Wednesday, August 29, 2007

post 371. a new story.

could it be that i've actually written two stories in one year? hard to imagine; it's not like i'm a creative writing graduate. wait.

this is the first part of my new story, which was inspired by a conversation i had with tim ryan at hogan's hideaway in rochester a few months back; the subject being mr. ryan's idea that we never explore our back yards. i'm currently typing this up for professor dillon here in lake george...so have a heart. this is only the second draft.

i looked up and saw my neighbor.

he was looking into my backyard over my fence; my beautiful, six-foot high white fence. he must have been standing on something, i thought. his face beaming, stretching his old lines to the extremes, a golf hat propped jauntily on his head, his hands holding onto the fence.

i didn’t even know what his name was. my neighbor had been my neighbor for…well, i don’t know how long. neighbors aren’t something i regularly engage in. not that i’m unfriendly, it’s just that those are relationships i don’t really want to get into; you can’t control who lives next to you. make friends with the wrong one, and you’ve got an annoyance that continually asks for things out of your garage, your kitchen, your music collection. and all that stuff is lost to a void of years where you’re wondering whatever happened to your, like, garden hoe, and you can’t remember which of your garden-tilling, yard-obsessed suburbanites have it. then there’s the inconvenience of forced conversation at inappropriate times.

then there are those neighbors that you have long, drawn-out battles with; battles that are fought with suspicious glances and campaigns of dissent amongst all the other neighbors, vying for their support in helping to give your neighbor enemy – your neighnemy – suspicious glances. when i was a kid, my parents lived next to mr. judge. he and my dad did exactly that: hated each other, and did small things to annoy each other through the entirety of my childhood. mr. judge was militant about his yard, and took umbrage to the fact that my family couldn’t mow our lawn in patterns you’d find in yankee stadium. he also hated it when branches or bushes started encroaching his property lines. there were some hedges – our hedges – that separated the properties. one time we went for a week’s vacation and mr. judge – truly his name – clipped the hedges back so that, on one side, they were bare to the stumps.

“that damn judge!” my father said as we pulled into the driveway, having finished the last leg of a very long trip in a station wagon with two ten year olds who had been physically separated at least five times in the past hour alone and a wife who had never really thought a trip to disney land would be a good idea in the first place, since our family contained two ten year olds who had to be physically separated in the past hour alone.

my uncle had a neighbor that was nuts too; my uncle built a pretty little picket fence as decoration in his new orleans front yard. after sweating it out and doing it all by himself in the summer sun, cutting each piece of the fence in his wood shop behind the house, always pulling out that blue bandana and wiping his face, he stood proudly one evening, the fat new orleans humidity receding a bit, and then noticed his neighbor. eyeing him suspiciously.

the next morning the sun was out and uncle larry was walking along the fence, inspecting it after a night’s rest. his neighbor came up to the fence.

i think your fence is on my property, he said.

huh? asked uncle larry, who had made sure to check and double-check his figures before setting out on the project. larry wasn’t some weekend warrior when it came to projects; he knew his proverbial shit.

i think your fence is on my property, the neighbor repeated. then he said, don’t worry though, because i have a surveyor coming out tomorrow. i had to pay him a hundred bucks up front.

how far do you think it is? my uncle asked.

maybe a few inches.

i swear to you, reader, that this is a true story.

a few inches? my uncle asked. then he asked, are you serious?

yes.

my uncle was flabbergasted.

the neighbor turned and left. so, just to spite the guy, my uncle – under much sweat in the humidity of new orleans, a thick, oppressive humidity that feels like a fat woman has sat upon the city – waited until he saw the neighbor leave and then ripped out that part of the fence in a single-minded frenzy to move the fence back five inches. even if uncle larry was right about his calculations of the property line – and no doubt he was – he just wanted the neighbor to have spent a hundred bucks for nothing.

all of this flashed through my head as i stood there, assembling my new bronze finish fire pit, the one contribution i’ve made to my wife’s singular vision of our patio, screwdriver in hand, instructions underfoot, the brooklyn sun just coming over the roof lines beyond my yard.

