I’ve always been fond of the Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters are due on Maple Street”. In this particularly compelling short, a series of random blackouts cause a seemingly normal neighborhood to disintegrate into hysteria and distrust. The catalyst of this slice of residential life is a block-wide blackout and, in the beginning, the various homeowners congregate in the street to share their plight. Community in action, wouldn’t you say? But during the course of the evening, random houses recover their power and with the combined oddity of the outages and their own fears and insecurities, the occupants slowly sink into the mires of distrust and homicidal prejudices. In the end, it’s revealed that the power outages were in fact orchestrated by alien beings intent on letting mankind’s own innate nastiness do their work for them.
When comparing the residents of Maple Street to my own neighbors, I’ve often thought that our own road to chaos and murder would be considerably shorter. While a blackout would certainly do the trick, if aliens decided to knock out my particular community, they could save themselves the trouble and settle for dumping leaves in random yards. After maybe three instances of this, my community would be in the streets with knives and sticks already covered in gore and neighborly love.
I’m often amazed by stories in the paper about neighborhood block parties and similar community exercises. How can they not end in violence? What supernatural force allows these people to mingle and cavort without every untrimmed lawn, stolen paper, or un-scooped poop billowing up to the surface like a Peyton Place on Angel Dust? What sets these neighbors apart from my own residential companions, whose idea of a block party is standing on their own front porch to watch the police sternly lecture the area motor head on why he can’t rebuild his engine in the middle of the street?
My wife and I have lived in this home for nearly 12 years and to be honest, we know only the first names of my immediate neighbors to the left and right. And believe me when I say that I dearly wish that we did not. My easterly neighbors are a retired couple that goes by the name of Carol and Art. I tend to refer to them as Nosy and the Rambler, respectively. Carol the Nosy, at least, is a quiet nuisance whose only contribution to my discomfort is and peeking from behind the curtain whenever Stephanie or myself come or go, as if she’s taking copious notes of our activities to have ready for the authorities. I think she’s boning up for the chance at a Channel 4 on the scene interview. Art the Rambler is a different story entirely. One would assume that, from my paranoid demeanor and furtive movements to and from my driveway to my door, I was evading C.I.A. surveillance, or possibly, sniper attack. Oh how I would long for such a simple obstacle to overcome. But alas, my fears are much more pedestrian in nature.
My concern is that I will be trapped in a never-ending conversational mire concerning Art’s family struggles and his unwavering battle against the green plague of crabgrass. Due to my Southern-tempered upbringing, I am conditioned to listen politely and attentively. For every “Is that so?” and “that’s a stumper” that makes it’s way out of my well-trained mouth, my inner bastard is screaming an endless stream of epitaphs worthy of even the most hard boiled marine gunny sergeant. To date I know every inner working and subtle complexity that lies within the Rambler family personal catalogue of dysfunction. From his grandchildren’s experiments with that “damn devil weed” and the intricate puzzle of events that led to his daughter-in-law’s third miscarriage to Art’s foolproof plan for defending his gazebo from the ravages of time and squirrels, I know it all. A typical exchange goes like this:
Art: “Hi, neighbor! How are ya’ today?”
Me: “Fine Art, thanks for asking.
Art: “Have you got a minute?”
Me: “Actually, no I don’t. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
Art: “I can understand that, sure as I’m standing here!”
Me: “Great, then you’ll understand-“
Art: “I tell you, that damn grandson of mine got himself in a lick of trouble down at the Gas N’ Sip again…”
And on and on he goes. Any attempt on my part to withdrawl due to work results in another “I can understand that”, but I can’t see how he could possibly understand as, to my knowledge, the Rambler has been retired since the mid-Seventies.
