…for some unknown reason, our family has been relocated to what can only be charitably described as “the bad part of of town.”
The neighborhood is a congregation of cheap, prefab homes and trailers jumbled together with only the thinnest of spaces between them. The houses stand (barely) on two hillsides with the street running between them. Each house is a hodgepodge of aluminum siding, cardboard boxes, plywood scavenged from packing crates — all tacked on to supplement the cheap, original structures. If houses were hobos — with layers and layers of clothes scavenged from thrift stores covering unwashed, diseased frames — they’d look like this neighborhood.
The only comfort I have is the knowledge that we can sink no lower.
A married couple we’re friendly with has come for an afternoon visit. It’s not really very pleasant, having someone stop by unannounced at your hovel. We do our best not to let them see the stress and shame they’ve imposed on us. But it isn’t easy.
Our friends take it upon themselves to do us the favor of building a rabbit hutch in the small side yard of our house. My wife goes out to supervise, to make sure they don’t take away too much space from our meager garden. The stunted corn stalks and tomato plants are all we have, some days. Rabbits will add meat to our table, if we can find the will to follow through. At the very least, our daughter will have a few fuzzy little friends to brighten her days.
While they’re working, I hear noises from the street out front — men’s voices raised above the groan and clank of heavy machinery. I realize that a work crew from the city has begun tearing up the street out front.
I head out to the sidewalk to find that most of the street is already a jigzaw puzzle of broken asphalt and concrete. A wide trench twenty feet deep already runs down the center, swallowing steet and sidewalk whole. It stops just before our driveway. I manage to flag down one of the workers and beg him not to continue until our friends can back their car out of our driveway. I have no desire to spend the next two weeks stuck with them as houseguests.
The man, heavyset with a dark bushy set of eyebrows and matching mustache, rolls his eyes and shrugs massive denim shoulders. He heads off and I rush back to let our friends know they need to go. I’m relieved to see them back their car up the street, barely ahead of the steam shovel.
It is only after they’re gone that I realize that we’re now trapped, unable to back our own cars out. I grind my teeth, already rehearsing the phone call to my boss in the morning. I don’t even know how to figure out the bus route in this part of town.
As evening falls, it’s clear that the street construction is the big show for the evening. Up and down the street, everyone in the neighborhood comes out to sit on their steps and drink beer. Women socialize and men laugh and tell dirty jokes while their ragged children scramble among the dusty machines.
I shake my head, amazed at the white trash spectacle of it all. I head back up my steps to go inside and help my wife get the baby ready for bed. I see a small red and white coffee cup that she left out on the stoop. I make a mental note to come back out for it once bedtime preparations are underway.
The time inside with my wife and daughter is an oasis from the squalor and chaos outside. I feel a rush of gratitude and know that, no matter what, we will always have this. It is all we need.
Outside, I find that the cup is gone. Puzzling.
A few feet away, our next-door neighbors sit on their steps doing their damnedest not to make eye contact with me.
The patriarch of the clan, a borderline obese old bastard in work pants and a white dress shirt with coffee colored accents under the armpits, sucks sucking his false teeth and taps his cane on the steps, knocking out loose stones and gravel with the tip.
“Excuse me,” I say to him.
He looks at me through the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes lie raw eggs floating in their yolks.
I don’t even bother pretending to give him the benefit of the doubt. “There was a cup out here a few minutes ago. What did you do with it?” It’s obvious to me, and obvious to him — we both know what happened to it.
The man waves his cane in the air, dismissing me without bothering to look my direction. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, son.”
This is intensely annoying to me. The cup is nothing, a cheap thing that has no nostalgic or sentimental value. But it’s the principle of the thing. I pass across to their steps, standing just below him. “What’s your name?”
“Walter.” I am gratified to see he looks a little bit wary.
“No kidding? My grandfather was named Walter.” I looked him directly in the eye, as much as his distorted lenses will allow. “But he wasn’t a thief — not like you, you lying son of a bitch.”
Everyone freezes. One of the young guys in his family stands up, fists balled. He’s half my age, sporting the lazy muscles of a kid with too much time to find a job but not too much to work on his tan. “What’d you say?”
“I said, this old bastard stole my coffee cup.” I keep my eyes on the old man. “Right, Walter?”
The old man considers this, his jaw moving thoughtfully. After a moment he flaps a hand at his grandson, waving him down. Walter rises like a antique doll, unfolding his limbs carefully. He motions for me to follow him back up the steps into their house.
I tip my chin at the young punk as I pass. He face is red to the roots of his bleached hair. He looks like an Oompa Loompa.
