Hey, you kids, get off my goddamn lawn. Stay the hell off if you know what’s good for you.
No, wait. I got a better idea. Tear up my begonias with your stupid Razor scooters some more. Go ahead. Climb the fence and piss on the glazed ball in my Baroque garden. Be my guest. Can you say “You’ll forever regret the day of your birth?” Sure you can.
Hey, come back here and throw stones at the white-crowned sparrows on my bird feeder. I dare you. But be warned, this neighbor just took a tour of the brass-knuckle factory, and he stopped in the gift shop on the way out.
Dammit-all, there hasn’t been a single beautiful day in this fucking neighborhood since the blasted Great Recession ended and you little pecker-heads showed up. They’ve all been just danged shitty. It’s been one shitty day in the neighborhood after another. Where are your parents, anyway? I bet I know. They’re probably stoned on non-medicinal marijuana, slobbering over their framed velvet Elvis artwork, and grazing like bovines on Cheese Curls. No, don’t bother getting off the futon; your government cheese is in the mail. Not that it’ll get here. Ever since Mr. McFeely got laid off even the postal delivery’s gone to shit. The glory days are dead. The abandoned Crayon factory is full of winos and squatters. The Sunshine Playground looks like it belongs in a real estate listing for Chernobyl. Betty Aberlin’s Theater, a long-time sanctuary for fife-and-drum performances when this town was swingin’, is a stash house now.
This neighborhood sucks.
But this neighbor ain’t going anywhere, negative equity in his house be damned. This neighbor has had enough. This neighbor is going to sharpen his Safety Scissors—not to cut out snowflake chains but to cut down the chain-smoking ruffians who loiter in front of Basketful Bakery. This neighbor is going to take off his old-man boat shoes slowly, and put on his bad-ass throat-kickers lickety-split. This neighbor is going to collect every empty Old English 40 bottle scattered about the curb because he has a fun new craft project in mind—using them to crack some skulls. That’s right; this neighbor is strapping on his comfy cardigan and stepping out of the land of make-believe and into the land of keeping it fuckin’ real.
Hey, you kids, get back on my lawn. You’ll rue the day you became MY neighbor.
