One of Us

I have one of the strangest neighbors on the planet. I've lived here in central Austin, in this venerable old neighborhood for two plus years. I love it...I rent a modest little duplex that fits my needs perfectly these days. It gets a little crowded when the girls are home, especially with one bathroom, but they are constantly gallivanting around the country and the world so it is plenty of room for Cleveland and me. The duplex is on a corner lot and there is a traffic light at the intersection which makes for interesting vehicular noises most of the night, and the train tracks are less than a mile away, so I get some occasional late night rumblings and whistles, but it is a delightful location with mostly older houses, a few of which have been remodeled and gentrified. My next door neighbors are a delightful young couple who are a writer and school librarian respectively. You probably guessed that the wife was the librarian and the husband the writer, but you would be incorrect. We watch each other's houses and they gave me a sprig off of their aloe vera plant last week and I planted it and put it on my porch...it is doing well. They wanted to buy one of the electric companies old electrical wire spools (you can buy one for $5) but they didn't have way to transport it so I took Clementine (my old truck) and picked up the spool for them. They are great neighbors. Directly across the street is a guy who moved in a couple weeks after I did. He is a single parent dad who has his kids every other week so we talk parenting shop fairly regularly, but he has boys, so I have to depend on youth ministry experience rather than parenting expertise to chime in. He's a good guy.

The elderly gentleman laterally across the street is bit of a hermit and I speak to him when he takes his garbage can to the curb, but not much else. I took his recycling out for him a couple of times while he was out of town, but he doesn't socialize much. Then there is the guy diagonally across the street from me. He walks around most of the time with no shirt on, cut off shorts and no shoes. He looks like a refugee from a Jimmy Buffet music video and/or an episode of COPS... and he is loud and profane. He plays music LOUDLY into the wee hours of the night, and has assorted lady friends over, all of whom eventually get into a shouting match with him...usually after midnight. The cops have been to his house at least a dozen times and the EMS folks about a half dozen. Not long after I moved in, a fleet of fire trucks raced to his house, sirens blaring, because he was burning trash Aggie Bonfire-style in his backyard. Several months ago, after an altercation with one of his female companions at 2 a.m., he got into his car in his own drive way and proceeded to sit on his car horn...on then off, on then off, on then off... for 47 minutes (yup, I timed him) until the battery finally gave out, mercifully, at 2:47 a.m. He and I met briefly because he gets upset if Cleveland barks at the postman, but mostly he just goes about his loudly-lost-in-the-70's ways to the chagrin of most of the neighborhood.

So today I took Cleveland outside at 7:00 in the morning to feed him and take care of dogie business, and not surprisingly, bare-chested Bon Jovi boy has got the Hi-Fi cranked up already. I shake my head in disgust, and then stop because I recognize the tune. It is Joan Osborne's "One of Us" and at that moment it reaches the chorus, and Joan's voice is joined by a screechy male voice singing at the top of his lungs, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, What if God was one of us...Just a slob like one of us...just stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home...". Honestly it pissed me off at first, that he was ruining this great song...and then it occurred to me that, I was the one involved in an adventure in missing the point. A very obvious point at that. It is easy to love my sweet, artsy couple neighbors, my fellow single dad neighbor, and my lonely old man neighbor...but come on, God...this guy is a menace to neighborhood peace and quiet, and he hates my dog. So I softened a little and when he came out and flipped me the bird as I led Cleveland through the gate I tipped my Indians hat in a polite acknowledgement. The next song came on and he was back to screamsinging at the top of his lungs...this time to "My Sharona". It would be nice if God could at least sing on key. It's gonna be a while before I can watch "Joan of Arcadia" again.

Pling...Pling...

dg