.45 Caliber Headspace

Sometimes I like to sit on my front stoop and holler out complex math problems at the young Asian girls that pass by. While I was doing this last week, one of my neighbors stopped to officially introduce himself. I thought this was traditionally done with an offering of baked goods, or at least a joint to make you hungry for baked goods. He brought me neither of these things, but since he’s built like a brick shithouse I thought it best to not criticize him for the oversight. Even if he were only built like a wood shithouse, I would probably still maintain a safe distance. In my experience, shithouses of any construction are always best left undisturbed.

This is why I usually hide behind a bush when I see him. Lately this has been embarrassing. He’s been pushing the bush aside, as if it were a curtain, and asking me how the hedging’s coming along. “You always seem to be at it”, he says. Now I’m also thinking the dude’s a few quarters shy of a roll. It couldn’t be more obvious that the hedging’s not coming along at all. I never have a single hedging implement in sight, and everyone knows that you need those to hedge. Still, I play along to prevent any undue shithouse disturbance. “Just fine, thanks.”

This guy’s been chummy like this ever since I stood up to his dog in the park one day. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the dog is of equal shithouse construction. It was fenced off at the gate of the park and there was no avoiding him. The dog stood between me and a cheesesteak sandwich from the Asian-run Italian place up the street. When hunger calls, I’m not about to take the scenic route, shithouse dog or no. “Don’t worry about him. He shouldn’t bite”, the guy says. Thanks Captain Assurance. I feel much better knowing that your roid dog “shouldn’t” bite me.

It’s not like I usually have cause to worry, either. Pets generally take a fast shine to me, especially Penthouse ones. I’m like a domestic Beastmaster of sorts. However, a dog did rip half my leg off when I was a kid and I spent about a year in and out of hospital getting it reattached. It’s now bionic and I can punt a football across two cities, but I still approach strange dogs with caution. I don’t want to have to punt them across two cities and I hate hospitals; they smell like old people and the candystripers aren’t as oversexed as porn always makes them out to be. Why is porn so misleading?

The dog that mistook my leg for Alpo was a Chow though, and Chows are a mere chromosome away from pure-bred Hellhound. The shithouse dog was a Doberman, and I’ve raised Dobermans, just not on steroids. Still, I braved approaching the beast and in my best dog whisper told him to “stay”. He just looked at me like, “What the hell’d you just say to me? Say it again. I’m this close to tearing your soul out.” If you give a dog a chance to tear your soul out, he will. I had to step it up a notch. “Stay!” This time his look said, “I can’t believe the balls on this one.” I wasn’t surprised; I always get that look. I don’t think he could get past the balls though, because he obeyed as I walked by. “Wow! I can’t believe he listened to you”, the guy says. That’s when I knew I didn’t like this neighbor.

So he stops over last week without baked goods or a joint and tells me the hedging’s looking good. Then he tells me that he saw some car thieves the night before. They were at the end of the street and one was poised as a lookout. I don’t know why he’s telling me this; I see car thieves all the time, usually driving off in my roommates’ cars. “I just thought you’d want to know”, he says. “I would’ve busted ‘em up myself, but I already have a jacket and if I get sent up again, I’m doing hard time. I can’t go back there, man.” I already knew the guy did time because the only people that work out that much are inmates and gay men. Inmates work out to ward off anal advances and gay men to invite them. I knew which group he belonged to because of the tattoo on his arm that says, “I Hate Gays and the Law”. This is in stark contrast to the lower back tattoos gay men like to get. For both gay men and women, lower back tattoos are universally understood to represent a love of anal sex. They also like to get tribal symbols, especially in an armband formation. These tattoos are understood to represent a love of water sports.

My neighbor was also insistent on telling me that he wasn’t going back to prison. He kept saying it. “It’s not like the cops are gonna do anything, but I can’t get involved. I ain’t goin’ back.” I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve always found the cops to be extremely helpful, like the time my roommate’s car was stolen and we found it 10 blocks away, We called the cops and they immediately came three hours later, at which time they proceeded to chew us out for bothering them after the car was already recovered. “Sorry, we thought you may want to take a report or something regarding the fact that it was stolen and stripped and is now parked in front of somebody’s house. Our bad.” Yes, this was one of the other times I mentioned last week.

It’s not like I’m gonna turn the guy in if he wants to bust up car thieves, though. I told him, “Don’t worry, dude. Bust ‘em up. In fact, text me when it’s about to go down and I’ll get your back. From way back, though. See that house over there? I’ll be near the one behind it making sure no cops are out making traffic stops.”