Back to the Loonybin Neighborhood

There are some days when my child and I like to eat our dinner on the front porch, where we can watch the neighborhood. Katie walks by, walking her cute little ankle-sized dog – so well behaved it can stroll next to her without a leash.
Like a bite-sized morsel of Coyote bait.
There’s a nameless woman down the block that walks her black and white dog on a plain rope instead of a store-bought leash. Ironically, her hair is dyed jet-black and she wears a white tee shirt with a black miniskirt, black and white striped thigh highs underneath.
Talk about looking like your pet.
“Funny neighborhood we live in,” my child comments. Her fork pauses midway to her mouth and her eyes widen.
“OH, OH.”
Somehow, I just knew. . .
“Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Put down that plate of food and get over here!” He says this like I can stand to skip a few meals. “I’m having a garage sale, come pick out school clothes for your daughter.”
“Later,” I scream back, because he’s deaf as a doornail.
“Now,” he yells. “You hardly need to be eating.”
Deliberately, I shove the entire salmon into my mouth, chewing slowly.
“Agh,” he yells in disgust. Then warns, “You’re going to get fat!”
“Geezer,” I snap.
“Mommy!” my child says, astonished.
“He’s deaf. He can’t hear unless you scream in his ear. Watch this.”
I set my plate down onto my lap. “We’ll be over in a bit,” I call out. “You smelly old bastard.”
He grins and waves.
“See? Can’t hear a thing.”
“That’s creepy,” she says, eyes huge.
“Come on, we’ll drive the car over so we can make a quick getaway. Tell him we’re going to Staples or something and don’t have much time.”
In two minutes, we drive right across the street and park in front of his house. Then we ring his bell. (Twice, because of the deafness.) It bongs at a preset high volume, loud enough to hear from a five house radius. Guiltily I look around, wondering if the neighbors can hear the gong and are curious as to who would be visiting him.
By the time he opens the locked front door and security door, he’s forgotten he invited us over. “Who’s that?” he says, peering at my car.
“It’s us,” I shout. “We drove over. We have to get to the store after.”
“Oh, it’s you,” he says, unlocking the security door. “Come in, come in.”
I walk quickly to the basement steps. His house is exactly the same floor plan as mine, but inverted. I turn behind me to see my little girl staring with huge eyes, watching him fumble with the security door.
“He’s locked us in!” she mouths to me.
I speak normally. “He can’t hear you, remember?”
She gets curious. She tests the theory, and says loudly, “Think he’ll murder us in the basement? There’s a drain in the floor for the blood.”
“Nah,” I say, eyeballing his string-bean body. “There’s two of us. We can take him.”
The three of us head down the stairs. My child giggles, and I look behind me. I stop suddenly, and he bangs into me cause his eyes aren’t looking ahead.
Old Lou is staring at my ass.
“Oww,” he says, half-embarrassed.
I smile sweetly, because I was so polite. Next time he’s losing a testicle.
Down in his basement of hidden torture, there are racks upon racks of clothing, set up and smelling like a Goodwill store.
“There are some clothes here with the price tags on!” He shouts, beaming proud as punch. “Thirty five pair of white jeans.”
“I’ve never seen white jeans,” my daughter murmurs.
“They stopped making them long, long ago. See how the waist hits you in the middle of your back?”
“What size are you?” Lou yells at Karah. “My Helen was a four to a six.”
“Double-damn!” I yell back, relieved. “She’s a size zero. That’s too bad.”
“Mommy, YOU wear size six,” my child says, trying to be helpful.
“Funny.” I give her the evil eye, because I’ve waited my whole life to be a parent just for moments like these. Guilt trips. The warning stares. The stories of hiking ten miles to school in blizzards. “Like I want to dress like his wife. Next he’ll have me dyeing my hair black like her.”
I turn my attention back to the geezer. “Well, too bad, Lou,” I scream. “Thanks anyway.”
He starts turning off the basement lamps. Shadows dance across the walls and in a corner…I think there are shackles.
My first thought is a torturous device.
Scarier is the second thought. A sexual device.
I start moving quickly to the stairs when I feel my child at my heels. Panic ensues for some odd reason. We race up, I’m taking the stairs two at a time. But she’s got long legs and threatens to overtake me, palms on my back as if she’ll push me out of the way. All’s fair in love and war.
“Hurry,” she pants. “He’s coming.” Tiny fingers are clutching at my shoulder, trying to squeeze her way around me.
We burst out of the basement door together. Freedom is so close, I can see it.
We slam into the damn security door. I twiddle with the lock. It flips back and forth both ways, but stays locked.
“Mommy,” she screams in my ear. “He’s coming!” She begins banging on the bars. As if that’ll help.
Heavy footsteps thud up the steps. Finally it unlatches and her little hand shoves me in the back as we both scramble to get out. We stumble down the front walk, running down to the car.
“Quick! Unlock the car doors,” she screams as Lou gets to the security door. Already there, child. The doors click and we jump in as he stands on the front door screaming, “Come again soon!”
As we pull away, she pants. “Oooh, that was close.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “And you almost had to go to school dressed like a little old lady.”
“What do you mean?” she blinks innocently. “Some of those clothes were cute! I especially loved the flowery top.”
Yikes, I seem to remember that top in an old newspaper clipping featuring the Charles Manson murders.
“Are you kidding me?”
She looks incredulous. “What? Didn’t you see that furry drapy thing? That’s why I said you were size six, too. So you could get something cute.”
Sigh. Apparently my child inherited her fashion gene from... my mother.