The Neighbors

So there’s this place across from where I live. My upstairs neighbor calls it a trailer-park that has taken root. The residents are a strange assortment. There’s the woman with the bubble-butt and a tummy spilling out in front to match. She stands at the stove every day with her door wide open, wearing too-short shorts and a wife-beater, stirring the contents of a big pot. One time . . . one time, I swear I saw a paw reaching up out of the pot before she beat it back down with her wooden spoon, but I can’t be sure. That was the same day the cute family from across the street knocked on my door. They were looking for a lost kitten.

Then there’s this old guy who lives down on the end. I used to see him come out every night with a folding chair and a fishing rod. He’d sit on the balcony and cast his line out into the street, but he never caught anything. Then one night this crazed-looking woman whom I’d never seen before came out of the place next to his and talked to him. The next day he was sitting there first thing in the morning and there was something new on the end of his line. He cast out into the street a couple of times and caught the attention of a squirrel. The furry little thing took the bait and he yanked hard on the rod, then started reeling it in. Once he had the squirrel securely in a gloved hand he knocked on the neighbor lady’s door. She jumped for joy when she saw the little thing and they both went inside.

The garage doors on the bottom level never open and they’re secured with heavy padlocks and chains. Sometimes I can hear and awful racket down there, and at night there are flashing lights I can see under the door and a sharp smell like when I accidentally singed my hair lighting the grill. I’ve noticed there aren’t as many dogs in the neighborhood anymore.

On the opposite end from the old man there lives this really big amoeba. He . . . she? What do you call those things? I can’t remember. It has a lot of parties. Almost every weekend there is loud music–strangely it only seems to listen to David Bowie–and all sorts of other amoebas, parameciums and what-not coming and going all night long. I never knew there were so many simple organisms living in this city. I should get out more.