My only retaliation to his banal attacks of conversation lay in what I reveal about my own life on those rare occasions that he remembers that he’s actually talking to a living being and not the deckchairs. I take some small measure of satisfaction in one day telling him that my home psychic consulting business is doing well and the next explaining why my office is full of sociopathic techno-cultists. To date I have been a writer, a plumber, a toaster oven technology researcher, a restaurateur, a stylist, and a therapist for Guatemalan doctors suffering from Hodgkin’s disease. I’ve offered up anecdotes about my work-related travels to such exotic locales as Burma, the Falklands, and the fantastical land of Narnia. I’m quite the traveler. If my subtle mind-fucking may seem a very slight and childish way of getting even for Art’s disturbing exposes’ of his inner psychological minefield, bear in mind that, considering he’s never commented on my wild career shifts or fanciful travels, I sincerely doubt he’s paying attention to begin with.
For all my complaints about them, I must say that I’d prefer a matching set of Nosy and the Rambler to my new neighbor to the West. The previous occupant was, by all accounts, quiet and unassuming. In today’s culture that typically signifies a sexually deviant serial killer, but as my wife and I were never subjected to heavy rotting smells or constant screams of terror and pain, or dumped lawn cuttings, he was okay in my book.
I’ve managed to forget her name for the umpteenth time, so I’ll refer to the new (by our standards) resident as ‘that damn Dog Lady’. I don’t know what series of horrible vocational and emotional choices led her down the road to the very strange mental place she now inhabits and to be honest, I’m fairly positive that my ignorance is most certainly bliss. My experiences with Art the Rambler has taught me that silence is golden, so my chief complaint is that, not only is she most probably insane, she has transferred every overly indulgent maternal instinct her trouble mind could muster to the twin canine terrors that dominate her home. From the distinct decorative style of shredded wood furniture to the masterfully stained carpets Dog Lady employs as her particular motif, I can only assume that her two shelties have succeeded in dominating the design decisions in the house, and they’ve since set out to conquer the yard.
I understand that dogs bark to announce territorial rights to other animals. They’re dogs, what else can they do? But one would think that such a technique would stop with say, mammals or birds. These blathering mutts bark at everything from pedestrians to air currents. No dust mote is to small, no falling twig so insignificant as to avoid their proclamations of ownership. If the day is still and no outside agent can attract their yapping wrath, they stand nose-to-nose and exclaim their triumphant domination to each other until something else attracts their ire. Working in an office for 8 hours a day provides some relief for my wife and I, but Dog Lady seems to believe that her precious child surrogates should be let outside in quarter hour increments over the course of the evening so as to not let unruly or rebellious leaves gain a foothold on the dogs’ territory and stage a topographical coup.
As bad as the dogs are, Dog Lady’s worst offense seems to be in managing to pick whatever occasion we’re working on the lawn as her chance to leave her babies unattended outside for the entirety of the day. Why she had to move in right before we decided to rebuild the patio, I can only guess. My wife blames my misanthropic karma. After three consecutive weekend concerts of the Sheltie Bark-a-Thon I decided that enough was enough. One late Sunday afternoon when Dog Lady returned from where ever she had gone, I approached her in an attempt to reach some kind of peace accord. After a polite degree of chitchat I brought up my grievance.
“Ma’am something has to be done about your dogs.” I started out.
“Whatever do you mean” she asked, completely oblivious, “have my babies been causing a problem?”
“To put it lightly, yes. Their incessant barking is a nuisance. Not only do they bark whenever any member of my family is outside, they bark all night as well.”
“But they never get out of the yard” she offered like some kind of balance to their behavior, “and if they did, they wouldn’t get into your trash.”
“If they would shut up while they did it, I wouldn’t mind if they knocked over my trash and mauled every single child on the block. It’s not what they don’t do that bothers me. Lady, they bark too damn much! You need to either get them to stop, or keep them inside.”
Well I could never do that!” she stammered.
“And why, pray tell, could you never do that?” I asked.
“They’re both very special dogs.” Dog Lady stated this very matter of fact.
