SafeTinspector Essays
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
My Neighbor, Not Me
This house is not directly behind mine, but is instead next-door to the house behind mine. Kitty-corner, you might say. We share a fencepost, for whatever that is worth.
Two or three years ago the home was purchased by a young family. A man not much older than me, with his wife and three children: two boys and a girl.
I exchanged hello's and proceeded to ignore them for the most part, in fine suburban American fashion. The boys were energetic, the girl cute. They soon put a massive new deck on the place, with a low brick wall surrounding it.
On several occasions over the next couple of years we saw them making merry on their fine, new deck. They had a nice 4th of July display each year, using the aforementioned deck as a launching pad for all sorts of brightly colored, stinky, imported Chinese incendiary devices. Sometimes Samantha and I would say "hi" and pet their dog while walking around the block. Although that happened several times, I have never learned their names.
A month ago, while driving to breakfast on a almost-but-not-really-warm Sunday morning with a car-load of nuclear family, we noticed yellow caution tape around the front porch. Remembering the massive deck in the back yard, I idly speculated that perhaps he's getting a new porch, or had poured some new concrete.
Heather mentioned that she hadn't seen the children or the wife in awhile. I hadn't noticed; I'm not much of a noticer. Sam, paging through a book, said nothing.
Two weeks ago, on a sunny afternoon, Samantha struck up a literate conversation regarding the relative merits of doggies and puppies with the neighbors who live directly behind us--the ones next door to the house with the deck. While Sam spoke with the husband, himself a troubled man who plays a clarinet to ward off his inner demons*, the wife talked to Heather and I conspiratorially. The house next door, she said, is now empty.
The man had gotten laid off his job some time ago. He'd taken to drinking, and had possibly begun hitting his wife--our neighbor was not absolutely certain about the hitting. What she was certain about was that his wife had left him, taking the children with her. Soon afterwards the bank announced to him that they were going to be putting the house, complete with its fine deck, through foreclosure. The man had no job, no family, and soon would have no fine deck and no house.
So on an almost-but-not-really-warm Saturday morning the man went into his basement and blew his brains out in the laundry sink.
When I heard this images of that happy family setting off fireworks in July came unbidden; gold, green, blue and red flashes casting sharp shadows across the tidy brick walls girding the back deck of their ranch home. Their faces were nameless, frozen at a moment in time when they were still a whole family. The house is now empty, the deck has leaves piled up in the one corner where the wind can't scoop them up. Why didn't I notice the leaves piling up? Why didn't I notice that there were no laughing boys running around the deck? Do you think I heard the gunshot and dismissed it, thinking it was a firecracker or some random car noise? I don't remember.
I tell you that I don't know as I actually see myself in him. My self esteem can't easily conceive of a world without me in it. But still.. could the line of demarcation between SafeTinspector and this nameless man be so clearly drawn as all that? If I lost my job, my liquid assets would be exhausted within four months regardless of how carefully I budgeted. My retirement assets might last another six months after that. In this economy, I might not necessarily find new work quickly enough to hold off the demons that await the popping of my little bubble.
I would like to think that I would never take out the despair of my lost dreams on my family or wife. But a depressed husband is sometimes a husband left behind.
If I lost my family and found myself alone in and with nothing but this house, with even that about to be taken from me, soon to be left with.. nothing.. would I, too, find the laundry sink a tempting resting place for my troubled brain-meats?
Nah, that's what the garage is for.
* Their house has had tragedy as well. Perhaps someday I'll tell you about their middle daughter.
** This post will also appear on my essay blog. ¶ 10:15 PM 0 Comments
This house is not directly behind mine, but is instead next-door to the house behind mine. Kitty-corner, you might say. We share a fencepost, for whatever that is worth.
Two or three years ago the home was purchased by a young family. A man not much older than me, with his wife and three children: two boys and a girl.
I exchanged hello's and proceeded to ignore them for the most part, in fine suburban American fashion. The boys were energetic, the girl cute. They soon put a massive new deck on the place, with a low brick wall surrounding it.
On several occasions over the next couple of years we saw them making merry on their fine, new deck. They had a nice 4th of July display each year, using the aforementioned deck as a launching pad for all sorts of brightly colored, stinky, imported Chinese incendiary devices. Sometimes Samantha and I would say "hi" and pet their dog while walking around the block. Although that happened several times, I have never learned their names.
A month ago, while driving to breakfast on a almost-but-not-really-warm Sunday morning with a car-load of nuclear family, we noticed yellow caution tape around the front porch. Remembering the massive deck in the back yard, I idly speculated that perhaps he's getting a new porch, or had poured some new concrete.
Heather mentioned that she hadn't seen the children or the wife in awhile. I hadn't noticed; I'm not much of a noticer. Sam, paging through a book, said nothing.
Two weeks ago, on a sunny afternoon, Samantha struck up a literate conversation regarding the relative merits of doggies and puppies with the neighbors who live directly behind us--the ones next door to the house with the deck. While Sam spoke with the husband, himself a troubled man who plays a clarinet to ward off his inner demons*, the wife talked to Heather and I conspiratorially. The house next door, she said, is now empty.
The man had gotten laid off his job some time ago. He'd taken to drinking, and had possibly begun hitting his wife--our neighbor was not absolutely certain about the hitting. What she was certain about was that his wife had left him, taking the children with her. Soon afterwards the bank announced to him that they were going to be putting the house, complete with its fine deck, through foreclosure. The man had no job, no family, and soon would have no fine deck and no house.
So on an almost-but-not-really-warm Saturday morning the man went into his basement and blew his brains out in the laundry sink.
When I heard this images of that happy family setting off fireworks in July came unbidden; gold, green, blue and red flashes casting sharp shadows across the tidy brick walls girding the back deck of their ranch home. Their faces were nameless, frozen at a moment in time when they were still a whole family. The house is now empty, the deck has leaves piled up in the one corner where the wind can't scoop them up. Why didn't I notice the leaves piling up? Why didn't I notice that there were no laughing boys running around the deck? Do you think I heard the gunshot and dismissed it, thinking it was a firecracker or some random car noise? I don't remember.
I tell you that I don't know as I actually see myself in him. My self esteem can't easily conceive of a world without me in it. But still.. could the line of demarcation between SafeTinspector and this nameless man be so clearly drawn as all that? If I lost my job, my liquid assets would be exhausted within four months regardless of how carefully I budgeted. My retirement assets might last another six months after that. In this economy, I might not necessarily find new work quickly enough to hold off the demons that await the popping of my little bubble.
I would like to think that I would never take out the despair of my lost dreams on my family or wife. But a depressed husband is sometimes a husband left behind.
If I lost my family and found myself alone in and with nothing but this house, with even that about to be taken from me, soon to be left with.. nothing.. would I, too, find the laundry sink a tempting resting place for my troubled brain-meats?
Nah, that's what the garage is for.
* Their house has had tragedy as well. Perhaps someday I'll tell you about their middle daughter.
** This post will also appear on my essay blog. ¶ 10:15 PM 0 Comments
