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More than a neighbor

2009-08-02 - 7:23 p.m.

I was heading to my car recently and might I add I was running the kind of late that makes you angry at yourself. I really had to be somewhere in a hot hurry, and I was speed walking as if it would magically get me to the car quicker and shave off some extra time. Who do I see on my way to the car? It's the guy from down the block, in the wheelchair, with the laminate spelling board. I waved and smiled, and he nodded and continued toward me. Realizing I needed to be a bit more clear, I said "Ok, have a good day." and opened the car door. He kept rolling toward me. At this point I realized he didn't have his spell board with him, so I had a feeling I might be there for a minute.

As he puts his parking brake on, contorting into all kinds of smiling puppy face expressions, and I'm literally holding the key to the ignition, I'm beginning to realize that he really thinks he's something cute. And I'm the kind of impressed you get when someone is showing you the 130th photo of her family vacation in the 70's. So I said, (with defeated body language),

"Hey. What's up".

"You - made my daaaaaaaay!"

"That's very nice of you to say."

All I honestly wanted to do was just turn the key in the ignition but something stopped me (guilt).

Oh, I'll be the jerk in the neighborhood
who couldn't give someone a little extra time
Everyone in the world is nicer than me
Everyone's heart's bigger than mine
He just has a few things to say, Cruella
Exactly how mean can you be?
He only rolls round the block
Once every few minutes
It's just that now he's rolling towards me

This is what took the longest. Mind you, he's not retarded at all. He's very smart. Which is why it pissed me off so much. He can have a perfectly normal conversation, while simultaneously guilting you to a T the entire time. Or me. And then as you wave at him, he'll wave back at you, when you pass him in your car, and the he'll keep waving, even when you can barely see him in the mirror.

So we made our small talk. But there was something he wanted to say.

"I have......I have.....I..."

I smiled.

"You have....?"

"I have...."

He wasn't coming out with it. Pretty chatty, but not forthcoming, for whatever reason. I really wanted to be patient, an exceptionally good person like my Grandpa had once said I was, oh, back when I was 7. He had told my mother, while smiling lovingly at me, that he could tell I was patient, and a very kind person. My mother said, "I like that, Dad! So, you can tell those kinds of things, hah?" He said he could. I wondered if he knew I had been stealing his gold coins and pocketing them, not to mention my brothers and I were eating his dried plums and throwing the pits behind the wooden chest where they lay now, in the crevices of the dusty floor in the upstairs guest room.

"I have...."

I have... a newer wheelchair? I have...a puppy? I have....the ability to bring out the worst in you for some reason? Well here's what I didn't have: All day. Much patience left over from age seven. A good feeling about being held captive with my key 2 inches from the ignition, suspended in mid-air.

I smiled again. I nodded. Silence. I smiled again.

"Have you met my husband? He walks the dogs sometimes by your house."

"Yeeeeeeeahhhhhhh!"

He smiled. I smiled again. For the love of all things holy, roller - what in the hell do you have? Most people in the neighborhood seem generally disinterested in each other for the most part, and he is no exception, save for our neighbor who paints women's genitalia - the two of them routinely have many things to say to each other, (though I prefer not to know what they are) and they often hang out in the street together like old chums, like on days when my captor 'walks' people's dogs up and down the street.

"So. You have...?

I gazed at my steering wheel, and then back at him. I felt a newfound appreciation and love for the wheel, almost the kind I have for my husband, or for a beautiful hiking trail, or for the word 'freedom'. I believe I now know why the caged bird sings. What does the freeway to Santa Monica look like again, and why does it seem so...perfect? 'Free Ohell', the bumper sticker could say. And even that would be free.

He was still doing his cutesie contorting thing, and still wasn't coming out with it. My patience had long ago run out, kind of like Obama's popularity for some people, once they realized he was a mere mortal.

"Ok, well look. I really have to go, so - can you tell me about it another time? Sorry, but I am running really late. Cool?"

To say I got no reply would have been getting at least an honorable mention. But with that, he turned on the motor, and sped, not rolled, down the block. When he had made the short dramatic stop to the dead end and could go no further, he threw his head back and his hands up in the most disgusted display of emotion I'd seen since the time I WAS caught being an unkind kid, only this time it was a close friend of my mother's, and not my complimentary Grandpa. I had stuffed some change in my shirt, with nothing to hold it there except maybe my skin, and when pennies and nickels and worst of all quarters began to come unstuck, the woman screamed "OH MY GOD! MY CHANGE!" Kind of like that.

But I decided then that I really didn't care, that he could go screw himself, that we all have shit to deal with, and most of it we create ourselves, and exactly who does he think he is? I pulled away and headed towards the other side of town. For days I thought about it. Was I a bad person? Was he just working me? Did I owe anyone anything? Why did I feel so guilty? Why do I dislike him so much? (Hint: it wasn't the wheelchair. That could be the obvious answer. And besides, there are plenty of more agreeable and less cringe-inducing folks in wheelchairs). So then what was it?

What I came to is that he's simply just a big pain in the ass. He didn't just look miserable today, he always looks that way. And - he has bad energy. Maybe some people, like true Christians, or Friars, love everyone. I'd like to, but I think he's one of Satan's children or at least one of his helpers with that pot-piss-poor attitude. But then I thought, well, what if it's you, and YOU have the bad attitude? Why don't you let it go, and just be nice anyway? Isn't that what Anne Frank would say? People are all good at heart? Actually I think she said "mostly good", so he then, could easily be the 2% that aren't. But still.

So I decided to do that - be nice. Just be nice. Just - he does have a heart, he's just kind of a thorn in the proverbial neighborhood rose. So just be nice, damn it! And the next time I had to leave in the car, and there he sat, quietly mediating maybe, outside his own house, looking peaceful - I made a point to smile at him, and wave. And he just looked at me. Disdainfully. Well, I'm going to KILL him with kindness then. And then the next time, same thing. I waved and smiled. Twice, just to be sure he saw me. And he just looked at me. Nothing.

So if it's tug of war with my emotions he wants - he can't have it. From now on, he gets nothing. And I mean it.

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