It's becoming a rare gem to know your neighbors in the suburbs. As described by a foreign friend of mine, "The houses look like they do on The Simpsons." Cramped together like 6-Packs of beer, repeating until you hit a local chain or franchise. Someone may ask, "Who lives behind you?" Responding with, "Some old lady, saw her feed the birds a couple times," or more likely a raise of the shoulders and lift of the brow.
I guess I must be a rare case. I know at least one of my neighbors well.
I don't know his name, he's just an old white man with a beer belly, probably late 40's, but he takes so little care of himself you could guess 50. He speaks with a little laziness to his speech, slurring his words. Of course this may be due to all the drinking he does. Just off my deck, you can see over the fence where his backyard is. There's a bunch of green plastic chairs and some tacky lights where all his "friends" sit around to puff tobacco pipes and sip Miller Lites. I've built up some suspicion towards him with some stuff I've noticed, but really nothing surprises me anymore.
He lives with a German man who stands at an impressive six feet tall with the same gut of the old white man, puffing on a tobacco pipe and riding a street bike down the road on occasion. He stares and says hello while I'm shoveling in the winter, one of the few times I go outside. To complete the odd trio is an obese Filipino lady standing at the same height as the white man; my dad said he saw her naked through the window, shaking back and forth in a rocking chair. My only guess was drugs.
But that's just it, one odd event after another, weird characters, and I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. But maybe this is all normal. To be honest with you, these weird instances were so far spaced out there's really not much to complain about.
It must happen to everyone, you look through the window of your house and see your neighbors window right next door. The Filipino lady shaking in her chair on drugs, and the two old men drinking themselves into a coma. So normal now you almost wouldn't notice anything out of place.
I think about it a lot. When I closed my blinds and peeked my eye through like some sort of splinter cell into their window. Peering into their daily life. I almost ignored the drunk German man knock a dry cleaning bag while passing by, with some force. A long blue bag where you could probably fit a whole tuxedo, just get... bumped.
Probably my eyes playing tricks on me, especially so late at night when I shouldn't even be awake. Sometimes you knock something on a hanger and it dangles back and forth. Sometimes the ripple effect may be exaggerated. It might look a lot like it moved after the fact. Pretty funny I know. A bag with clothes in it, moving in such an agitated manner.
How much clothes were even in that bag? Looking so full and shapely, there's probably a dozen tuxedos in there if anything. So much kinetic energy you'd think it moved! You'd think it shook unmistakably. You'd think the German man walked by in his drunken stupor and gave it a knock, and the bag moved by itself.
But you'd be looking too deeply into it.
You'd be thinking about something when you should leave well enough alone.
The old man drinks beer on his porch, in his backyard, and in his house.
The German man puffs his pipe up and down the street on his bike.
And the Filipino lady does whatever mystery drug she likes in the nude.
And you leave it alone because he might have heard you gasp loudly when you noticed the bag move.
Something tells me there may be evil in the suburbs, but you pay your property taxes and try not to think about it.