Boundaries

-Contains some foul language-

See, this is what I told the cop. That asshole neighbor of mine has been a pain in my butt for years. Always accusing me of being on his precious property, claiming I left my old washing machine on his side of the line, blah, blah, boo hoo. He’s a farmer for Cripes sake! There’s acres of field out there, but I get anywhere near his boundary, he’s coming at me like a bat out a hell.

Which is what happened Friday last, and I told that to the cop, like I’m telling you now. See, I had a bit of free time on my hands because those jackweeds at the boatyard said I was calling in sick too much. Of course I was. People can’t just be coming in to work with the covid, so I’m doing everyone a favor, but they said three weeks out of two months is too much and fire my ass. I can’t even collect unemployment, did you know that? I’m pretty sure that’s some kind of union violation right there, but the union won’t help me ‘cause I didn’t sign up. How was I supposed to know I’d need a union rep? Fuckers.

Yeah, yeah. I have anger management issues wicked bad. I’m trying to work on it. The doctor says I have to have boundaries, not to let stuff like this whole situation trigger my anger, but how the hell am I supposed to avoid what happens to me?

The point is I had some free time, so I’m setting out on my back porch looking across my field and I get to studying my asshole neighbor’s tree line. Thing is, he put those trees in years back and I didn’t think much of it, but now they’re big and they block my entire view. Used to be I could pop open a cold one or three and set there looking out across his fields and down to the river, my little piece of heaven. Now I’m staring at a wall of pine trees. So I start thinking if I trim out a few of them lower branches, I could see something again. What’s the harm? Them branches kinda stuck out over my property line anyways, so I can cut them. I know my rights.

That’s the thing, you gotta know your rights. People don’t know that. They think the government can just tell them what they can and cannot do and there’s nothing they can do about it. But here’s the thing: the government changed all the laws in secret back in Civil War days. I learned about that on YouTube. These guys – call themselves sovereign citizens - they say the real law of the United States is supposed to be something called “individual common law.” That means the government doesn’t have any authority. So, when these citizen guys get served for not paying taxes or for trespass and such-like, they just throw away the papers and yell they don’t have to follow the law. The cops give ‘em a ticket, and the citizens just tear that up too and the cops don’t do anything. That’s proof right there that they can’t do anything. Those citizen guys are right. We don’t have to play by the rules. We got rights.

And I figured I got the right to enjoy a view God gave me until my asshole neighbor put in a line of pines. So I tossed the chainsaw in my all-terrain and ran her down to the end of my meadow and started trimming up those branches. I could reach up pretty far too. It looked better if I tidied out some of the smaller trees, evened it up. I was clearing up the view good when my asshole neighbor suddenly shows up yelling about the damn property line. He’s an old guy, but actually bigger up close than I had thought he was, and he’s right in my face, his hat brim just poking at me. He looks pissed off as all holy hell and he’s telling me to get off his land. His land? That’s my land! I’ve always had that view and now he’s saying I can’t cut a few little branches.

Well, next thing you know, I’m winding up to get in some punches, and he’s got a hand on my shoulder like he’s going to tell me to calm down, but I can’t take that kind of shit. I have anger management problems. So I start whaling on him, screaming for back up, when my brother comes running down hollering and pulling me off the old guy and we’re both yelling at him to get off my land but he’s being a dick about the pin. “Did you pull the pin?” he keeps shouting. See, awhile back he had his place surveyed with those orange rods as if to stake his claim on every square inch of land he thinks he’s entitled to. 'OOOO where’s my little property pin to mark the line?' like we don’t have bigger things to think about here what with him poking me with his christly hat and maybe he got in some punches himself. My arm’s kind of sore.

My brother pulls me back to the all-terrain and we take off, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It just steams me royal. I tell all this to the boys when they come over to share a few beers. We’re talking plans about maybe torching one of his fields so’s he shows me a little more respect, and maybe we’re getting a little loud, so my other neighbor yells at us to shut up. We’re about to get into it with her, but my brother suddenly reminds me that I have anger management issues and talking about what happened so much isn’t helping. Maybe I should stop telling everyone the story and try to forget about it. Like I haven’t been trying to forget about it! How am I supposed to do that when this guy was in my backyard going on about his pin? Anyways, I’m pretty sure that was assault. I know my rights. So I call the cops.

I bet you know how this goes. The cop comes, some flatlander by the look of it, not from around here near as I can tell. He stands right in my dooryard while I tell him all what I just told you, and he even has a little notebook and pencil. I give him the whole story and he’s just looking around at all the rusted beaters in my yard and the stack of studded snow tires, and he’s got a look on his face I don’t like, so that’s getting my ire up. Finally, he says, “Next time you get into an altercation, call the police first.” Like anyone would know when they were going to be in an “altercation.” Like it sends out an invitation or something. Then he says he’s going to go talk to my asshole neighbor, but from my back porch I track his car going down through the fields to the neighbor’s place and the cop isn’t there but for a few minutes before he heads back out again and that’s all that happens. The cop didn’t do anything! Jeezum crow! Can you believe that?

