Good Fence

The endless bing bing BING bing bing BING wakes me.   I see her. I know she hears Puppy. I watch her connecting her hose to the front porch water spout. She is muttering under her breath. Same worn out construction boots. Same neon muscle shirt, same seasonally inappropriate cut off jeans. Everything is the same. The dangling cigarette. The emaciated frame. I nod off for a bit. Puppy startles me awake with his warning. His paws even hit the narrow glass panel surrounding the front door as she detaches her hose and sways back through the brush. They will deal with it I tell myself as I surrender to another sleep wave. 

When they get home later, they watch the footage. Puppy gets lots of love from all his fervent incessant barking. They are so busy rewarding him and praising him with cuddles and treats, they don’t feel the anger I feel. She fills her pool and thinks they don’t know. The water bill is always high but they blame the old house with old house plumbing.

Puppy wakes me and I shuffle to the bedroom window. No video footage for this crime. She is lugging the metal ladder through the clearing of brush between the houses. She gives Puppy the middle finger. He is unaffected. His focus is on his “HEY YOU ARE TRESPASSING” bark. Who gives their middle finger to a dog? She is the one and only from what I have seen.

The ladder is gone for weeks. Maybe a month. But I guess we don’t need it in the dead of winter. I hand them a check at dinner. $200. Buy another camera alarm for this side of the house. You have the front covered but not the side. They smile as they cuddle on the couch with Puppy as he licks and nuzzles. They don’t need the ladder. They don’t miss the ladder. They feel like helpful neighbors. They give back my check. I take it because if I don’t, maybe they will buy another ladder and give it to that thief.

Sunday drive with Puppy is my favorite. We go to a little chapel, then we drive just to drive to this little pub for lunch. Sometimes I bring a book club friend. Sometimes I forget to invite someone. But today, we can’t get out of our little cul-de-sac. A big truck is blocking the road. Henry is also blocking the road. They pull over and both jump out and run towards Henry. Henry is old and speaks mostly Japanese and his breathy broken English is almost inaudible. Trees! Trees! ME!! ME!!! Trees! She wrong. 

She storms over, spit flying as she curses and gestures with her bony arms and fingers at Henry. Screaming, Yelling, Threatening. She lunges towards Henry and they block her. She shoves them as they huddle protectively around the elderly man. They gently lead him back to his porch slider as she continues to yell. Puppy barks from the driver's seat fogging up the windshield. My heart is pounding and my fear takes my breath away. Bark, Puppy! Bark! Drown her out! My heart can't take it! And Poor Henry is so old!! Really, really, really old!! And he looks old too! He has had a difficult life. It shows on his face and his halted walk. When people see Henry, they protect him, feed him, smile at him and praise him for his beautiful garden and green thumb. His daughter pops her head out and gently leads him back into the house. They come back to the car. Property Dispute. It's recorded at City Hall. Fight it. Survey the property or don’t. What does that cost? Google says 600. Maybe I will give Henry my $200 check that nobody seems to want.

She calls Saturday morning at 7:30 am. She is maniacally laughing and ridiculing the surrounding neighbors. Every neighbor called her this morning with noise complaints because of the blasting heavy metal rock from her outdoor speakers at 7:00 am. She is asking if we are deaf. We are the only house that didn’t call to complain. They laugh. They heard the loud music and turned on the shop vac to clean out the garage and the cars. No one could possibly hear them over the blaring music. They thank her for the head start on their weekend tasks. She cackles about getting their hearing checked anyway and hangs up. Peacemakers! You can’t ruffle their feathers! 

Spring arrives for real this time. I am spending most of my days on the back porch. I peel potatoes, garden, crochet. I keep Puppy company. I watch my great niece. I read. I even have the book club over. They insist on catering it for me but I always imagine baking a quiche or a simple carrot cake loaf. They don't say it but I think they don’t trust me with the oven any longer. Puppy hates the oven and will hide in the basement if I turn it on. I also have so many sleep waves. I know they are increasing. 

Puppy barks and barks and barks. And I shuffle to the back porch. She is up the hill in the old shed. She has a big black bag and a torn cardboard box. She doesn't even look at me or the house. She holds onto saplings and small tree trunks as she struggles back across the brush into her own property. They never go in the old shed. There was an enormous wasp nest in it and a boy one day got stung and screamed all the way home never to trespass again. Later that day, Puppy is walking by the little overgrown path to the hill and I call him and start to pet him and slowly attempt to walk up the hill. But I'm winded and I have issues with balance so I slump into the Forsythia and, after getting a nice deep scratch on my arm, I head back down to the porch. My $200 check is presented over dinner and they just laugh. I tell them that it's different this time. It's for a video camera for the back of the house. They laugh and get me to laugh. And I lose that sense of urgency and foreboding I tried to hang on to all day long.  