“Do you mean special as in ‘retarded’, or as in ‘possessing amazing and fantastic powers’?” I queried, trying to clear the mystery.
“They’ve both been very traumatized.” she said in a hushed tone, not wanting to embarrass her obviously sensitive dogs. I couldn’t believe how quickly this conversation was deteriorating into a sublime horror. While my rational side knew that any further information regarding these dogs’ particular psychosis was certainly to be more than I would ever want to know, my inquisitive side boggled at the possibilities. I waited in silence for the inevitable anecdotal conclusion.
“Neither one of my poor babies ever got over being neutered”, she explained “and what with the new house and all, they’re very fragile.”
“So they’re special as in ‘retarded’.” I sighed, wondering if canine retardation extended to the owner as well.
“Oh no, my babies are very smart!” she exclaimed, obviously offended at the slight to her almost children.
“That’s right”, I offered, “they’re so smart that they stand two inches apart from each others’ noses and bark for 30 minutes straight. Fine. As long as you can find some way to keep them quiet when they’re outside, they can be as smart as they want. I’ll tell every one that they’re doctors of astronomy.”
“Oh, I’ll have none of that!” Dog Lady frowned, “I don’t kinder to that devil magic; predictions and the like!”
On that note I made my way back to the relative safety of my property, and amazingly enough that night there was no barking. For one brief blissful night, a tiny ray of hope and quiet sleep soothed my troubled thoughts. And of course, on the very next night, the barking Hell resumed.
After two weeks of entreaties by my wife and myself, there was no end to the sonic tyranny of that damned Dog Lady and her terrible twin Shelties. As my first instinct was to poison the dogs in the night, Stephanie rightly decided that the best (and legal) course would be to call animal control and lodge a complaint. She found out that Dog Lady could lose custody of her demon charges after three complaints made by neighbors. Being a kinder soul than I, Step opted to merely give our neighbor’s address and ask that she be put on file if a further call was needed. This resulted in our neighbor receiving a polite visit from Animal Control to explain the situation. And wouldn’t you know it? The very same evening, Dog Lady knocked on our door to offer an apology and explain that she’d only be letting the dogs out in the daytime from now on. While I’ll admit that was a nice concession, I put forth the suggestion that she look into obedience training as well which, as one might imagine, wasn’t received well. Those dogs are special, don’t you know?
However, things have improved for since then, with us only having to call Animal Control on one more occasion when her precious babies decided that a 3-minute lawn encroachment of Girl Scouts warranted a good hour and a half of yapping. It seems obedience school doesn’t have Special Ed classes. Now my family’s chief worry from Dog Lady’s direction comes from possible fatal exposure to the Evil Eye with which, for someone who doesn’t take to that devil magic, she has reached a tremendously malevolent level of ability. But I can live with that.
With those kinds of experiences defining the realms of my neighborly existence, you can imagine why I have avoided contact with the motor head across the street. Nothing turns me off like a 6 a.m. street lesson in engine mechanics from a man whose idea of neighborly consideration is making sure everyone on the street can hear his radio. I’m glad he’s proud of his Best of Grand Funk Railroad tape, I just don’t care to hear it first thing Sunday morning. It’s entirely possible that he’s actually a nice guy, but my neighborly wariness knows no bounds. Especially now that he’s begun instructing the surly teens of the area in his car ways. It’s could be bad enough dealing with him one on one, I don’t need him turning the area youth against me at the same time. Some presents are best left unopened.
So I continue to view media portrayals of friendly neighbors and caring communities with a deep and pervasive suspicion. I don’t know whether it’s my own sense of misanthropy or the levels fluoride in the neighborhood water, but I just can’t juxtapose those images with my own residential experiences. And since the chances of aliens with insidious designs are rather slim, I’ll just have to hope that I’ll get new neighbors someday soon because frankly, the monsters have already arrived. And while a family of Cleavers or Waltons might be a pleasant change from the norm, I’ll settle for quiet and unassuming.