Mystery Neighbors, Part 2

More things we know about our neighbors:

• We are not the only people who hate them!

Monday evening was wonderful. Henry saw the neighbors leave in a blue car shortly after we came home from work, because now they have a car, I guess. This is a new development. It was around 8:30-9:00 that night, and as I mentioned in an earlier post this week, I was just trying to enjoy an episode of The Affair, motherfuckers. Suddenly, someone started banging and kicking on the neighbors’ front door.

I heard a man scream, “I see your light on, you cunt! Come out here!” So I thought, “Great, Boots is locked out again and is rearin’ to start another domestic battle with Phyllis.” But the more he banged, pounded, and kicked, the more it sounded less like he was irritated about being locked out, and more like he was literally ready to beat someone’s ass.

Then he started screaming again. This is when I began to realize that it wasn’t Boots after all. This was some other male. It sounded at one point like he said, “I saw what you did” — did he know someone in the house watched a person drown?! WAS PHIL COLLINS OUTSIDE MY HOUSE?

WHAT DID HE KNOW!?

The way this man was bellowing though, it chilled me to the bone; he was 100% raging in front of our house. He called the empty house everything from punk, prick, cunt, and faggot. And he was kicking the door with such force that it was making things in my side of the house shake.  I wanted to teleport back to m y childhood bedroom, lock the door, and crawl under the bed. But instead I just stood in the middle of the living room, in a frozen crouch, trembling. Henry ran upstairs to  try and get a look at the guy through our bedroom window, while I called 911. Hello, what if that guy comes to my door next, looking for those derelicts!? I don’t want to get caught in that crossfire!

While I talked to the dispatcher, I started to shake really bad. I mean, not that many like violence, but I really truly hate it. I know I’m into murder TV and all that, but when I see violence in real life, I want to throw up. I always think back to the time I was with Janna, my boyfriend Psycho Mike, and our friend Jon on Thanksgiving Eve in 1999. We were driving near the old Sun TV in West Mifflin (you care) when we came upon a man kicking the fuck out of another man’s head in the middle of the road. I got really upset and wanted Mike to stop the car and make the man stop, but he was like FUCK NO and sped away. I don’t think any of us had a cell phone then, either. A few minutes later, we were pulled over because apparently Mike’s mom’s car was similar to the car that the assailant was driving. I started crying and frantically tried to tell the cop what we had seen, but Mike and Jon were like STOP TALKING, LET US MEN TELL THE STORY, WOMAN. Ugh. Anyway, that was a long time ago (I don’t want to do math right now) and I still have random flashes of that night.

So I was pretty happy that the neighbors weren’t home because I don’t want to live next to a crime scene, you know?

Anyway, while I was on the phone with 911, the man finally gave up and stormed off up the street. Henry described him as being in his 40s, white, stocky, bald and wearing a dark sweatsuit. The dispatcher asked which direction he was walking, and then assured us that they would send a squad car but that if the man came back before then, to please call 911 again.

Um, YOU KNOW IT.

Then I got really nervous and started running around the house panicking because I really dislike cops and I go out of my way to make sure I never have to speak with them. “Will you do the talking?” I begged Henry, and come on, of course Henry will do the talking because he was born to be a hero. That fucking popo sycophant. Never forget the time he got to bro down with a cop the night there was a hit and run in front of our house.

“What if they come in here and mistake Trudy for a black man and shoot her?” I asked, and I promise I wasn’t even making jokes. I AM THAT LEARY OF COPS. Everything scares me these days.

“Why the hell are cops coming into our house with guns drawn and then shooting at a green mannequin!?” Henry asked incredulously.

“Because they think it’s a trap?? And they’re color blind!?” God Henry, try to consider all scenarios — that’s how you win wars!!

Guess who never showed up? THE COLORBLIND COPS.

But the neighbors did. They rolled up a bit after 10 and after a quick conference amongst ourselves, we decided that they should be given a heads up that some angry man was trying to break into their house and kill them.  So I sent Henry to do the dirty deed. I stood just inside the door so I could hear.

“What was he driving?” the daughter asked in her rough-ass hillbilly voice.

“Nothing, he was walking,” Henry answered. “He was bald—”

“Was he FAT?” Boots spat in his warbled mumble.

“I guess. He was pretty stocky,” Henry said.

“Yeah, I know who that is,” Boots said dismissively and then they went into their crack house and slammed the door with vigor. Literally no big deal, you guys. Some guy wants to kill them but they don’t give a fuck! Probably because they’re used to this kind of thing!

If I came home one night and Hot Naybor Chris was all, “Yo someone was trying to break into your house t murder you” I’d be driving to the nearest Amish town, put me in the fucking Witness Protection Program, here Chooch, don this fucking bonnet, your name is Ezekiel now.

So then I was just pissed! Fuck those motherfuckers!

“Wow, you want to talk about a group of strung-out people, holy shit, Erin,” Henry said as he closed the door and double-locked it. “They could barely even stand up straight! And the daughter looked a lot better when she had her hood up the other day,” he said, so I guess that means he hopefully won’t cheat on me with her now. (Season three of The Affair, you guys. I’ll be in a paranoid fugue state for the next few weeks.)

