol swabs or something?” he says, looking pathetic, like a whipped dog yearning for pat on the head – well, maybe he’d settle for a swab.  I’m not ready to commit to this, however, and my grocery-buffer strategy gives me the perfect excuse to edge away, close my car door, and retreat to my porch, calling instructions to him as I go.  He ambles away up the drive, shoulders hunched.

Once I got inside my door, I think my head cleared a great deal.  The act of flipping home the deadbolt also helped.  My sense of security was restored, and I began to feel much more charitable.  So, I divested myself of shopping bags, paused at the sofa to press a fat kiss onto Pippin’s quivering belly, and leapt upstairs for the bottle of rubbing alcohol and a couple of sterile cotton pads.  I was certain that, given the Borrowers’ history, this guy did not have anything decent with which to clean his wound.

Pippin and I rushed back down the front steps and up the hill toward the Borrowers’ place.  I wondered about that broken window – should I just holler inside, or go knock on the door?  I decided to knock, but was still unwilling to wait on the porch.  The confines were too close.  Instead, I stood at the bottom of the steps and waited.  No one answered.  So, I went to the broken window, after all, and called inside.  “Hey!” I said, “you want something to clean your head with?”

“I’m over here!”  The answer came from some distance behind me.  I turned to see him slumping back down the hill towards the house.  He had been walking up the driveway, as if to leave the neighborhood.  I didn’t bother to ask where on earth he’d been off to.  To buy swabs?

“I’ve got some alcohol here,” I told him briskly, “go sit down in that chair over there.”  Conveniently, one of the Borrowers (probably him, perhaps as he broke into the house through that window) had left a metal chair out front.  He thanked me as he moved toward the chair. 

Then, he said something completely unsettling: “I’m gonna to take my shirt off, that okay?”  The hell it is, I thought.  Why in the name of all cracked-out morons would he want to do that?  He had no other injury, and no dripping blood to worry about.  And if he’d already been on the ground getting the shit kicked out of him, I doubt he needed to worry about a little blood getting on his shirt, anyway.  As far as I was concerned, this was some kind of a half-cocked come-on that needed immediate quashing.

I shot him a disgusted look.  “You don’t need to take off your shirt,” I said sternly.  He dropped the idea and plopped himself down in the chair.

“Now, bend down so I can get this cleared up.”  I was starting to sound like the school nurse at a juvenile delinquent academy. 

“It’s gonna hurt, idn’ it?” More whining.

“Yup.  It’s alcohol; it’ll sting pretty bad.”

“Aw, man.”

“Better than an infection.”

“Yeah.”

I soaked a cotton pad and started dabbing his head.  He sucked in a slow breath between his teeth.  I did not really feel sorry for him.  That business with the shirt killed all sense of pity.

Being doctored, however, seemed to spur him into a further explanation of his current embarrassing state. 

“Yeah, pretty nice bein’ in a car accident and then gettin’ beat up in the same day.”

“Why’d they jump you?  You said you knew those guys?  Did you call the police?”

“Yeah, I’m pressin’ charges.  I tole the police who they were.  They’re friends a my stepdad’s.”  This fact made him a heretofore-unknown member of the Borrower family.  The previous son whom I had met – the one who let the family dog shit in my yard – had been Borrower Dad’s own son.  This kid, it appeared, was the Borrower Mom’s kid, which made him Borrower Girl’s brother.  Not the best of recommendations – bleeding skull aside. 

He went on.  “I guess they thought I’d had some trouble with my stepdad – which it’s not true at all. I didn’ have no trouble wi’ him.  And they come up here and try to keep me from getting’ inta’ my own house.”

“Why didn’t they want you to go in the house?”

“I don’ know.  But I tried to come home, and they pulled up an jumped me.  one of ‘em punched me in tha face, an’ the other ‘un started to stomp me in the back of the head when I fell down.  Takes some kinda man to go jump on a person four ta one.  Now, I know how’ta defend myself, but…”

He trailed off, so I took pity on him.  “Well, it’s kind of hard to defend yourself when you’re one against four.”

I straightened up.  “Well,” I said, briskly, “I’ve cleaned it up as much as I can.  You got some ointment to put on it in case of infection?”  I hated to ask, afraid of yet another ministration, but he said he had, so I nodded and started moving off, calling Pippin.  She had been wandering around the Borrowers’ porch, sniffing at the rubbish strewn about the place.

 I was eager to get clear of the whole scene.  Borrower-Boy, not so much.  He clearly wanted to keep my attention, hoping to start a conversation by asking me a variety of questions.  Somehow, my feet kept moving toward my side of the building as I answered him.  Eventually, I was yelling back over my shoulder, “Yup!  Stay out of trouble, now!”

Back inside, I scrubbed and double-scrubbed my hands in the kitchen sink.  Lice were the least of my worries; I had just been dabbing blood off the open wound of a complete stranger.  The sort of stranger who counts as a regular part of his week getting the piss beat out of him by his stepfather’s own friends – under the pretense of settling a family squabble.  How could I blame Ashley for wanting to pack her bags?  True, I have no desire to pack my bags, but I would definitely like nothing more than to see back of The Borrowers, carpetbags in hand as they hitchhike into the sunset.