Hey, neighbour!

Sam was back out the front. I think he was on ice again. 'Heyyyy were you home last night?' He really dragged out the ‘hey’ which made him sound more psychotic than normal.  His voice was high pitched and his accent was from outback Queensland. Like he had been living in the bush for the past two years, maybe only communicating with dingos or something. It was 7 degrees outside but his shirt was off. He smiled, unnervingly as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was bouncing up and down on his left foot, wired, scratching and his pupils were the size of saucepans. His hair was greying and he looked rough. Deep lines spread across his forehead. Maybe he was 40 or so.  It was Saturday morning and I was on my way to Abbotsford to meet Kate for a coffee.  'Nah I wasn't here, I lied.'

Well it actually wasn't a total lie. I did arrive home around midnight. I had been at my sisters house where we had drunk a bottle of champagne and she had given me a haircut with one snip of the scissors. I had asked for a 60s styled fringe and she delivered nothing short of an 80s mullet. It looks good! She laughed historically as I looked in the mirror for the first time. 

I took my champagne haircut home and was running up my street at a million miles an hour with no preconception of what might have been happening around me. I stopped in my tracks when I heard someone screaming. There were two shadows outside my house. I could tell because the light on the SOLD sign was illuminated. ‘Get out here you dog, I know what you did with my daughter. I saw all your sex toys at the park’ It was the guy that kept coming over and asking for sugar. His name was Rod and he lived on the right hand side of us.

Sam lived on the left.

I began wondering why someone would take sex toys to the park but my chain of thought was interrupted by another voice. ‘What the FUCK are ya doing at ma door, cunt’. Sam screamed as he burst through the front door full throttle and began pacing up and down his driveway with a baseball bat in his hand. Once again, shirtless. Maybe he didn't like shirts. I crossed the road and watched from behind a tree.  As he became angrier the pacing became quicker, the voice became louder.

I called my housemate Sarah whose light I could see was on in the front room. She answered , whispering. ‘Oh my god are you okay? Are you listening? Come around the side! I'll let you in through the alleyway.'

I snuck around a few more trees, made my way back onto Alexandra avenue so the guys wouldn't see me and my face wasn't the next thing to collide with that baseball bat. I was more intrigued than scared, but I thought it was best to stay out of their way. Let them hash it out like a coupla grown ups.

‘What the fuck is happening out there!' I laughed as I stumbled through the back door. 'He has a baseball bat! ‘It’s been going on for about 15 minutes', Sarah looked worried. Jack was on the phone to the cops.

That was the fourth time something like this had happened this month.  Last week he was knocking on my window at 4am, asking me if I would like to come over for some spaghetti, or alternatively, if I would like to have sex with him. Neither options tickled my fancy at that point in time. To be honest, I was mildly petrified and strongly considered moving countries. Then he smashed the window out of Jacks car. The week before that, throwing his pillows over the fence. He was socially inapt and pretty fresh out of jail. Probably isolated from humans, struggling with drug abuse and didn't know how to fit back into society. It was a real harrowing feeling when I thought of him. Like I should invite him over for dinner or give him some food that didn’t contain meth.

Two days ago, I came back from Canberra. It was midday when I got home, stumbled out of the cab with all my bags and fished around in my suitcase for a set of keys that I left inside a week ago. My clothes were spread all over the pavement. Sam walked through the gate and asked if I had taken his wheelie bin. I hadn't taken his wheelie bin. I asked how he was and he told me all about his rehab venture. When I asked why he was going to rehab, he said he was trying to get his life in order. He seemed pretty normal that day. Wasn't scratching his arms, wearing a shirt, no baseball bat in site. Just a man looking for his wheelie bin. Sure I might be able to sleep at night in my new house in Collingwood but hopefully someone interesting swings by once in awhile to say hello.