It was a pleasant day, if you didn't mind a neighbor sandblasting the shit out of his house. This house, rather, compound for the deranged, is the third house going west on the other side of the alley. Somehow, it is connected to the third house on the other side of the ally going east too. You see, I live in the land of possible terrorists, Encino.
I'm not joking. Across the street to the east one house is a man and woman who only handle big, black cars. The man is big and black and the woman is white with black highlights, her hair and eyes. Not a week into the rental a swat team shows up from another county. Six men, with bullet proof vests and sidearms are in the hood asking questions about the two. And they are waiting for them to show up. My neighbor across the street with four children, has her kids nestled in the furthest room from her neighbor, in case of gunfire.
I'm not sure what came of it, they seem to deal in cars, always black and always with the driver's door so close to the side of the house that no one could open the door. Another black car is parked sideways blocking it, usually a black Benz, sometimes a black convertible mustang.
Next door to me on the west side is a Middle Eastern group of people. I'm not sure what they are, Jewish, Palestinians, Persians, I have no idea except for their language and habits, which don't place them from Jacksonville, Florida. It is always dark next door. Dark and quiet, yet a teenage girl lives there, two men and a rather attractive middle age woman. I've never seen the second man, brother to the other man, only that his brother says he plays the piano. They borrowed my ladder to remove leaves from the gutters when I was putting up Christmas lights and he asked me to look at something in the back. Our gardeners had trimmed the tree and they wanted to know why they didn't trim the foliage spilling over on their side.
Rather than explain that in America, if it is growing on your side you have the right to leave it or cut it at property line, I said I would take care of it and cut it all back from their fence. So now they wave at us when they happen to be parking one of three cars or leaving. One day last summer I left the hose going on the side yard that separates the properties, the water was trickling down their driveway and when I was out to move the hose, the attractive woman drove up with daughter and said, " It's okay, we were going wash the driveway anyway."
The first thing they did moving in was fire the gardener and they have auto sprinklers that they have no idea how to operate. They mow when it looks like a cow pasture and at night. No lights, no lights in the windows, no front porch light, no back porch light ever goes on. The house is as dark as a terrorist cell.
The other two houses, the ones in the alley have Middle Eastern people in them as well. I'm not sure from where, but they fight. They fight a lot. Cops come, people scream for help, "He's trying to kill me!" And in all this, there is building going on. There are additions to both houses clear out to the alley with a fence two feet from it. There is no green. It is house, cement and that's it. Just like you see in Baghdad. In both places. Okay, every fucking day they have a crew working on one of the two places. So much so that a roach coach shows up at lunch in the alley.
Why would you sandblast something that was just painted? Why not paint over it if you don't like the tawdry color of Baghdad sand.
So they're creating Desert Storm, it is in its, I think, tenth year now of creation. The noise of the sandblasting can be heard inside our house. I'm trying to write but, it is that steady noise of sand. Sand that blasts from a firehouse sending clouds of chipped paint into the air. It has to make them feel right at home.
I can't write and so Wally and I go to the feed store and buy a hundred pounds of organic chicken feed and a bail of straw. It all fits into the trunk of the fat-ass Cadillac. That makes me wonder now if my neighborhood terrorists would use the trunk of the fat-ass for Big Bertha. You know, the bomb. It holds a lot of shit.
We bought dog food, cat food, cat litter and most important, shit-stain remover for Betty's constant bowel problem. She shits like toothpaste from a tube anytime after I let her out to crap, or I should put, hoping she'll take the hint and shit her toothpaste on the goddamn lawn. But of course she stands at the door waiting to shit inside. If the terrorists strike, please let the Fates allow it to be Betty.
I called Social Security and asked about the Medicare benefits I was to receive from filing a claim six months ago. I wrote an e-mail to the publisher of my erotic book asking when I was going to get my copies, they should arrive in two weeks or less, he wrote back.
And I'm surrounded by terrorists. Thank the Goddess I have a hundred pounds of chicken feed, dog food, cat food and litter to see me through in case the FBI descend on our little piece of heaven any time soon.
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