sludgo’s Mile Markers: Mile 214

It was almost three in the morning and even though I was exhausted from being up late studying for midterms, I was wide awake. Climbed into bed anyway and as I did heard my new downstairs neighbor just getting home. A burly bearded bear of a dude, I hadn’t met him personally yet but knew from scuttlebutt around the apartment he worked swing-shifts for the railroad and drove that clanky never-been-washed Plymouth Duster parked in the end garage. I also knew he liked Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” Loved it even. Not the album. Just the song. Was easy to figure out because in the week since he’d moved in every morning when he got home from work he’d play it on his stereo. Loudly. So loudly that the pictures on my walls would buzz and rattle. And that morning was no different. There was some muffled thumping and banging around downstairs then a brief pause before I heard the ‘pop’ of a needle dropping into a groove and the all-too-familiar opening chords of the Boss’s masterpiece began thundering up through my floor. Groan.

Neighbors. I’ve had my share and a week ago got new ones here at the McBungalow. Three twenty-somethings. Two guys and a gal who may or may not be attached romantically one way or another, I can’t tell. My hipshot is that they’re college students and/or young professionals sharing the house as a rental and, so far so good, although I did startle awake the first morning after they’d moved in when at six forty-five one of the guys went out to their driveway and fired up his fart-canned Volkswagen Jetta, the lowered one with the mismatched front fender and the battered BBS gold wheels. He let it run for fifteen minutes then backed out and merrily farted his way down our sleepy street, graciously letting everyone know his day had begun. Did the same thing the next morning and the next and the next, so I think I’d better get used to it. I could be crabby about it but, what the heck. I usually get up around seven anyway. Besides it actually made me smile. Reminded me of another time and another place and another neighbor.

His name was Earl but the Redhead and I called him “Mr. Vroom-Vroom.” He lived next to us on 29th, one of the busiest streets in Spokane, in a cruddy old house as ugly and worn and dilapidated as ours. Pretty sure he was renting just like us but I never asked and he never told. He was a nice enough guy, and he’d always wave when we saw him and make small talk with me across the way when we’d be out mowing our weeds or shoveling our walks. We’d chat about the weather. The Seahawks or the Mariners depending on the season. The price of gas. He was thin and greying and struck me as a weary and melancholy soul, solitary in his days, all of which began in the morning at precisely five a.m. when we’d hear him go out to his garage, directly adjacent to our bedroom, and start his beater GMC truck. I recall it always took a lot of coaxing to get it going, him sitting behind the wheel and repeatedly gunning the engine trying to keep fire in the holes. Vroom-Vroom Vroom-Vroom. Vroom-Vroom-Vroom-Vroom. Vroom Vroo…thus the nickname. Five a.m. Every morning for two years until we packed our bags and headed south. Goodbye Mr. Vroom-Vroom. Hello new neighbors.

We’d moved because I’d landed my first real job, a nine-to-fiver where I had to wear nice pants and a collared shirt with a tie. Color-coordinated socks and tassel loafers too. I’d left my hair long, down to mid-back, but began parting it to one side and pulling it up into a Bouncy Barbie pony tail. The Redhead told me I looked great. Professional. But I felt like I got lost in translation. Thought I looked like a yuppie soufflé and was miserable. It didn’t help that I hated that job from the first day, when my supervisor scolded me for being five minutes late and scoffed at my honest explanation that I couldn’t find a parking spot, to when I handed in my notice to him exactly five months later. I was never happier as I was that evening when I pulled into my driveway—so much so I nearly forgot we lived next to a drug house.

Yes, a drug house. A crumbling split-level with peeling paint and missing shingles and cracked windows and a broken screen door. It was surrounded by any number of rusted-out cannibalized corpses of Chevrolets and Dodges and Fords—all of which we presumed were stolen—and had a rotating cast of worn and haggard-looking residents, none of whom we ever actually met or spoke to. To be sure it wasn’t our first choice of where we wanted to live to but it was a matter of simple economics. Our little red-brick rancher with the blue-metal roof and detached garage sitting squarely in the worst neighborhood in town was all we could afford. But it was no big deal, honestly. Just made sure we always locked our doors and never left anything of value in the yard. Even started getting used to waking up to shouting and sirens and flashing blue-and-red lights lighting up the place. Nothing like real-life COPS episodes happening right next-door.

All that duly noted, we weren’t exactly disappointed when I quickly found another job that paid much more than the last, affording us to escape across town to a quaint little three-bedroom/two-bath Cape Cod on the numbered streets, in a much quieter and calmer neighborhood full of old-growth maples and playground parks. We rented at first before the owner, a cute old gal named Berniece, offered to sell it to us. Lowballed us on her asking price because she thought we were a ‘nice couple’ and we picked it up. Not many interesting neighbor stories to tell while we lived there, although on warm nights when we had our windows open we’d occasionally hear the young couple next-door to us, um, celebrating their Love, if you get my drift. Ended up living there happily for ten years then sold the place for twice what we paid for it and moved to stately sludgo manor up on the bench east of town.

The locals called it Snob Hill but I loved living there. Mostly fifties-era ranchers and brick two-stories sprawling across lots measured in acres rather than feet and nothing but miles of twisty-turny two-lane rural blacktop on the other side of the hill. Right off the bat I met a guy from up the block who’d seen me out washing the ‘B, who in turn introduced me to all the other car guys in the neighborhood. And what cars they all had. Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Cobra S/Cs and Vipers and split-window ‘Vettes. Old Jags and new Astons. Even a Rolls-Royce. Had a blast taking the ‘B out for drives on early Saturday mornings, joining my new neighbors as we putted and preened and passed by each other, enjoying our machines and feeling cooler than should be allowed by law. Snob Hill? Hardly. In the twenty years I lived there I had some of the best neighbors I’d ever known. Regular Guys who’d help me pull stumps and spread gravel and build a deck and re-shingle my outbuildings in return for nothing more than a can of warm beer and a slice of cold pizza. Miss all of them to this day.

But all this reminiscing started with me talking about the Dusterman, didn’t it? Well, as it happened I caught him the very next afternoon down at the garages as he was heading to work. Walked up to him and broke the ice by complimenting him on his Duster. Nice Duster, Man. He stiffened and scrunched his catcher’s-mitt face into a suspicious scowl. I swallowed hard and introduced myself. Told him I was his upstairs neighbor. That I was a student. In college. And needed my sleep. To keep my grades up. And, even though I really liked “Born to Run” I just wanted to ask if he could lay off playing it when he got home from work so early in the morning. That I’d sure appreciate it. Neighbor.

He gave me a long squint and the world slowed down a frame or two but then the trace of a grin flashed across his face.

“Okay. Sure, man.”

I smiled. Thanked him. Said it was good to meet him and that I wouldn’t keep him then turned to walk back to my apartment, proud of my expert negotiating skills. My natural persuasive abilities. And, sure enough, when the Dusterman got home from work that morning he stayed true to his word and didn’t play “Born to Run.”

He played “Freebird” instead.