I was recently back in my hometown helping a friend clean out a house that he bought in my old neighborhood. Today, I’m going to do something a little different than usual, I’m simply going to report my interactions with the neighbors. No analysis, no opinions, just a brief glimpse of a place that I have full access to and many of you have never experienced. Warning: You might not like parts of this. But it is exactly how things went down over the course of three days in a declining American neighborhood, no exaggerations or modifications. I love going back to my old neighborhood. Because I don’t spend a lot of time there anymore, whenever I walk the streets I get hit with all sorts of flashbacks. The small ones are my favorites. The curb where I picked rocks out of my leg after crashing my scooter. A driveway I shoveled where the guy tipped me five extra bucks. My wet hair freezing on the walk to the bus stop. You get the idea. So when I had the excuse to go back to town recently to help clean out an old house a friend of mine had purchased, I took it. I landed Sunday morning and got to the house that afternoon. My friend unexpectedly had to cover a shift at the restaurant he works at, so I ended up all by myself and completely unprepared the first day of work— but determined to impress him by getting as much done as I could solo! There were some masks, regular brooms, a dustpan, trash bags, and gloves at the house already. But there was some big furniture I would now want to try to haul out on my own and a lot of debris on the floor. So I needed to track down a dolly and a push broom, two things I wasn’t about to just buy for a couple days work. Fortunately, I thought I had a lead. When I had walked around the outside of the house assessing things, I’d noticed that one of the neighbors had a homemade (but well-constructed) trailer out back, had seemed to put up their own carport, and had various other signs of being the type of occupants that would likely have a dolly and a push broom. As a guy who has knocked on thousands of doors in his life, I strolled walked through their neatly trimmed crabgrass yard, up the cracked but clean concrete porch steps, and knocked on the door. Immediately, A large dog went ballistic behind the door. I heard someone yell at it from the back of the house and some movement in the depths. Half a minute later, a slightly disheveled older man cracked the door open with his right hand, holding his truly vicious looking dog back with the left, and peeked out. “Hey, how’s it going?” I said. Shirtless and wearing jeans, he looked me up and down while trying to hush up his dog so he could hear. “Hold on a sec,” he shouted, “Let me put him away.” He closed the door and I heard him and the dog fade away into the house. I sat down on the concrete post at the top of the stairs and looked around while I waited. The porch was extremely neat and clean, like someone swept it every morning. A couple of black metal chairs sat on the right side of the door and a wooden one sat to its left. A decorative cross hung between two windows and a couple of small, concrete, religion-themed statuettes, like you find on many Missouri porches and yards, rounded out the exterior decor. I think there was an empty bird feeder and maybe an empty hanging plant pot, too, but I can’t remember for sure. Everything was worn and showed its age, but was well taken care of. The reason I remember everything so well is because I basically had an eternity to look around with nothing else to do. A minute or so after the man and his dog had left, the house had gone quiet and there wasn’t any more sign of movement or noise inside for at least five minutes. I actually think it was more like ten, but ten minutes is a pretty long time and people usually overestimate time when they’re waiting so I don’t want to over estimate here. But it was long enough that I began to wonder if he was going to come back at all, and had started assessing the dolly-and-broom potential of other houses nearby when I finally heard another sound at the door. The man was back! As he walked through the doorway he proclaimed, in good spirits, that I’d better not be selling something, then sat down in the metal chair closest to the door and smiled, waiting for me to talk. He was now wearing a clean wrinkle-free t-shirt, a black mariner hat, nice shoes, and I swear he had even taken the time to comb his white mustache. Out in the light he looked to be somewhere in his mid seventies and I guessed from his current meticulous presentation that he didn’t get many, if any, visitors, and wanted to make a good impression. “Even worse,” I retorted, “I’m just here to mooch off ya!” He chuckled and sat down. “Alright, let’s here it.” I explained that I was cleaning out the house next door and realized I didn’t have a dolly or push broom. “I heard you out on the back porch earlier jamming some classic tunes and after a look at how you take care of your place, figured you might be the type of guy who would have those sorts of things.” Shameless flattery, I know. Busted. But who wants to move a whole rotten refrigerator out of a house by themselves without a dolly? He feigned embarrassment, seemed pleased with himself, said something about how he liked blue-toothing his music back there, and then asked me if I was his new neighbor. “No, Sir, I’m just doing some work for the guy who owns it. I’m Lucas by the way.” We shook hands and introduced ourselves. “Well that’s too bad,” he said. “And sorry about earlier,” referring to his dog, “He gets a little excited whenever someone comes around. It’s just me and him now, my wife passed away a few years ago, so there’s not too much going on.” “No worries. I hope you’re holding up ok without her. He seems like a good dog to have around if you’re by yourself. I know the neighborhood can be a little rough sometimes.” “You know, it’s mostly pretty quiet.” “I believe that,” I replied, “It used to be wild around here, I grew up in this neighborhood and there were kids running everywhere back then.” “Hmmm, well, that would sure beat what we have across the street these days.” “Oh, what’s that?” “Oh, you know. Just a thousand people crammed in that house. Random folks coming and going all the time. Parking on the wrong side of the street. Facing every which way. Going to cause an accident sooner or later. Not to mention partying and yelling and all that.” As he spoke, he became more and more animated, and it was clear this was something he dwelled on. “Damn, that sucks,” I said, following the line of his finger toward a house across the street and up from him. “You be it does. I’ve gotten into it with some of em over and over again about coming on my property. You know what the worst thing is, though? You can’t even call the cops. They don’t do nothin. You know what happened the last time I called?” “What?” “They sent out some woman cop who couldn’t do a damn thing. Shameful. Just shameful. I sat right here on my porch and watched the whole thing. The man who lives there just blew his dope in her face and told her to fuck off and you know what happened next? She just did! Can you believe that? She just did like he told her. Up and left. You know what woulda happened if I’d done that? I’d be thrown in jail. That’s what. Straight away. But him? Nothing. That’s the world we’re living in now. And she just drove off.” “Wow,” I said, giving him some space to cool off. He pulled out a cigarette, loaded it into a white plastic holder, lit it and smoked for a minute, glaring at the house across the street. Then he looked at me. “You know what? I do have a dolly and broom I can lend you. Can you do me a favor, though?” “Maybe, what’s up?” “I need you to tell the owner something for me.” “Yeah?” “First, though, do you know is he going to rent it or live in it?” “I think he’s going rent it,” I replied. “That’s what I figured. Now I’m not against a guy making a buck. I don’t have a problem with that. So it’s not that…” He paused and seemed to be choosing his next words carefully. “And I know I’m not supposed to say it like this, but… I just don’t care anymore.” He was getting animated again. “I’m old enough that I’m gonna say what I mean. And I want you to let him know that if he moves any n*****s or Mexicans in there, well there’s just gonna be trouble.” So that had been a glimpse of confederate flag tattoo I’d caught when he first opened the door. He gave a cautious sideways look, as if this statement had been a way to try to gauge where I stood on things. I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t with him on this, but not in a way that would end the conversation because my friend, the homeowner, is Mexican, and I wanted to try to find out what this could mean for him. “Is that right?” I asked. The neighbor took a long searching look at my face and thought about things for a second. “Yes, Sir, it is,” he implored, as if he was now trying to convince me rather than gauge me. “I’m tired of ‘em all. The one, like them over there,” he waved in the direction of the house across the street, “don’t work and just cause trouble. As for the Mexicans, I’ve seen who he’s got working there on that house and I’d bet a silver dollar that he’s thinking about letting some migrants live in there. It’s not right. Them thinking they can just take over everything.” He took a drag on his cigarette. I waited. “Do you know if that’s his plan or not?” He asked. “As I understand it,” I figured it was best to just be straight with him, “He’s going to rent it on the open market, like on Zillow or something, to whoever can pay the rent and deposit. If it doesn’t rent, he may rent it to a friend or a worker. I don’t know, it’s his house. He’s not gonna discriminate, though, I’m sure of that. So I imagine you’re probably just gonna need to accept that whatever happens happens, and accept it. I’m positive he’s not gonna have troublemakers in there, though.” “Hmph,” he grumbled. “And,” I added, “It’ll definitely be an upgrade over who was in there before.” “You mean “A”?” he replied, seeming excited at the chance to sort-of change the subject. “Nah, he was alright. His problem is he was just dumb as bricks, that’s all.” I gave him a skeptical look. I knew the previous tenant, if you can call him that. “Dumb? Is that what they’re calling it now?” I laughed pointedly. “I went to school with that guy. He was squatting there and turned it into some sort of drug den and filled it up with a bunch of other squatters. I’m cleaning out his trash right now, it’s disgusting.” “Well, maybe he was a little crazy, too,” the neighbor said awkwardly, “But I never had any trouble with him!” “Well, that’s good,” I said, “because I think he might actually still be your neighbor. I saw a bunch of mattresses, tarps, and boxes in the woods back there.” He glanced in the direction of the woods and shifted in his chair, clearly not thrilled at the idea of “A” still being around. He mulled things over again, dragging on his cigarette. I returned to brainstorming a secondary source for a dolly and a push broom. Suddenly, out of the blue, he asked me a question. “Do you ever watch Newsmax?” I laughed again, but this time only in my head. Apparently he was in the mood for second chances. “No,” I answered, “I don’t really watch much of anything outside of some Netflix shows with my wife, but I’m sure that type of thing is up my ally.” “You’ve really got to.” His eyes actually lit up. “I mean really. I’m telling you. There’s this guy on there, Carl Higbie, he’s a Navy Seal. He just doesn’t give a fuck. Man says right there on national TV he’d shoot anyone who came on his lawn or caused him a problem. You really gotta watch it.” He paused, and added with a flourish: “It’s admirable.” What a curious choice of a word, I thought. Also curious, I thought, was the fact that by default I appeared to be in a club that I never gave any indication I shared a single value with. The only information this man knew about me was my first name, that I am white, somewhere around 40, grew up in the neighborhood, and was working on the house. I was wearing a sweat-soaked dusty and grimy gray t-shirt and a pair of work pants (the house didn’t have power or AC) and I needed to borrow a dolly and push broom. And I hadn’t engaged positively with any of his sentiments. “I mean, I’m a marine, so I guess it’s cool that he was in the military, but I think I’ll just stick with Love is Blind,” was my answer. “Hmmm. Well, I think you’d like it if you gave it a try,” he said, standing up, and not seeming to care that I am a Marine, which was interesting, and apparently oblivious to the existence of the American classic known as Love is Blind. I stood up, too. He tamped out his cigarette and put the holder in his pocket. “Come along now, let’s get you what you need.” In a bit of shock that this was still happening, I followed him around the side of the house to the back. His dog, now on the back porch, went viciously crazy again the second we turned the corner. He half-heartedly told him to shut up, which had no effect, and unlocked and opened his garage. “Just give me a sec,” he said, “I was welding up the trailer the other day so I gotta get this off of here.” I looked around the garage as he unstrapped some welding equipment from the dolly he was apparently about to lend me. I had been in this garage a couple of times as a kid and was flashing back to what it used to look like. Presently, it held several sparkling Harleys and a bunch of work stuff. He rolled the empty dolly over to me and asked, “Now where’d that broom go?” The question was clearly directed to himself, but when he headed the opposite direction of the one I’d seen in the corner, I answered it anyway. “I think I saw one over there,” I said, pointing in the corner, “Although I don’t know if it’s the one you’re looking for.” He looked over and sure enough it was. We stepped outside and he yelled over the barking “Just put ‘em back here when you’re done with ‘em.” And he went back inside. Later that afternoon, as I worked cleaning out the house, sure enough, random cars would occasionally roll up out front on the street and another older man, this one maybe in his 60s, would come out to meet them, talk for a minute and go back inside. At one point, while I was struggling to take apart an old piece of furniture so that it would fit through the door, two cars sped up out front a minute or two apart from one other. The second vehicle parked the wrong direction on the street and quite crookedly, exactly as the neighbor had complained about earlier. Two young men exited the crooked car and two young women the other. This time, the older man didn’t come out to meet them. The crooked car left its loud music on and they started having an animated, but friendly, conversation out front while it blared. I really needed a screwdriver for this furniture, but I didn’t want to go next door again, so I thought what the hell, might as well meet all the neighbors, and went out front. I walked up to the young group and shouted “Do any of you all live here?” and pointed across the street. The guys looked at me but didn’t answer. One of the women smiled and waved and yelled that she did. I asked her if by any chance she had a Philips screwdriver I could borrow. She said the pointy one? I said yeah. She said of course, if she had one I could, and waved for me to follow her up the walk. I found myself waiting on yet another neighborhood porch while the guys hung out by their car. I wondered if the the neighbor from earlier could see me out there and if so, if he would now be wanting his broom and dolly back. The woman brought out two options for me, one almost completely rusted through and the other one broken on the end, but serviceable. I said thanks and asked if I should just bring it back or leave it on the porch or something. Jovially, she said anything works, but they were usually around so it wouldn’t be a problem either way. When I got the furniture apart, the two young men were still in their wrongly parked car, but the women seemed to have gone inside, so I walked across and knocked on the door. A four-year-old-ish little girl answered. I asked her if she could find a grown up so I could give them back some tools, and the older gentleman who I had seen greeting cars earlier came and took them from me without saying a word. Pushing my luck, I asked if I could borrow some scissors for two minutes to cut a wire. He grunted and brought me some, which I returned a few minutes later. I thanked him and he nodded in response. The next day I saw him sitting on his porch when I was preparing to take some photos and video of the work I had done out front. I walked over and let him know that he might end up in some of them if he was out front, in case that mattered to him. This time he laughed and said no problem, he wasn’t worried about it, and wished me good luck on the work. I saw the young woman again later at the smoke shop/mini-mart on the corner when I was buying a $7 bottle of orange juice and a $4 off-brand mini Hostess pie. This was the only location for food anywhere nearby. She and the cashier were bantering back and forth about the merits of Miami Mint flavored vape and paid me no attention. As I sat on the front step of the house in the 100 degree heat eating my pie, I reminisced about how once a month, on payday, my dad used take us to the now-bulldozed neighborhood grocery store to pick out one of these pies, and how when I was little I always sucked out the inside before eating the crust. The dolly-and-push-broom neighbor drove by in his immaculately washed mid-90’s pickup. He waved hello and I waved back. Either he hadn’t seen me cavorting with his enemy or had decided he didn’t care. That was the only other time I saw him. I kept his stuff for three days before putting it back behind his garage, and he never complained or came to find it. On my way out of town, I relayed my earlier conversation with him to my Mexican friend who owns the house. He was astonished, said the guy had always been nice to him and they had complained together about the folks across the street and even about the squatter who used to live there (and who continued to occasionally break in and did in fact still live off and on in the nearby woods). I guess that’s America. Lucas PS As always, if there’s someone you think might find this post or one of the other ones on this substack interesting, please share them! You're currently a free subscriber to Lucas’s Substack. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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