These are the People in My Neighborhood...

It's been about five years since I first moved into my neighborhood, and I am still having difficulties fully engaging it. My (mostly) daily walks have helped a bit, but sometimes they make me feel more alienated than when I first started taking them. I guess I had certain preconceptions about how the place would (or might) develop, and these ideas look more and more naïve with my growing familiarity. Occasionally I'll catch a glimpse of what appears to be a young urbane couple, but for the most part it's mostly peopled with the type that I don't want to spend any of my free time around. This is a real shame because otherwise it has an awful lot to offer as a community.

We chose to move to our area because of the school system... or more precisely because we wanted to avoid sending any of our future kids to the public facilities that reigned in our favorite neighborhood. There's no way we would have moved out of the city proper otherwise. The most desirable sections of the 'burgh are expensive (obviously), and even in those parts the charter and magnet schools seem more desirable than the standard options. So we found the most gritty section of one of the best public school districts in Western PA. M. knew a lot more about it than I did, because her family had once lived there. She knew what we were getting ourselves into, and felt comfortable with it.

I'm moved to reconsider all of this due to an experience I had on my rounds the other night. A friend who lives in the next neighborhood over is looking to rent a space for a studio/collective project. She asked if I could look around and find a suitable place. I really had no idea how to start that search. I figured I could stroll about and look for signs in windows, etc. There are a host of properties that seem enticing, and they also seem to be empty. However there aren't many indications of who owns them, or how I can get in touch with whoever is responsible for managing them. I decided that I would have to ask around to see if anyone had any useful leads.

Unfortunately I don't have current phone numbers for the few folks who might be able to help. So I'm left to strike out blindly and figure out what bystanders might be able to provide assistance. On a whim, I stepped into a bar I had never been in before to get some local expertise. As soon as I entered, I knew I wouldn't get what I was looking for. There were about five guys and a torn-up looking woman at the bar, and everybody swiveled around on their stools to look at me directly. The closest dude started interrogating me before I could even let anyone know why I had interrupted their Monday night "revelries". I can't accurately reconstruct our short conversation, but I will say that he turned out to be the type with no love for the arts.

By the end of our exchange he started making primate gestures in an attempt to assert his alpha male status. To me he was just a fat slab of hick with an unrealistic image of his own potency and a loud mouth, yet that didn't keep him from shaking a bit as he pretended to prepare for a fight. His buddies were much more amiable and tried to calm him. That probably wasn't even necessary, as he was coming off like a melodramatic tweenie preparing for his role in West Side Story. If he truly wanted to fight he would have simply attacked without the show pony antics. Still I had no desire to escalate the situation, so I thanked everybody and walked out. It was absolutely the right move, but I was pissed off enough to imagine coming back with my aluminum bat to remove one virulent stain from my neighborhood.

Why We Will Never Just Get Along.

It must suck being old. You might wonder how I can form such a conclusion, and that's understandable. I believe that this must be the case because certain old people are so difficult to be around. My personal plight is to be sandwiched in between elderly neighbors. On our right we have the most bitter and crusty man that I have ever met. Everything out of his mouth turns to shit as soon as it hits the air. It doesn't matter what subject he gets on; he is always hateful and resentful. Meanwhile he's married to what must be one of the longest-suffering women in America. Granted she's no plum herself, but I am compelled to feel sympathy for her lot in life. She's joined to an asshole, and I can only imagine how much that stinks.

Not that she's immune to transforming into a monster at the slightest pretext. I've written about such an episode in another post. But regardless of her lapses in sanity, I'd prefer to deal with her than her cretinous husband. In fact I recently made the mistake of crossing the white line at the front of their handicapped parking space. I was absolutely in the wrong, and ready to admit it when it was pointed out. Instead I had to fire back when the decrepit fool started yelling at me over the shoulder of his wife. Later I made a point of telling the woman that she should come to me alone with any problems she has, and that I'd make sure to resolve them quickly and courteously. I also reinforced my position that I will never deal with her mate.

So on that side of my homestead, all I can do is wait for the glue factory to come and take my neighbor away forever. One of these days he'll be screaming at his poor unfortunate subject/wife, and he'll have a massive coronary and die on the spot. In response the entire block will throw a week-long celebration to honor his absence. Until then I'll simply try to ignore him. I have my hands plenty full with the old lady on our left. At least she makes the occasional effort to be the solid citizen. I know she has great affection for Baby E. Even so, she is doddering and addled, both in her expression and her decisions. She once tried to give E. an old abandoned shoe she had found in the street... just tried to pitch it next to him in his stroller.