“You made contact! Now he thinks you guys are friends,” I said solemnly.

The rest of the evening was calm.

Until 4am. I woke abruptly to the sound of the front door being repeatedly slammed shut. Then Boots was running up and down the steps. Then the daughter started SCREAMING, “Mom! Help me!” in a deep, drawn-out tone.

Phyllis screamed, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT, GEORGIA?!?!” So hooray, now we know Daughter’s name is presumably Georgia!

But really, Georgia, what the fuck do you want at 4am?!

Then Boots’ garbled bark interrupted, and at this point, I was out of bed and standing in the hallway next to the wall because I’M UP NOW, ASSHOLES, MIGHT AS WELL SEE HOW THIS PLAYS OUT.

As usual,  I couldn’t decipher what Boots was screaming about, but then Phyllis yelled, “I DIDN’T LOCK YOU OUT, YOU FUCKING WEIRDO!” and then it was 30 minutes of Phyllis calling him a fucking weirdo over and over and hollering about not having cigarettes, with random slams of the front door punctuating her nicotine demands.

They eventually stopped, but I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. They make my heart race, and not in some teeny-bopper Katy Perry song kind of way.

The next morning, I called Henry, who had already left for work before this went down. He said that when he was leaving, he saw Boots come out of the house and proceed to sit inside his mystery car. Maybe he was sitting in there and smoking Phyllis’s cigarettes!?

By mid-morning, I was falling asleep at my desk. And then that just made me really angry. So I texted Henry and he said he was going to try and get ahold of the landlord again. AND THIS TIME HE ANSWERED! And HNC was correct, the landlord has been traveling and admitted that he hadn’t been in touch with those dildos. He also confirmed that he has Boots set up with some type of “fix up to live” arrangement, where he’s supposed to literally be renovating the house in exchange for reduced rent, I guess.

“Well, FYI, there hasn’t been any work happening there in about a month,” Henry told him, and then ran down the laundry list of domestic disputes, house calls from the cops, screaming and slamming doors at 2-4am….

The landlord asked if we think there are drugs involved and Henry was like, “Probably most likely yes.” The landlord said that sometime last month, he sent a plumber over there to do work, and the plumber apparently found the daughter unconscious on the bathroom floor?! The landlord told Henry that he was told she has seizures and Henry was just like, “Mmmmm……ok.”

Anyway, the landlord is super pissed and said that this arrangement is obviously not going to work out and that he’ll take care of it. BUT WHEN, LANDLORD?! DO IT NOW. I was so upset yesterday that I didn’t want to come home after work.

Last night, we went over Hot Naybor Chris’s house to fill in him and his Wife-Thing about the recent events because HNC kind of knows Boots from whenever the landlord sent over the (legit) contracting company to do work on HNC’s house. Boots was working for them at that time and was apparently kind of OK?

Here is what we learned from HNC:

• Boots’ name is George.
• That is HIS daughter, so I guess it makes sense that her name could be Georgia for sure.
• The “older woman” staying there is just Boots’s “friend” who is going through a rough time because her husband recently died. But I heard Georgia call her “mom”?! Ugh I’m so confused.
• He used to work with Chooch’s nemesis Larry*, who lives two houses down, and recently told HNC that he went over there and that “There is no way George is clean” so we know that George has definitely had a drug problem, and most likely still does currently.
• Wife-Thing said that sometimes when she comes home during the day, Boots comes out of the house and gets all up in her face and she doesn’t like that ONE BIT.
• HNC said one night he looked out his window and saw Boots dancing in his front yard. They have a blue porch light, so HNC said he thought to himself, “What, is my blue light turning him on?” DEAD.
• When we started to tell them about Bald Guy (which Wife-Thing heard as it was happening, btw because probably most of the block heard it), HNC interrupted and said, “Was it Dave?” and then described TOURETTE’S TO US! It took everything in me not to blurt out, “OMG now I know Tourette’s name!!”
• Wife-Thing confirmed that something not right is going on over there and that they will also talk to the landlord about it. HNC wanted to just go straight to Boots and “talk to him” but Wife-Thing was all, “DO NOT GET INVOLVED CHRIS!!!” I agree.

They never came home last night so I was hopeful that maybe the landlord acted faster that I thought he would.

“Maybe they went on vacation,” Henry suggested.

“To where? A tenement across the city?” I spat.

But don’t worry. They’re home again.

Octavia said these assholes are lucky it’s not her husband living next to them because he would have been outside with guns drawn by now and now I wish they lived here. Have you met Henry?? He is the most non-confrontational person ever! He’d be out there not with a gun but with…a wooden spoon, like “Guys, don’t be mad at us. I made you spaghetti! Taste the sauce! Let’s be friends!”

Ugh, maybe Bald Guy will come back and take care of this for us.

*(I have a Larry-centric blog post coming later this week.)