i’m sorry? i asked.

good morning, he said.

oh, i said, and i clucked out an aw-shucks chuckle. good morning yourself, i said.

then i put my head down and returned to my screwing, the obvious sign that i was now done with the conversation. it was a tried-and-true method, perfected over many a college roommate, housemate, and now, having moved into adulthood with a house and wife – still a strange thing to say – i could try it out on a genuine neighbor of my own. leave me out of your life, i was saying. i want no part of whatever craziness you’re trying to drop on me.

how are you? he asked.

he wanted something. i knew it. cup of sugar. lawn mower (no way; i spent two months in the winter reading everything i could on the subject, and had myself, for my little speck of land, a lawn mower with which to rival the gods). something.

i’m fine, i said, saluting him with my screwdriver, a move that just came to me. i took improv in college, and thought this was a wonderful new move i just created. i was being kindly, but with the instrument of my mind’s focus, showing him that i was in the middle of something. brilliant.

i’m sorry to bother you, he said, but i just wanted to tell you your house looks wonderful. me and the wife had always thought that old colour looked hideous. of course, he said, with an air of conspiracy, we never told the petersons.

oh, i said. oh, i said again. i looked at the house. oh, i said, as if i had just discovered the colour. thanks. i just…you know. painted it.

did you choose the colour? he asked.

no. my wife wanted it, i said.

ah. isn’t that always the way? i can’t seem to make any decisions without the misses. some guys hate it, but…well…that’s what you get married for, right?

yeah, i said.

well, he said, smiling and nodding towards my new bronze finish fire pit. don’t mean to keep you from your appointed rounds, so to speak.

and he began to shrink behind my fence.

and that’s when it happened. i don’t know where it came from, but something about the old man’s voice rang a little bell from somewhere in the back of my brain. after thirty-five years of conditioning, after thirty-five years of knowing better, of knowing i’d be fine – fine, i say – just getting into my car and driving to work (if i had a job, that is) without anything other than a non-committal wave to any person in the vicinity, after the aforementioned stories and more that i could fill volumes with, i said this:

i bought a bronze finish fire pit.

his face slowly rose above my fence again. the sun ducked behind a cloud.

i’m sorry? he asked.

at the home depot. i bought this. it’s a bronze finish fire pit. my voice, i realized, was a little too loud.

oh, he said. oh, he said again, looking at it. well, that’s a doozy. very nice. by the way, he said, i’m james. james spader.

oh, i said, and introduced myself. then i stood up. the sun came out and shone in my backyard, all fifteen by fifteen of it. i walked over to the fence. i held out my hand, then saw the screwdriver, put it in my other hand, then shook his old, withering but tough hided hand.

then i said, cementing this foray into undiscovered country, you have a nice house as well.

thank you, he said, and then he said, it’s about time we met.

yes. i was suddenly worried. now i was bound by tradition: where do i buy yule logs? do you give neighbors cards for things like new year’s and christmas?

there was a pause.

well, i said.

well, he said, at the exact same moment.

then i said, inspired, if you need anything, you know, just…you know. come on over.

why, thank you, he said, and looked at my bronze finish fire pit. then he said, perhaps i could come over and help you celebrate your new fire pit.

the old instincts came back, and i said, oh, it’s not finished. i…sheesh…i’ll probably never get it finished. but i will. yes. yes. we should. that. good.

he smiled and nodded with a simple wave of the hand, and then the hat sunk again behind my fence.

i looked at his house, and thought it wasn’t all that bad, having talked to an old man that lives behind me. i felt a little ashamed that he had simply looked to offer a compliment, and i took to the sub machine guns so quickly. i put down my screw driver and looked at the other houses to my right and left, above my fence. i put my hands on my hips, and suddenly heard the sounds of my neighborhood; a dog barking in the distance, the gravelly skid of skateboards, birds, a sprinkler ratcheting somewhere close by. and again, without thinking, i went to the fence on my left and, putting my hands above, raised myself to peek over in the yard.

there was a woman sunbathing.

naked.

she screamed.

so did i.

i went inside.