Our neighbors are “different”. The father sports a two-foot-long red mullet and huge, inch-thick glasses, the mother an unkempt tangle of bleached-blond, black-rooted hair, one pair of bicycle shorts, “muscle” shirts and the obligatory barbed-wire around the bicep, faded-out, homemade tattoo. They put a down payment on their house with the proceeds from selling a Harley she won in a raffle. None of these things is important to me. I mention them to illustrate that although our OTHER neighbors have avoided and mocked them for their appearance, lack of social skills, culture or intellect, which are apparent enough (the father actually asked us “What do you think the odds are of a WOMAN winning a Harley?” when we first moved here), WE have been friendly, kind, and helpful. We have generally tried to be good neighbors. Even when they rented a backhoe and attempted to insert an above-ground pool into the earth in their backyard to make an “inground” pool, practically right outside our bedroom window, which went on every day for over a month, and then the covering back over when they realized it was not possible. Even though the neighborhood stinks of shit from the 37,000 rabbits they have in little homemade cages out on the lawn to feed to their ten-foot snake, which is the centerpiece of their living room. Even though every vehicle they purchase (say, every three months or so) is louder and stinkier with exhaust from the last. Even though they have installed electric fucking fencing around their dog lot because the poor things kept digging out from boredom.
I live now in the house I grew up in. We bought it from my parents when they moved. The neighbors moved in just a few months before I moved back home. My parents were friendly to them as well, asking if they needing help moving anything, welcoming them to the neighborhood, etc. Mr. Jane has since helped them assemble furniture, move heavy things, given them advice on the snake (he used to manage a reptile store), and even lent them money. Mr. Jane is generally a friendlier person than I, and tends to stand around in the yard talking to these and other neighbors. Today this ends. I will no longer lift so much as a finger (well, with one possible exception), and have warned Mr. Jane to do likewise. They called him over to take a look at their CD player, which he did, and as he was about to leave, she said “Well, I wasn’t going to mention this, but now that you’re here I guess I will. David (their eleven-year-old, mildly retarded, and for some reason, SUPER-religious son) said he saw one of the girls (meaning one of ours, who are four and five) in a T-shirt outside this afternoon, and she bent over and he could see everything. He was really upset. You know he goes to church with his papaw…”
Mr. Jane was taken aback. “My girls were outside with bare bottoms?” The neighbor said no, it was a T-shirt and panties. “She was playing, and bent over, and he said he could see a bulge or something. He asked me to tell you to put shorts or pants on them before they go out from now on.” Mr. Jane came back inside and reported this to me. I thought a moment. The girls and I were up, dressed, and gone swimming at a friend’s house early this morning. They insisted on wearing their suits back home (under shorts) and just moments ago when I put them to bed, they had to change from their suits into PJ’s.
I thought a moment. I was furious. I told Mr. Jane what they’d been wearing all day. I sent him back next door - at that point I knew nothing I said would be neighborly - with the information that they’d been wearing their swimsuits all day. I sent some more information, which I’m sure Mr. Jane did not deliver because there wasn’t a fistfight. He told her that she might explain to him that little girls swimsuits might look like panties under a shirt, etc.
My problem is what the FUCK is this little pervert staring at my indecently-clad preschoolers’ rear-ends long enough to see a “bulge” in their swimsuits? And why, why, WHY wouldn’t his mother say something to the son about not looking at little girls’ (sufficiently covered, nonetheless) asses, instead of griping to us that my children’s attire, IN THEIR OWN SHITTING BACKYARD, is causing her son a problem? I’ve always thought this kid was weird, but in a harmless sort of way. His parents never go to church, but he attends constantly with his ill-tempered grandfather, whom I have never even seen speak to either of the parents since we moved here three years ago - he simply pulls up in front of the house in his truck and honks the horn.
He has gone to church literally EVERY NIGHT since school let out for the summer, and goes around asking people things like “Are you saved? Do you know Jesus?” which, while irritating, isn’t as bad as say, huffing gas or something. I know the child has problems, that’s obvious enough. He walks around in shorts and plastic cowboy boots, generally acting odd and staring off into space. He has been held back in school more than once, and I have always felt sort of sorry for him. Bet your ass than in addition to pity I will be adding some extra caution from now on. I am more creeped out than pissed, but I can’t understand the reasoning behind mentioning this incident to us instead of dealing with her son. :smack: