"Foils in the yard and meth out back" PART 3
Continued from PART 2: "Hey hon... some dude tried to stab me out in the yard, is our insurance up to date?"
Over the next few weeks we talked a lot about that old dream. The one where we sell most of our things and move to the woods. A dream in which get away from it all and make a new life with the wild animals and the trees. We were still kind of joking about it, but also kind of not joking.
After the tattooed miscreant had tried to stab me, "the dream" became a standard conversation in our house. One that got more and more attention as the world became "enshittified" under the Tangerine Mussolini's first attempt at ruining the world. At the time, it wasn't going too good for his diapered ass. Congress and his own incompetence had stifled his forward momentum. But that didn't mean things were hunky-dory, all "gorsh and good times" and shit. No, they were far from that. Most people could feel the wind shifting, we could smell the septic pond. It was rancid and fowl, but we couldn't identify the smell.
We had no idea what was coming. We were going to make plans, and then the world was going to laugh, it would laugh so hard it would get a hernia. COVID still hadn't reared it's ugly, toilette papered head. It was still hiding in some bat or rodent way, way, way east. It would change everything. However, it was still a year off.
One morning I stepped outside to water the front yard, I believe it was spring of 2019, and our neighborhood had gotten a little more crowded. The apartment the local rich slum lord had put up down the street was overflowing with people. I could hear them that morning. Most of them weren't the kind of people who prided themselves on trust and respect. We lived a number of blocks down from that apartment building, it was never quiet. In fact, there was plenty of loud mumble-rap with too much base, even more fights over who was sleeping with whom, a number of D.V. police visits, a few gun shots late at night, and so on, ad nauseum.
That morning, I could hear the faint shouts of discontent and a motor cycle revving. Each time the engine revved the arguing disappeared into it and then reappeared when the engine went to idle. I wasn't sure which noise I would have preferred.
That's when I saw it.
I looked down and out of the corner of my eye I saw something shiny roaming down the side walk. It scooted along, the wind gently pushing it forward as though it was a little sail boat. I turned and looked at it, made my way across the yard to see what it was. Standing over it, it took me a while to understand what it was.
There, on the concrete pinched into the curb where the wind held it, was a small square of aluminum foil. In it's center was a patch of discolored char. It smiled up at me, I glared at it, we had a stand off and I was forced to acknowledge it's existence. I wasn't sure if it was a meth foil, or a fentanyl foil. In most ways it didn't matter, it wasn't something I wanted near my house.
Over the next few days I saw more of them, rolling along, like shiny and somewhat toxic tumble weeds making their way to the promised land for mis-used kitchen materials. I was alarmed, but not as alarmed as when I found one in my back yard where the dogs could get to it. I love my dogs, so naturally I immediately started to clean up the back yard and make sure there were not more foils living between the fence slats.
When I was finished cleaning up the yard I noticed something on the other side of the fence. I crept over and lifted myself up to look in the empty lot to the west. I spit a little at what I saw.
There was an old dilapidated Winnebago parked in the dry grass of the lot. It was surrounded by piles of random things: An old motorcyle, boxes of glasses, old pictures, clothes racks with stained clothes on them, and an assortment of other junk. Far too much to list, but among the junk was a used toilette. Classy.
A man stood on the front steps in a "stars and stripes" speedo smoking a cigarette and drinking something out of a "big-gulp" container. His porky belly hung over that colorful "dick-brazier" and spindly legs. It gave him a profile that resembled a spent champaign cork. Stretched tightly over his stomach was a stained, off-white tank top with a burned spot close to where I suspected his belly button might be. That tank top clung to his stomach like a moo-moo on a trailer park clothes line. The stubble on his face was mismatched, meaning all of it was sprouted in separate patches and not a single patch was the same length. There were sores among his patchy face fur, deep and red pock-marks with frothy white edges. On his head was a "Vietnam vet hat", it pinched his hair tight around his crown and lied about his past more than just a little bit.
I sighed.
Next to his Winnebago was a sign that read: "For sale, all proceeds go to charities for vets". It was clear that none of that ill-gotten money was going anywhere useful. That mother-fucker was holding a yard-sale on land that wasn't his. And I suspected he was also selling things that weren't his. Also maybe a little crystal meth from a shake and back container out back.
I learned that summer how hard it is in America to get rid of squatters and what it takes to make sure they don't come back.
Up next: "How to get rid of Winnebago prostitutes and Tupperware meth." Part 4.
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