Inside, Walter leads me through a dim maze of little rooms and hallways cluttered with junk and more members of his family. Every sound within and without rattles along the cheap fiberboard walls. Surprisingly, I am not worried. Just curious about where this will go.
Finally he steps into a large area at the back, a garage with high ceilings that dwarfs the rest of their dwelling. Inside are vintage automobiles from the 30s and even earlier, all perfectly restores. Along one wall are antique signs from the turn-of-the-century. A mint condition jukebox sits in one corner, bubbling quietly to itself. Little shelves line the walls with knickknacks and memorabilia from decades past.
I realize that everything here, even in the automobile, is branded by the Coca-Cola Company. All in red in white. Like my cup.
He turns, giving me a minute to take it all in. “Why would I take your shitty little cup, when I have all of this?”
He’s making my argument for me. We both know we took it for his collection. And I say so.
He looks me over for a long moment, clears his throat and spits on the floor at my feet.
Without a word, he turns and leaves me there alone. I consider hunting through his collection to find my cup, or a least one to replace it. but I realize that I’ll be thief if I do.
I head back out through their white trash warren. He is waiting on the steps, as before. As I pass he says, again, “Why would I take your shitty little cup?”
I don’t answer. Back on my steps I stop and turn to look at him.
It takes maybe ninety seconds for him to deign to turn his head in my direction.
“Go fuck yourself, old man.” Before he can respond, I head inside.
My wife and I decide that we’ll sit on the back porch tonight. Better than putting up with the human carnival of misery out front.
The “back porch” is really nothing more than a set of corrugated iron steps leading down to a patch of dirt where our daughter plays. A few of her toys and action figures are scattered here and there among the scrubby grass and mud puddles. But she is too tired to play tonight, so we just sit together. My wife and I talk in low voices while we wait for our daughter to doze off.
My wife holds the baby — not so much a baby anymore, really — leaning back against my chest. A few stars are visible in a little scrap of sky overhead. Quiet. Peaceful. All we need is this, being together.
After a while, I feel my wife’s hand at the fly of my jeans.
“Not in front of the baby…” I say, mildly shocked and mildly thrilled.
She chuckles and leans back, her mouth against my neck. “She’s out like a light…”
…aaaaaand, regrettably, that’s when I wake up.
After a little tossing and turning, I manage to fall back asleep once more, hoping I don’t miss out on the good parts…
…as we’re getting ready to head back in for the night, our neighbors on the other side spill out into their little patch of backyard. Fifteen people stand around, drinking beer and talking over the techno music blaring from the open doorway.
I can feel the thump of the bass in my lungs. The baby stirs and my wife sits up, gives me a look — one that we have long shared about our neighbors. She sighs and heads inside with the baby, leaving me to deal with the guys next door.
They’re not bad guys, really. They just forget that other people sometimes need to sleep. They’re always very nice when I remind them.
And they’re big nerds, which I appreciate. Everyone at their party has a t-shirt referencing Doctor Who or comics or Star Wars.
I get up and go over to one of them and he gives me a friendly nod. “Dude, check it out…” He proudly displays his shirt, stretching it over his dumpy frame. Every single one of these guys is built like the comic book store owner from The Simpsons. His shirt features a black and white picture of Bart Simpson captioned with a clever gay double entendre.
(For what it’s worth, I could not remember the double entendre once I woke up. But it was funny, I promise.)
I smile, in spite of myself. There are worse things than living next door to a trailer full of pleasantly homosexual nerds. I just wish they would stop inviting me to go clubbing with them.
I decline tonight’s invitation, yet again. I’ve got work in the morning, I tell them. “And I’m not really on your team, you know.”
One of the other guests chimes in. “There’s no teams, man. Don’t you know being gay is just a percentage?”
I shrug, pretending to consider my options for the very first time. “Maybe that’s true . . . but none of you faggots are George Clooney,” I say good naturedly. It’s a running joke between us.
They explode with laughter.
Another one makes hip thrusts in my direction. “Hey man, I’ll be your Clooney. You won’t know the difference.”
I give him a scornful look. “Who says I’m a bottom?”
This cracks them up even more. One of them offers me a beer.
I decline. “Seriously… I gotta work in the morning.” I make one last attempt to plead my case. “And we’re trying to get the baby to sleep, so can you maybe turn the music down?”
One of them heads in and, a few seconds later, there is an imperceptible reduction in the volume. He comes back out. “How’s that?”
I’d give him a resigned nod. “Perfect, thanks…”
I head back over to climb the steps of our little house, hoping my wife’s still awake…
…and then I’m back in bed, cold afternoon winterlight slanting in through the window. Across the hall, I hear my wife talking to our daughter while she changes her diaper.
Feeling very lucky to have them, to have this life, I get up from my nap.