I found out that my neighbors are moving soon.
These aren't just any neighbors - These are the only
relatively quiet neighbors I have ever had.
They share the other half of my townhouse, and through the paper-thin,
un-insulated, non-sound-proof, fire-code-weak walls, I hear pretty much most
(not all) of what they do. I hear their two sons playing and running around
and getting ready for bed and coughing when they're sick. I hear the dad playing video games and
strumming his electric guitar and getting ready for work at ten at night
because he's a third shifter. I hear the
mom yelling at the old dog when he trips and falls down the stairs with loud
galumphing noises.
They have been my neighbors through the tornado microburst
that went right over and through the house, causing minimal damage to the structure
but uprooting a huge tree just feet from where we all hid in our bathrooms (the
only windowless rooms - even the basement has a full-size window). They are the neighbors who went through the
earthquake that rumbled and roared through the foundation like a freight train
coming off the tracks that are mere yards from our street. They are the neighbors who bore witness to the
idiot on the other side of me setting his house (and almost the one in front of
it and mine, subsequently our entire end of the block) on fire when he decided
that cleaning paint brushes with turpentine in an enclosed basement right next
to an open-flame gas furnace would be a bright idea. They are the neighbors who went through the
snowiest winter we've ever had, shoveling as if there were actually a place to
put it when there really was not.
They are the normal family.
While I do love my townhouse, the distinct disadvantage is
that one must truly and completely love thy neighbor or one's head will
explode. I am sincerely afraid that this
is finally the beginning of the end. Sure,
I don't have closets in here (the place is an old carriage house), the
foundation has a small leak and grows mushrooms through the stone, the heating
system works when and if it feels like it, and the toilet sometimes clogs even
if it only has urine in it (no paper). That's
its charm, its character. I can live
with all of these quirks for the location (across the street from the train
station and a three minute walk downtown), the safety (I know all my
neighbors), the proximity to the main power grid (we almost never lose
electricity because we're on the same grid as the fire and police stations), the
driveway (fits three cars), and its relative privacy even though I am mere feet
from my non-townhouse neighbors who are not connected to me.
My townhouse neighbors are moving, and if my landlord finds
a noisy family, which I'm sure they will be as my relatively quiet family is an
anomaly, it'll probably be time to move.
It's hard to be a quiet single (I'm the only one left here full-time
now) hogging up a three-bedroom place as I've simply spread myself out, and
it's impossible to expect the adjoining three-bedroom to house another quiet
single, as well.
It'll be sad. I've
been in this neighborhood for seventeen years. I lived in another apartment down the street
on the corner that I can gaze into from my newer, better place. The houses are historic and most of them
(including my first apartment but not this townhouse so much) are actively
haunted. The view from the front is of the
industrial park and old train station. The
view from the back looks directly over two cemeteries. It's urban, it's suburban, it's old and it's
new all thrown together. It's drafty and
the paint is peeling and the floors aren't completely done and the heating vent
covers don't fit right, and the bathroom is so far away from the bedrooms that
I used to give the kids puke buckets when they were little because I knew no
one would ever be able to reach the toilet in time.
But, like the mushrooms that occasionally pop through the
basement walls, I, too, have taken root here.
Perhaps I will be lucky and the next people will be just like the ones
there now. I don't tolerate noise, which
makes me a lousy apartment dweller. I'll
be your best neighbor because I make no noise; I'll your worst neighbor because
I'll bang on the damn walls if I can't sleep when you're playing music and
talking at three a.m. on a weeknight when I have to work in the morning.
They leave March first.
I feel like Caesar only the end isn't going to be a brutal surprise. Just brutal.
Beware.