Our relationship (such as it is) has actually improved a bit over the years. One time we went on a trip for a week, making sure to provide for someone to come by and check on our cats every other day. When we got back the old dotty hen told us that our cat had been mewing out the window whenever it saw her. Besides wondering why our nosy neighbor was peeking in our windows, we were stumped about her point. Our cat likes people, so what? Then the lady told us that she was tempted to call the ASPCA on us for "neglect". M. absolutely loved that one, and she made sure to dress the old woman down. Apparently M.'s language was strong enough, as things immediately cooled down and a détente was quickly struck.

Now ol' dotty hen has to direct her energies elsewhere. This evening I was amused to see her jawing with a middle-aged man who was visiting his daughter a few doors down. It seemed that he had taken our neighbor's handicapped space, and she was trying to exert some sort of territorial imperative. Even after the man pointed out that he had "disabled person" plates on front and back, she continued to insist that she could call the police. Her reasoning (evidently) was that they were Maryland plates, and somehow not valid in front of her house. But the funniest thing of all was that she didn't need the spot, and would not have parked there even if it was empty. Tomorrow is street cleaning, and she never forgets to remind us several days ahead of time. Her car is across the street and will stay there throughout Monday.

Border Dispute.

Territoriality is apparently a deep instinct in humans. After all we are animals. There's no special reasons why we should have evolved past such instincts. We certainly have a complex relationship with our "baser elements", but they remain a part of us nonetheless. What made me think about this today was an incident involving our next door neighbor. Ever since we moved into the house, the old couple next door has been extremely unpleasant toward us. My first contact with the husband involved him telling me that I would regret purchasing our home. He said that he knew everything that had ever been done to it during its history, and that we would spend extraordinary amounts updating it. I simply brushed off his comments, which turned out to be quite exaggerated.

After we had lived on our block for a few months, I learned why this crankster and his bitter wife resented our presence. It turns out that they were upset that we had not chosen to buy another property that they owned down the block. We had actually looked at the house, but it didn't appeal to us. They had gutted it completely and remodeled it in the style of a cookie-cutter suburban domicile. It was a hundred years old, and they completely removed whatever charms had lingered within. Someone would no doubt be happy to buy it eventually, but it simply wasn't for us. Indeed it was sold within six months of us moving into the neighborhood. Still the welcome wagon was withheld from us. This unhappy pair was largely responsible for oppressing the joy first-time home-buyers like us usually experience.

In the years since we moved in, there has been a series of events that have reinforced our mutual animosity. It turns out that our neighbors are the parents of the chief of police in our borough. So they have a direct line to law enforcement, and use it as a bludgeon to attain their insidious satisfactions. When the first snowfall hit, we got a $300 fine for not clearing our walk for a day. Meanwhile they consistently left their walk untreated. When we had our first party, and I was playing a drum kit in the basement- we had the cops at our door... at 8PM in the evening. The crone herself actually accused my wife of leaving a dent in the back of their minivan, despite the fact that the shape and placement of the damage indicated that it was impossible that it came from M.'s car. Ironically we later found out that neither of them have a license to drive, and that their vehicle is neither insured nor registered.

Despite their constant petty harassment, we have always tried to de-escalate the tensions. When the old bitty backed into my car while I was watching from the front porch, she inspected her minivan without throwing a glance or a word my way. I made a joke about her misdeed having caused what was actually existing damage on my right fender, but she wasn't at all amused. They aren't a very jolly pair. In fact we can hear them screaming at each other whenever they try to parallel park in front of their house. Mind you their noise travels through their closed windows, and through ours into our living room, disturbing our enjoyment of whatever movie we happen to be watching. Instead of alerting the authorities about the verbal abuse that they hurl on each other, I simply resign myself to waiting for the old bastard to pop a gasket during one of his tantrums.

All of this provides the necessary background to adequately explain why I did what I did today. I was relaxing and trying to catch up on some reading on the sofa in our front room, and I heard people having a loud conversation nearby. I figured that it would end it a matter of minutes, and tried to concentrate on my book. But the yapping went on an on. Finally I had to get up and see what the hell was happening. It was the woman from next door talking to a passerby on the sidewalk directly in front of my house. They were loudly conversing without regard for decorum or privacy, and they were doing so about eight feet from where I was laying inside. I couldn't figure out why that sour lady felt comfortable doing that. I can't imagine having a chat with a stranger on her front stoop.

