Call Me KP

I have this neighbor.  Nice guy.  Always says hello.  Always asks how my day was.  Doesn’t really like to come outside too much.  Except to sit of his stoop and smoke.  He has to be outside for that because the mother of his children does not want that kind of environment for their two very young whippersnappers.  Rightfully so.  

However, every so often there comes a time in everyone’s life, my neighbor included, when they have to blow off a little steam.  Some write.  Some exercise.  Some paint.  Some drive.  Some drink.  My neighbor?

He rocks.  

Not the good kind.  The kind where your ears bleed because he’s powering Jock Jams Vol. III through his bitchin’ Bose sound system.

Yes.  On my happy little street, once or ten times in a blue moon, the melodious sounds of The Quad City DJs whip through the night air on the backs of the sparrows and squirrels, gently wafting their choo-choo in and around the ears of the sleepy residents of suburbia beneath the glowing winter moon, stars flickering in time with the 808.

That dick.

Now, mi madre is crazy.  I’ve made that clear in many previous entries.  But her actions tonight were nothing short of spectacular.  And so as this jerk is raging in his living room in celebration of the afternoon absence of his baby mama and their tots, my mom is trying to take a nap on our living room couch.  She attempts to teach the Youth of America on a daily basis so her exhaustion warranted.  But tonight, (and right now I can hear La Bouche–which, in all honesty, takes me back to fourth grade birthday parties at Skate Away) there is no rest for the weary and square.  The unhip.  My mom.

In one swift, solid movement, mid-sleep, still groggy, she flips off her quilt (and my neighbor, essentially) and storms into the kitchen, bitching all the way.  My father and I know for a fact that she’s a pretty good shot.  She’s got a pellet gun, a gift from my retired Marine grandfather, and several pierced paper plates on which she shot straight through the makeshift bulls eye.  Nine times.  From twenty-seven feet.  And so we begin to fear for The Rage Man’s prized garden ornaments.  But in recent months, my mother has become oddly rational.  We attribute it to old age.  Just not to her face.  

“Honey,” my dad groans.  ”Honey, please don’t do anything stupid.”

“Shut up, Chuck.  I’m not going shoot anything.”

“Anyone?”

“You,” she tweets.  Twenty-four years together and going strong.  ”Now be quiet.”

She grabs every set of keys we own from their respective hooks in our kitchen and sets off all three car alarms in a cacophony of honking, whooping glory.

“Got to hell, you God damned whackjob,” she shouts, hoarse, as she lazily pads back to her couch; her eyes heavily-lidded with drowsiness and the antics of asshole students.

Well, my father and I couldn’t believe that her most brilliant and most fantastic Acts Of Funny come when she’s not entirely coherent and naturally we laughed until we cried.  My neighbor stopped his music.  Victory never sounded so sweet.

Until he started up disc two.  Three decibels higher this time.

“Motherfucker,” she whimpered.  ”You dirty, dirty … fuck.”

A valiant attempt, Mamala.  Some of your best work.

And as she pulled the blankets up over her miserable head, my father and I couldn’t help but laugh.  I began to sing along with Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch (and MM’s third nip) and my father began typing in time with the boom.  Turning his hat sideways and throwing what he thinks are gang signs in between taking calls from clients, he laughs.

“Aw, hun,” he starts.  ”You really want some poor bastard to marry into this?”

Yes.  Yes, I do.  And he better be ready to dance  with me.  On my porch.  To my cracked-out neighbors collection of rage anthems.  While my mother takes target practice in the backyard.

Glorious.