They tell me Puppy is leaving soon. A little child in Rhode Island is a perfect match. They tell me her name and all about her princess pony unicorn world and I start to cry. They rush to console me but it’s no use. I need Puppy more than anyone. They go on and on about the little girl’s surgeries and trials and tribulations. Now I cry harder with conviction and guilt. I shed the tears of a jealous, heartless person.

I stop crying. I crochet a blanket for Puppy. Then I crochet a little pink purse for the little girl. I ask them to give my $200 check to the guiding eyes program. We all laugh at the tattered check but they send it off with ten little blankets I crocheted for the dogs in the program. 

My birthday arrives on a sunny Sunday. We drive past the chapel and further away. Clearly, we are not going to our usual lunch place. We keep driving and I doze off. They tell me we are visiting the little girl and Puppy. I sleep through the rest of the conversation. Puppy wakes me! Puppy is bouncing on my lap and licking my face. Dog slobber. Ick. But I am too groggy to push him away. He finally settles next to me and we share the backseat window watching the beauty of the winding back roads. I vaguely recall the story of how the girl couldn’t bond with Puppy so we adopt him for life. For life! 

My great niece is taking art classes and excelling. The art exhibit is in Westchester. They drive me to the exhibit and I stay over at the Marriott with my first cousin and his wife and daughters. They all look so old. And they are. We all are. We laugh so much and it all goes by so fast.

They are particularly giddy despite the rainy week. When it finally clears, I am back on the porch with Puppy. They join me with their morning coffee and their smiles have secrets. They motion for me to look around. And then I see it! The new fence along the perimeter of our property. And then they point to the security camera that spans the backyard all the way up the hill. I breathe a sigh of relief. Puppy will have more time to bark at the fox in the yard and the UPS driver. 

Puppy barks and I barely give it my attention. They come home early from work. The police are here as well. Our walled off oasis has kept me out of the loop. Our neighbor is gone. Her property looks ransacked. Henry told police in his broken English that she moved one night. No notice. No goodbyes. The pool is drained and the pool water has flooded Henry's flower beds. Her backyard has gaping craters and holes where shrubbery, small trees and perennials have been uprooted and carted off. The police review the footage from our newly installed cameras. Apparently, she was secretly drinking for years and storing the empty bottles in the old shed. Other items were stashed there as well. Receipts, traffic violations, the remains of a cat, empty prescription bottles, a Disney stock certificate, depression era glassware, Puppy’s Kong toy still filled with peanut butter and a tattered stack of playboys from the hairy decades.

Her younger brother is baffled, questioning and trying to make sense of it all. He thinks she’s in Graceville, Florida with an old boyfriend. He profusely apologizes. He seems to be nothing like her. He says she was always strange and estranged. They help him empty out the shed and clean up the debris she had stored there for years. He offers to pay for the shed to be repaired or torn down. They agree and thank him graciously.

Puppy has a friend now but not for long. Puppy’s puppy will go to a child with either health issues or a seizure disorder. I am doing my best to not get too attached. Wait a minute. They didn't put up the fence to keep her out. They did it to keep Puppy’s puppy in. And perhaps as I age it will keep me in too.

The endless bing bing BING bing bing BING wakes me. I see him. I know Puppy and his sidekick hear him as well but they minimally bark. No one barks for long at Henry. He is old and gentle. He stands patiently at the front door like a kind, thoughtful neighbor. I watch him adjusting his Hori Hori and a foam garden kneeling pad for me. We are planting a raised flower bed. Then we will crochet. Henry crochets!! Amigurumi mostly. Too cutesy for my taste but I will teach him to crochet in the round. He wants to join the book club! I feel guilty for assuming he couldn’t read. Henry is an avid reader in both English and Japanese. 

Today is the day when I notice all the blooms along the flower beds against the new fence. All at once it seems. Planting bulbs is a labor of love. Just looking at the flowers sends phantom pangs to my knees, wrists and lower back. I know it’s all in my head. Henry and I planted the bulbs with Himari and Hina, his two daughters. They both bring him to book club. They read the books too. 

New neighbors move in. They are nameless and faceless. They are so quiet sometimes I think I’m losing my hearing. Puppy’s puppy is still gone and this time the match is a done deal. I crochet the puppy blankets and even some canine friendly Amigurumi but my fingers get real numb so this is my last batch. 

I write my final $200 check. They tell me my funds are low. Puppy warms my lap as we sit on the porch. I’m wearing my LoJack bracelet. I never take it off.

I’m ready for my final sleep wave behind the good fence.