Neighbors
That new family who moved in across the street, I just don't know. They seemed nice enough at first, I guess, but it didn't take long before I started wondering just what was going on over there. They aren't what you'd call friendly, to start with, kind of stand offish, in fact.
The mother—Joan she said her name was—I brought a casserole over on moving day because who wants to have to think about a meal on a day like that? She looked at it like I'd used a dead cat as the main ingredient. She was polite enough, I guess, but it was plain that the thing was going to end up in the garbage as soon as the door closed.
She did mention that they'll be going to St. Catherine's now, that she was hoping that her son will be an alter boy there like he was in their last parish, but when I saw the boy walk through the yard he didn't impress me as the alter boy type. I couldn't really put my finger on it but he just didn't seem like the kind of kid who'd put up with being told what to do. There was a girl, too, a teenager, although she looked like she might be trouble, too—just what this neighborhood needs. The two of them were squabbling to beat the band until the father drove into the driveway and they both quieted down fast and made themselves scarce.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I just don't like them.
There's something weird about them.
##############################################################
Jesus H. Fucking Christ, they're at it again and I'm about ready to call the damn cops on them—honest to God I am.
Every single weekend they're yelling like a bad Italian opera. Scratch that, like a bad Irish opera. He's mad at her, she's mad at him, they're both mad at the kids and the kids hate each other. The dishes get thrown—they'll be eating off paper plates at this rate—and the doors start slamming…every weekend, like clockwork.
And Cathy is dim enough to think that the boy is cute. I think she has this stupid idea that she's going to rescue him from whatever's going on in there all the time—like we don't all know what it is. Christ. You take a look at the boy, that Brian, and it don't take no genius to get the drift.
He comes out with black eyes, his arm in a sling again, on crutches—all the time this happens. I swear I hope they got insurance because otherwise they're going to be broke.
He's a good-looking kid, though, but I ain't never seen anybody as snotty as he gets. You just say `good morning' to him and you just don't know what kinda crap he's gonna come out with. If he were my kid I'd probably smack him one too, just to get rid of that damn smirk.
The girl? What a mouse, but she's angry too, just like her brother. Maybe it's because he got all the looks in the family. Plain as a mud fence, that girl.
And that mother? There's a cold bitch if there ever was one and the father, well, he's just a lush as far as I can tell.
This used to be a nice neighborhood, a kinda place you wanted to raise your kids in but now we got these damn shanty Irish.
Christ.
##############################################################
Well, I don't think the boy is as bad as everyone tries to make him out to be. I really don't.
He mows my lawn for me and I give him a nice sandwich when he's done. He sits there in the back yard on one of the picnic table benches and he's always been perfectly polite to me—never forgets a thank you or any of that and he's never once mouthed off to me, either. He'll just eat his turkey sandwich and drink a nice glass of water and munch on some potato chips and he's as nice as nice can be.
I know his family has problems. I guess every family has a closet or two they'd rather no one opened, but I think the Kinney family may have more than most.
That big sweetheart comes over sometimes and I know it's all he can do to keep his eyes open or to push that mower. With all the noise coming from that house of his, it's no wonder that he's exhausted all the time. Who could sleep with all that shouting, for Goodness sake? And it's not just the noise, either. I know that. He'll be limping or his arm will be stiff or maybe he'll have a split lip or something and it just about makes me want to cry and give that honey a hug. It really does.
Sometimes I talk to him about it and he's come close to telling me what really happened to him, but he always stops just short of the truth. I know, of course what's going on. Everyone knows.
His father gets drunk and hits that big darling. I wish just once maybe he'd hit back but I don't think he ever will. That might stop what's happening because all bullies are just big cowards—or that's what I was always told, anyway. Maybe if he hit back somehow it would stop.
I wish it would stop. I really do.
