The Neighbors who Bullied/Part Une

Last night I couldn't sleep, because I started thinking back, back to a time when I felt like all was lost. It was the beginning of my discovery that even successful people could be jerks. I couldn't believe that people were capable of the things that I will tell you about. Boy, I was in for it.

Once I lived in a two story house duplex,whose outside looked disheveled, distressed, and practically destroyed, like a pair of boyfriend jeans. The rent was cheap, and with some minor tweaks to the inside of my second floor apartment, (painting the floors, painting the walls) it was pretty fabulous. I remember feeling like I had the best set up in the world. I had lovely neighbors that lived below me, They were art students, young, statue-esq, beautiful people that had great great senses of humor, and a dog named Dracula Snake. Coincidentally I happened to live directly next door to an illustration professor (at the same college that both my neighbors and sister attended) and her boyfriend. I was familiar with both of them from a distance; meaning that I had been introduced to them previously, been to parties that both of them had attended, and we knew some of the same people. I thought wow! I really lucked out. Until it got weird. Like super weird.

The bizarre behavior seemed to escalate as soon as the temperatures began to rise. So in the Spring, when I decided to improve the outside of the duplex is when the first scent of disillusionment hit. I was always a fan of plants, and flowers, gardening was relaxing,  so I invested in huge flower bouquets to hang on the porch, annuals to plant in a bed around the perimeter of the house, bricked colored mulch, and several other beautiful green things.

I borrowed my fathers truck to pick everything up from Home Depot, and when I arrived back at my apartment with a truck load of plants, my downstairs neighbors shrieked with excitement. They brought out their gardening tools, put on their jean shorts, called some friends, and offered to help. Before I knew it, it was like a block party. We drank sangria while we worked in the dirt. We listened to Madonna, Blur and Radiohead.

Even the surrounding neighbors who barely said anything stopped and looked, maybe even giving a dry smirk. The finishing touch was a large pewter cracked mirror that we hung on the porch. The downstairs neighbor and myself found it, and carried home several blocks while we were on one of our walks. And when we were done the house looked like a glorious Southern mansion that perhaps had been owned by an elderly lady, who still cared for her plants, even though her house was well worn throughout the years. However, when the professor and her boyfriend came outside they gave off this weird space madness vibe. The professor looked at me,then looked at the mirror, and with her eyes cold, and mouth turned downward she said with a scratchy tone. " Yeah it looks like you stole my mirror idea." I looked at her, then I leaned over to look at the front of her house, and said " but, you don't have a mirror?" and she cut off my sentence and responded quickly in her same raspy scratchy tone with" Yeah honey uh, it's around back." Then she quickly she walked inside her house, and slammed the door. My downstairs neighbor and I stared at each other, I could see it in her eyes that she could feel the space madness.

Previously, I had been invited over to the Professor and her boyfriends house for a couple of parties, with their friends from France, and New York. I had even been invited over to play my bass with the Professors boyfriend, who played drums. The professor herself, had been absent while we were playing music, but later on eerily flowed down the stairs, and interrupted the grungy noise rock that we improvised. and I think she heard her boyfriend say things like, "ah this reminds me of my youth, New York in the 80's". She was silent, and I was uncomfortable.

Even though I had fun playing music with another person, and even though the professors boyfriend called to invite me over to play again, I never went. I began to indulge myself in the piano like I always had. The piano for me is the instrument that was made to sound like an entire orchestra, and it was what I was trained in.

Sometimes the Professors boyfriend would call me to tell me how much he enjoyed my music,because he could hear it outside. Of course when I started remember their phone number I ignored it. I think he knew that. I really wanted to distance myself from anything that felt too uncomfortable. The next door neighbors were becoming the source.

The Sun was setting, It was May 5th, Cinco De Mayo, my downstairs neighbor and I were enjoying the fruits of our labor, sitting on the front porch while the barricade of beautiful plant arrangements provided us with scenery, and shielded us from the direct view of the street. The neighbors from across the street who hardly said anything stopped by to tell us how impressed they were with how the house looked, and the work that we had done. They were actually moving, and asked if we might need some weed killer, because they had never used it. We said sure, and they brought it over. I placed it in the far corner of the porch, behind the chair that I was sitting in. And then The Professors boyfriend came over, he was eeiry he was leering, and more so that usual. He kept asking us what we were going to do that night, he took my glass, and poured himself the rest of our wine without asking. Then,he plopped himself down in my neighbors chair. There was so much silence, and it was so awkward it seemed as though he was marking his territory, yet his territory was next door, on his porch with his really nice looking chairs with cushions and such. I couldn't believe his brashness, my neighbor turned into a timid ball

 As the sun set, in the distance I could see the moon, and it was full that night.

To Be Continued....