“Hate me, or HATE Me’
It was strange to grow up next to a wacko. Kids would talk about nice neighbors and I was ‘Huh??’ The idiot next door (we’ll call him Mr. D) was the only person on the block more hated than my father. He thrived on hate. He and his frail, stern wife rarely left the house and never spoke to anyone in a normal way.
He worshiped his grass, caring for it like a prize thoroughbred. When they built his house, he paid a guy to cart a load of mushroom soil to his lawn (extra special fertilization, doncha know). He was the first guy to buy a riding mower, to cut his 1/23 of an acre…..And a quarter of that was taken up by his garden. Don’t knew where he worked, usually his cellar lights were on all night.
He sat on his back porch and anyone who stepped on his grass got yelled at, even toddlers. He called the newspaper and complained his paperboy stepped on the grass. He called the borough about the snow plows putting too much snow on his grass. Leaves from our trees were not gathered, he would rake them to our property. If the wind blew grass cuttings or leaves onto his lawn, he go out after dark and rake them onto our side.
He smoked a pipe that smelled like cat pee and had gold tooth in the front. Oh yea, and he wore white socks and sandals all summer. Every spring, he put out a large Blue glass ball on a podium.
When you’d cut your lawn, the bathroom Venetian blinds would stir, quickly stopping when you looked over. Within a few minutes, he’d emerge and stare, making sure you didn’t blow grass on his lawn. If you mowed far back against the field, he’d walk back and stare.
He was on my father about lawn mowers before I was born, and after being screamed at by daddy, he mostly watched from the porch, pipe belching sewage into the thick summer air. Around fifth grade, I had to start cutting the lawn. I was immediately cautioned to watch how I mowed and that he was going to call the police. From then on, every time I cut the grass, my father would stand and watch him, watching me. The moment psycho took one step toward me, my father took two steps toward him. As I remember it, psycho told daddy he didn’t have to watch him, he was just protecting his grass. To which daddy replied that if he spoke to his son about anything, HE’d call the cops. I don’t know how my father withstood the stench.
As I got older, I played mind games with him–cutting the front grass, a little bit on his side (he runs out), then immediately the other side of the house. Back and forth I’d go. Shades move, he runs out. I’m on the other side, he goes in. 5 or 6 trips in and out–smell appears, then fades, smell appears again
The best one was when he told my father that our grass was invading and seeding into his grass and if my father didn’t stop it from happening, he would call the cops.