I sat on a chair on the porch (about a foot and a half away from them) and smoked a cigarette. I made it a point to blow the smoke in their general direction. Predictably they failed to acknowledge me... with even a glance. But within thirty seconds they were gone. I imagine they caught my not-so-subtle message. Now why did I do that? I can only chalk it up to some atavistic and vague internal drive. Perhaps I'll paint a line on the sidewalk next. They are not my people, and I want them to keep their distance.

Another Reason to Despise Dog Owners.

I've written before on this blog about how satisfied I am with the neighborhood I live in. Sure we have some grumpy-assed neighbors, but they generally keep to themselves and we pretend not to notice each other. However, over the last couple of weeks we did experience a singularly unpleasant phenomenon. One lazy weekend morning I was lounging on my front porch taking in a cigarette. I had my shoes off and my feet propped up on the metal railing, and I was feeling pretty carefree. That's when I noticed some foreign objects placed in a row in front of a big planter we have propped against the base of the porch along the sidewalk.

Upon closer inspection it was easy to identify the little round balls as dog shit. Curiously they seem to have been hand-placed by size, from largest to smallest. I seriously considered leaving the tableau there as a sign of someone's neglect for the neighborhood. Everyone on my street knows we don't own dogs. In fact I had cleaned our kitty litter boxes earlier in the morning, and had scant desire to deal with another animal's fecal droppings. But it was smack dab in the center of our rather narrow sidewalk, and I wanted even less to see some unwary walker smashing it and creating a long smudge of smelly streaks. So I pushed aside my distaste, and grabbed the broom. Luckily the stool was dry and I was able to sweep it out into the street. There was no way I was going to pick it up. Anyway, street cleaning is back, and so I knew that mess would be gone soon. Having done what little I could, I went inside to relax. I pushed the incident out of my mind.

However the next morning I was greeted with a replica of the previous day's scene. It was as if I had actually traveled back in time. It was an identical setup in the exact same location. This made me truly unhappy. I was less patient in sweeping the shit away this time around. And it turned out to be a more recent deposit, as it was quite soft and bright inside. This left track marks, and the smell wafted its way immediately into my nostrils. I told M. about what had happened, and she agreed to hose off the sidewalk for me. I was beside myself with hatred for humanity.

In the next week and a half, we were revisited by the perpetrator several additional times. We had even scrubbed the walk with bleach and detergent, hoping it would mask whatever scent the outlaw dog was attracted to. But it didn't stop the foul behavior. I couldn't conceive of how the pet's keeper could rationalize letting his mutt void itself right there in the middle of a high traffic area. Surely they could have found a less obtrusive spot. And how could a person justify not cleaning up after their dog? I wished with all my heart that I could catch the pair in the act. I fantasized about tailing them home, and coming back later with some special deliveries of my own. We figured out that this was happening sometime in the early morning, and neither of us had the time or energy for a stakeout. I resolved to find some way to stop this pattern.

I started my exploration with an intensive internet search. I was looking for something I could put down that would make the dog want to keep moving. Not surprisingly, many of the hints and suggestions that I could find were posted by dog lovers with the intention of advising dog owners. But they were my enemy, so I spent little time on those sites. I needed to find someone as pissed off as I was. If you spend enough time doing research, you can invariably find a fellow traveler. Most of the hints I discovered were posted by people who needed to keep dogs off of their front lawns. But I couldn't use pellets or motion-activated sprinkler systems on my sidewalk. I had to keep looking for the answer. A few folks were frustrated enough to recommend ground meat laced with antifreeze. That only seemed right to me if I could be assured that the dog's owner would eat it. I knew that it wasn't really the dog's fault. Dogs are just fucking stupid- that's all. It's the masters that are ultimately responsible for the misdeeds of their pets. Yet it was illuminating to see how many people harbor resentment against canines due to the inconsideration of so many of their "keepers".

My chosen solution seems to have worked so far. I poured half a bottle of concentrated bleach around the scene of the crime. I also moved the planter to the side of the house. Now I can only wait and see if I have permanently disrupted the dog's habits. We have also decided to post a sign that requests firmly (and politely) that dog owners respect the neighborhood by cleaning up after their dogs. The next step is to lay down a lot of rock salt on the walk. Apparently that dries out their paws until they crack and bleed. I would rather not be forced to take that measure. If you are reading this, and you love dogs... for the love of god, please be considerate of others in your community.