I think that maybe part of the problem is that he likes boys. You know what I mean—he `likes' boys. I don't know if his parents know about that, but I've seen him walking at night with one of the young men from a few blocks over and I just know that they're not talking about football or picking up girls. I even saw them kiss once and it made me smile to think that sweetheart has someone who makes him happy.
Oh, I know what the priests say about that and I guess his holy roller mother would likely agree with all that claptrap but it's all just hooey as far as I'm concerned. It really is. They're not hurting anyone, not in the least and they should just be left alone to my way of thinking.
Of course, not everyone thinks the way I do, but more's the pity. Well, he knows he can come over here any time, any time at all and I hope he does. I think he may need a place to go now and then and if I can help, then it's to the good.
Maybe I'll ask him if he'd like a job painting that fence out back. With my fingers hurting the way they are, I sure can't do it and if it gets him out of that house and puts a little cash in his pocket, all to the good, I'd say.
##############################################################
That's it.
This time I'm calling the damn cops.
I mean it's two in the damn morning and how the hell is a person supposed to sleep with that racket going on over there? And for what? Because a kid missed curfew again? Big friggin deal, if you ask me.
I mean, so what? Y'know?
This is bullshit. That's all it is, it's just bullshit.
How's a person supposed to get some sleep? You buy a house in what you think is going to be a decent neighborhood and you never know who's gonna move it.
Christ.
##############################################################
There was an ambulance over there again and I swear, that poor boy was carried out and I could just see the blood.
It's just a disgrace the way that poor thing is treated and I just wish his damn parents would take the hint and leave town—take their problems and their noise and their shouting someplace else and never come back.
I really do.
This is what? The fourth time the police and the paramedics have been here in a little over two years and this time that poor kid couldn't even walk out under his own power. They had to take him out on a stretcher.
He was back again in a day or two and as surly and obnoxious as ever.
Y'know? If he were my kid I think military school wouldn't be such a bad idea. Knock some sense into that thick Mick skull of his.
And that's another thing. Have you ever tried to sell a house, have someone come over to look at the place and they're screaming their usual Saturday afternoon `family discussion'?
Christ. You never saw anyone run out the door so fast in your damn life. I mean, like I need this? I want to get out of here and how the hell am I going to do it if those jerks are over there?
It just really pisses me off, y'know?
##############################################################
I swear, I wish this neighborhood had some kind of block association or something the way things are going over there.
Oh, you look at the house and it looks fine—the lawn is mowed and the garden is weeded and all of that, but the things that go on over there—well…
Yesterday afternoon, a nice quiet Sunday afternoon and you'd have thought that it was world war three for goodness sake. It started out like it usually does with the father drinking too much then the mother is nagging after him to slow down or wait till later and he comes back at her with the same thing and in an hour or two you have a couple of drunks in a real knock down drag out.
Then the girl came home and I gather that the poor thing is expecting and she can't be more than about sixteen and if that wasn't enough the boy seems to have strolled in an hour or so after he was supposed to.
You'd have thought that there couldn't be anyone standing at the end of all that from the sound of it.
The boy—as usual—seems to have gotten the worst of it and I saw him sneaking out the back after the others had likely gone to bed.
I don't know where he was going, but I hope it's someplace where people are nice to him, that's all I have to say. He was limping something awful.
##############################################################
I finally did it. I swore I would and I finally did. I called the cops on that asshole on the corner.
One in the morning and they're sounding like Ali versus Liston over there and I have work in the morning, damnit.
So the squad car pulls up and the cops knock on the door and you can see that the cops are kinda shuffling their feet like they didn't want to be there, but—hell, that's their job, y'know?
Hell, they didn't do nothing. They never do, just talk to them, yell at em to keep it down then leave.
Useless.
##############################################################
So now I know what the problem is over there. The kid? The boy? The tall, good looking one?
He's a fag.
Yeah, well, if he was my kid I'd beat the living crap outta him, too. Tough love—isn't that what they call it?
Serves him right.
Fucking queers.
Return to Simon's