So I’m thinking them citizen guys have got things bang to rights. The law can’t do anything. I have to protect what’s mine. And I know how to do it.

See, I’ve got all kinds of stuff around my place. People throw things out, just set them by the side of the road, and I do the community a good turn and bring it up to my place. Sometimes, when people can’t set out stuff they probably want to get rid of, we give them a hand. When my brother and I heard that old hermit who had a cabin on the lake had died, we went up to his place during the funeral service to see what we could find. He didn’t have much, but I remember we got a mess of ice fishing traps, a fair decent glider, and some of them old snowshoes with leather thongs that people just hang on their walls for décor. Décor is what you call stuff you’ve got that you don’t have a use for yet. You put it on your wall and call it décor. That’s what I do with my yard. I’ve got décor in my yard. And among the décor we’d picked up at that hermit’s place when we knew he wouldn’t be needing it anymore was a rusty old bear trap.

I think you see where this is going. Where it went. If my asshole neighbor thinks he can come on my property again, he’s got another thing coming. Maybe you think I went a little too far, but you’ve got to understand I have anger management issues. I’ve been trying to work on it.

Now this next part isn’t part of the story I’ve been telling everyone. You’re the first. I guess at this point, there isn’t anyone else to tell.

What happens is this: after I took measures to protect my property rights, I celebrated with a six-pack right there by the all-terrain. I might have had more. I guess I did because when I come to, I was setting on the ground with my head aslant the floor of the all-terrain. And what I’m looking at is this orange boundary pin with its little flag of surveyor’s tape. Now that was a puzzler, I have to say. I stared at it for awhile, wondering how in hell I had the pin, and then this memory comes out of the static in my head like a soldier coming through the smoke on the front lines. It’s a memory of the day I’ve been telling everyone about - my brother, the boys, the cops, you. But that memory and the story I told aren’t the same thing.

The memory is just the facts, none of the décor. And just the facts are that I was wicked pissed off about getting shitcanned from the yard and that got me right pissed off about that damn line of trees, and when I went down to work on them, I could see they were too far on his side of the line, so I pulled the closest pin and tossed it into the all-terrain. Without the pin, no one could really prove I wasn’t on my land. I was aiming to put it back, but then the neighbor came and accused me of pulling the pin and after that, I don’t have any memory of what happened. It’s just red and my heart jackhammering and noise like a pot boiling inside my head and someone telling me I did something wrong. It’s just what I felt. Angry.

I set there a spell digesting this development, I don’t mind telling you. See, just like my asshole neighbor said, I had pulled the pin. I had been standing on his property cutting his trees. And now that I thought about it, I’m pretty sure I hauled off and hit him first when he got in close and I realized he was so big, looking down at me like that, like maybe I’m not good enough.

It was getting on dusk when I figured all that out. And around that time, I see the neighbor walking down the boundary line. Holy shit! I jump up, waving my arms and shouting at him to stop. That guy looks up, and for a little bit I think he’s going to come at me and we’re going to have an “altercation.” But then he turns and walks away. I bet the cop told him to do what he’d told me. Walk away and call the cops. And like lots of old people, he didn’t have a phone on him so was headed up to his house to call.

Soon’s he’s out of sight, I start running up and down my line, poking at the ground with that pin like a blind man’s cane. If the cops find what I did before I do, I’m in deep shit. You can have those things for décor, but setting them is illegal. I can’t find it anywhere though, and I’m starting to panic. I’m casting about with that pin when I realize I musta set the thing on the neighbor’s side of the boundary line without realizing it ‘cause I’d pulled the christly pin. So I flounder through the boughs and bracken I left behind when I cut down the branches, and step right in the damn thing. It triggers and the jaws of the bear trap clamp down over my ankle. I feel bones breaking like a white-hot current running up my leg. I screamed holy hell, I don’t mind saying. Two or three of the teeth are biting into my flesh and slice and grind around when I try to move. One of them’s scraping the bone. It’s the feeling of all the chalk in the world on a chalkboard scraping inside my body. I can’t get at both the springs to push it open. I’m trying, I’m really trying, but rusty metal is a stubborn bastard. Turns out when I set this thing, I thought I’d be the big game hunter and bolted the chain to a stump. Yeah, so I can’t crawl off either. For once in my life, I had to do something right. Well, it was the wrong thing to do, but I did it real good.

So here I am, in the dark, with my foot crushed in a bear trap I set with my own two hands on my neighbor’s land. My phone’s in the all-terrain and I’ve got nobody to talk to except you. And I know, you’re just an imaginary audience. You never do anything but agree with me. I’ve always liked that about you. It makes you real easy to talk to.

Right now, I bet if you did say something, you’d tell me I need to work on my anger management issues. You’re right. You really are. I need to do that. Maybe I need to get some help. You know, from a professional instead of YouTube and a twelve-pack.

I really hope my asshole neighbor called the police.