Neighbours

Teenage thugs with bats and knives.  Senile old ladies who talk to themselves. Wild dogs and their wild owners. My neighbours. The rough area of town. I had no choice, this was the only apartment I could afford on my wages. I work from home, selling handmade gift baskets over the internet. Sweet , little, sentimental designs that pensioners just can’t resist. I earn enough to live, enough for groceries and rent. That’s all I need.

Still, I can’t help but long for better neighbours. Friendlier neighbours. Neighbours that make less noise and don’t keep me awake until the early hours of the morning. Downstairs are the worst. The Morrison family. They stay up every night. Every night without fail. Blasting their techno music and shouting about football results. I don’t know when they sleep. It seems whenever I look out they are sitting there, in deckchairs on the driveway. It seems I spend all of my time looking out of that window in disgust, as if I am a spectator in some godawful zoo for the violent animals, the ones the other zoos can’t handle. As if I am in a hospital ward, looking in at all the lepers from behind a pane of glass.

The oldest boy in the Morrison clan is just out of prison. Manslaughter. He got drunk one night and helped some friends beat a girl to death. He was the youngest so he got a lenient charge, he was vulnerable…..most likely following the crowd.  That wasn’t my first thought when I heard the family welcoming him home, congratulating him and reassuring him of how the bitch asked for it. The daughters aren’t much better. Back when I first moved here I found one of them being mounted in the bin shed. It was quite the shock for me. Nine months later I have to cope with a screaming baby.

Nothing compares to the parents. I see why the kids are so messed up with parents like that. Foul language, drug use plus the occasional flash of extreme racism and homophobia. He obviously hits her. In plain daylight I look out and see her lying on the pavement, shaking in fear. He was arrested a few months back but it never came to anything. I hear things. I heard he set one of the dogs on her because she threatened to leave him.
The dogs are hulking brutes, pitbulls that have grown up in a state of constant starvation. They always look angry. Barking at passers by and shitting everywhere.

The woman next door isn’t quite as big a problem. I still find her rather unsettling. Her name is Mrs Davis. Her husband died twelve years ago. Some days she remembers and some days she doesn’t. Either way I usually hear her, sobbing herself to sleep or talking to Ernest, telling him to wash the dishes or loudly proclaiming her love for the man. It’s tragic really. The only company Mrs Davis has is her cat Ned. Ned isn’t the cute type of cat either. Ned is old and is starting to lose his hair, you find it lying around the close in clumps. He has no confidence at all, the result of a fight with one of the aforementioned pitbulls.  Mrs Davis and Ned are the perfect match, they both sleep all day and both are at the end of their tethers. It’s only a matter of which dies first.

When I first moved here Mrs Davis was very kind towards me. She got me a card and she used to knock the door twice a day, asking for sugar or teabags. She was only using it to make conversation so she could worm her way in and see how I was living. She was the queen of the subtle insult, expressing casual interest in my bare floors and hand me down microwave. Silently judging me. Comparing me to the women of her day. Asking me if I had a boyfriend whenever she had the opportunity. After a while I stopped answering the door.

The guy directly above me is your typical middle aged creep. I hardly see him. Only an irregular trip to the local cornershop can lure him from his lair. He comes back with his back catalogue of The Daily Sport and a handful of pot noodles. I passed him on the stairs once and he fell apart, started to breathe heavily and dropped all of his stuff. He awkwardly gathered his items and headed upstairs as I shuffled past him, holding my breath. He stunk, a mixture of body odour and custard creams. There was no doubt in my mind that the man hadn't washed in weeks. He doesn't cause any harm, I only hear him walking, blasting Springsteen or the occasional orgasm from his budget porno flicks.

However, the neighbours are nothing compared to me. That weird woman who never leaves the house. That strange girl that can't make a move without fear of attack. That anxious, quivering wreck. The hermit. The recluse. I'm the weirdest person in the whole street. I get my groceries delivered by van, opening the door to a slight crack only to grab my bags. I wasn't always like this, when I moved here I was happy. Now I stay locked up all day, all because of my terrifying, violent, creepy neighbours. The world isn't safe for someone like me, I am too fragile. I need to live behind a door.