One of the girls who lived upstairs from me used to start fights every time I walked outside. I had the bottom floor of a top bottom duplex in a chic downtown neighborhood. The neighborhood was full of old houses, and mine was especially interesting because of all the people who moved in and out of the upstairs. I had a woman with three children who divorced her millionaire husband for no specific reason that she stated, but she and her three children were all on Ritalin. I knew because I found it one day in the backyard. A younger woman, who had moved back to the city with her boyfriend from the VI. Her man was the dad to her two children and the first job he got was with a woman who owned a bakery. He had long dreads and no job skills at all, according to his girlfriend. He dumped the girlfriend and left her to raise their children while he strutted around town with the bakery owner. Then the girl moved an artist in upstairs, who was mean enough to deliberately mow down the Azalea bushes I had the rental office put in. Then there was the woman who left a home she called the mousetrap to move upstairs with her three children and her boyfriend. I used to hear her suddenly start fights. The main bedroom was right above mine, and from darkness and silence I would hear a sudden crash upstairs, then she began yelling that the guy had slept with her sister and she could never forgive him. Usually, this episode ended up with flashing blue lights outside because the fight went outdoors and the other neighbors called police, I don't think they had a phone.
Then that crazy girl who fought all the time moved in upstairs with her younger boyfriend and son. She'd been in jail for solicitation, and told me about it all, and about her arrest for hitting someone's child. She thought I would believe her and not the others, the police, when she claimed she was innocent, but I didn't. After a while I realized she had a personality disorder and whenever I had to walk outside, and she called out my name, I quickly turned and either went back upstairs or to my car. She was that insane. She may not be the craziest neighbor I've ever had, but she comes close. The fourth of July that year wound up with me calling the fire department. I smelled something burning in my bedroom and she had taken one of the tiki torches she constantly burned, (she had an obsession with fire) and put it in the basement and closed the door. You would think it would be any trouble for her with the fire department, but nope. She used to strip and she played men like a violin! She'd just bat her eyelashes and play ignorant when anyone tried to get her to take responsibility for her aggressive behavior. While in my hometown, I was across the street from a Legal Aid for people with mental disabilities, and I could have sworn she was walking into the old Ben Franklins in handcuffs with an attorney in tow. I used to wonder what happened to her, but I had her one year after I moved on, scream at me from a car on a major road that she was going to murder me. I took her seriously, but in my opinion, I was just an unlucky sap she decided to move in next to, way back in the day.
I worked in sales for most of the time I lived there, and just barely kept a home going. People I worked with used to ask me why I did that to myself, paying so much for rent on a place that had expensive utilities as well. My response was that I had to live on my own, and I don't really like apartment living. Even though the duplex was an apartment, I did have some time alone where I lived with no one upstairs. They had no real locks on the doors and when the last person moved in upstairs there were marks on the walls where someone had been sitting and using drugs. What I had believed to be squirrels were actually people, using the empty apartment. My dogs were with me, and no one bothered me especially inside my home. At that time I still answered my door, and the few people who knocked were either those looking for a room and seeing the empty space upstairs, or someone looking for someone.
Ever since I moved here I've spent all my time wondering why I ever left my hometown. I felt oppressed by it's smallness, while at the same time missing the place, where the promise of every dream you ever imagined could come true. It's something of a Hollywood, just on another coast. Then a dozen or so years ago, my mom retired, sold her house and moved to another area of the state, not giving me any conceivable reason to move back,ever. And I knew that I could not move back. Never. As time flowed in it's inevitable pond, I lost touch with people, and eventually I forgot about them. The few people remaining that I know are through web applications where I see their happy announcements about the birth of a grandchild, a son or daughters college graduation, all the little things that make up a life. Or, see their requests for prayers when a parent of family member is ill. When my dad died, when he was so ill for the last six months of his life he felt trapped, I didn't ask for prayers. He'd been sick off and on for 18 years, and it was just his time to go, at 82. While I still feel raw about his death, I know time has simply moved on.
Then that crazy girl who fought all the time moved in upstairs with her younger boyfriend and son. She'd been in jail for solicitation, and told me about it all, and about her arrest for hitting someone's child. She thought I would believe her and not the others, the police, when she claimed she was innocent, but I didn't. After a while I realized she had a personality disorder and whenever I had to walk outside, and she called out my name, I quickly turned and either went back upstairs or to my car. She was that insane. She may not be the craziest neighbor I've ever had, but she comes close. The fourth of July that year wound up with me calling the fire department. I smelled something burning in my bedroom and she had taken one of the tiki torches she constantly burned, (she had an obsession with fire) and put it in the basement and closed the door. You would think it would be any trouble for her with the fire department, but nope. She used to strip and she played men like a violin! She'd just bat her eyelashes and play ignorant when anyone tried to get her to take responsibility for her aggressive behavior. While in my hometown, I was across the street from a Legal Aid for people with mental disabilities, and I could have sworn she was walking into the old Ben Franklins in handcuffs with an attorney in tow. I used to wonder what happened to her, but I had her one year after I moved on, scream at me from a car on a major road that she was going to murder me. I took her seriously, but in my opinion, I was just an unlucky sap she decided to move in next to, way back in the day.
I worked in sales for most of the time I lived there, and just barely kept a home going. People I worked with used to ask me why I did that to myself, paying so much for rent on a place that had expensive utilities as well. My response was that I had to live on my own, and I don't really like apartment living. Even though the duplex was an apartment, I did have some time alone where I lived with no one upstairs. They had no real locks on the doors and when the last person moved in upstairs there were marks on the walls where someone had been sitting and using drugs. What I had believed to be squirrels were actually people, using the empty apartment. My dogs were with me, and no one bothered me especially inside my home. At that time I still answered my door, and the few people who knocked were either those looking for a room and seeing the empty space upstairs, or someone looking for someone.
Ever since I moved here I've spent all my time wondering why I ever left my hometown. I felt oppressed by it's smallness, while at the same time missing the place, where the promise of every dream you ever imagined could come true. It's something of a Hollywood, just on another coast. Then a dozen or so years ago, my mom retired, sold her house and moved to another area of the state, not giving me any conceivable reason to move back,ever. And I knew that I could not move back. Never. As time flowed in it's inevitable pond, I lost touch with people, and eventually I forgot about them. The few people remaining that I know are through web applications where I see their happy announcements about the birth of a grandchild, a son or daughters college graduation, all the little things that make up a life. Or, see their requests for prayers when a parent of family member is ill. When my dad died, when he was so ill for the last six months of his life he felt trapped, I didn't ask for prayers. He'd been sick off and on for 18 years, and it was just his time to go, at 82. While I still feel raw about his death, I know time has simply moved on.
