Thieves in the Night

I used to live in a place where I could go out whenever I wanted and pee off the front porch. I could move my work table out in the sun and hammer away at my manual type writer any time I wanted. I could lounge around and have an easy-going breakfast in the morning fog while wearing no clothing of any kind. They were good days; strange, yes, but good I'd say. I used to know all kinds of interesting people who would pop in at the weirdest times and we would have long conversations about things that neither of us could understand; either at the time or even later. But there's almost a bent kind of satisfaction in conducting lengthy verbal discourse with someone whom you can't understand and who, in turn, understands nothing which you are trying to communicate to them. Yeah, sure. I know it sounds a little off, but don't knock it until you've tried it. I learned a lot more in those days than I have in the past four years and I'm poorer for it I can assure you.
But those Days came to screeching halt and my life was thrown into a kind of hellish turmoil that I never expected and certainly didn't see coming at the time. Well…that's not entirely true. I knew, subconsciously I think, I just didn't want to believe it at the time. And on some days I still don't want to believe it. But Life can be a cruel teacher at times and a lot of lessons hurt a lot more than we want them to. After all, it takes a lot of time and a special kind of endurance to finally realize that you'll never really know what kind of cruelty people are capable of; until it's too late to matter.
But that's not my point…No, the point was a lamentation for my old residence and the place where I live now is neither well-suited nor socially amenable to the kinds of fine habits and hard tastes I developed when I had all the Privacy I could ever want.
I have been saddled with all sorts of restrictions and codes of the strangest kinds and weird ordinances and public decency laws and all sorts of other lame-ass morality-driven drivel that keeps me from living the once glorious life of a quiet country gentleman that I enjoyed so much. Well…maybe not quiet, but I lived it in style and with a kind of intense brutality that made it seem charming…at least for a while; until you got to know me.
But those feelings have died in me I think. And on some mornings, when I first wake up, I feel like a shadow of the stone-freak I used to be.
Over the weekend however, there was a glint of Sunshine, so to speak. The weird-ass neighbors who moved in almost immediately after I did finally vanished. Yes. Indeed. They turned tail and fled for higher ground I would imagine. I came home to find most of them milling about in the yard and the next thing I knew…whoosh! Gone like shades in the night. They disappeared so fast and with so little fanfare that I'm forced to wonder which law enforcement agency or collection service will show up first and start banging on my door asking where all the hooligans have gone. And they were hooligans, there can be no doubt. And that's not a word I have ever tended to toss about lightly. These people were trouble from day one and I used all the care I could to carefully avoid them at all times and at all costs.
Yes. They blew out on the same rancid breeze that brought them drifting into my life. I can only imagine that whatever twisted, mutant strain of life from which they sprang must have imbedded deep within them some urgent biological imperative that caused them to Return, as it were, to the place where the Beast still spawns its terrible progeny. Like salmon swimming back upstream, they could not refuse the Call when it came upon them in the dark hours before dawn. But they have gone and some small semblance of peace has returned to my shattered life.
So the upshot is that I now have no neighbors and the only thing I'm really going to miss is the almost constant stream of young teenagers who were drawn to the apparent drug frenzy that seemed to go on every afternoon and evening; especially the scantily-clad, gaunt young girls, all eye shadow and undertaker make up. I've always had a weak spot for them and I can't escape the irresistible urge to "rescue" them from a life they'll never understand is killing them. (But my record in that department is nothing to write home about either.)
The real point is…I need new neighbors and I want them to be some interesting people for a change; someone who might actually have something to say about something. Yes. Someone with whom I could share my wisdom, my wine and a few odd songs and stories. I need some gypsies or some traveling acrobats or a brace of fine young spelunkers who can regale me with weird tales from underground. Or maybe a gaggle of fresh coeds who need to split the rent to make ends meet or some ex-go-go dancer who is just settling down to a nice, quiet retirement at the age of 36.. Hell, even some lonely anthropologist whose husband was eaten by cannibals in New Guinea for no good reason at all would suit my meager needs. I'm sure that I could find the right words to comfort her in her time of Need.
After all, I'm a simple kind of fellow.