This is not how one hopes to meet the neighbor.
But there he is, glaring at me under the porch light, pistol in hand, erasing all the “howdy neighbor” dialogue I’d planned out for our first meeting.
I’d also wanted to tell him I loved the version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” he and his wife’s theatre troupe recently put on in a nearby park. I love Shakespeare but that didn’t rise up as the most relevant statement to make when you have a gun pointed your way.
Rather, our conversation when:
“Was that you?”, he asked.
“Yeah. I went to the backyard that way so I wouldn’t trigger the light over my roommates’ window.”
“Well, just remember that you could have died tonight.”
I was living with some friends during the early autumn of 2008, the third residence for me and Fortuna in as many months, during my turbulence and terrible post-divorce summer. That night, I got back around midnight from an evening with friends and decided to go into the backyard to watch the stars, drink a beer, and smoke a cigarette (amazing what habits return when your life appears to fall apart).
Seemed like a pleasant, non-life-threating idea. (more…)
