My Neighbor.

My neighbor frightens me. She lives in a house next door to my apartment complex, and our porch overlooks the side of her home. She runs an at-home music school, which consists mainly of four or five different garage bands with grungy fifteen year olds drudging through Rolling Stones covers. (Satisfaction and Brown Sugar are among the repeated favorites.) It is loud and my life always has a soundtrack. I have witnessed her make three different kids cry (two male and one female) and have overheard some harsh words being thrown at a man assisting his children across the street. (Apparently, the children were out of control and stepped a foot or two into her lawn. I think one of them also butchered her “garden” by picking a blade of grass. This is not the first time I heard arguments concerning the “garden.”)
Last night I was the porch having a delightful telephone conversation with my sister when my neighbor and one of her dogs exit the house thus, entering the private little box my porch creates and encourages. She calls for the dog, and limps toward him on her cane.
“Fuck you bitch!” she screams at her dog (and a wiener dog, at that), “Fuck you! Fuck you Heidi! You bitch!”
Of course I am scared out of my skivvies by now, being in possible view. Her wrath is alive and in full effect. I am young, I am enjoying myself and I am definitely a target. She takes no prisoners.
My sister, overhearing my neighbor and coincidently also being named Heidi, laughs out, “What the hell!”
“Shhhhh!H!H!H!H!!” I frantically mutter through clenched teeth. I have frozen myself into survival position, with my shoulders slumped, my back curved and my knees snuggled underneath my nose. I breathed slowly, loudly, inhaling the outside smell of my jeans, the smell puppies and young children own.
“She can’t hear me,” Heidi says loudly, impatiently.
But she can and she will! She is fearless and ferocious and probably kills kittens for kicks.
“Heidi you fucking bitch, get your ass over here!!!” I hear her bellow from down below.
My sister roars a throaty crackle into my ear. I squeal and whisper with no separation, “Igottagobye!”
I sat there silently for another few minutes or so, until I heard the comforting and safe click of her door. Then I sat there for another thirty seconds, just for good measure.