Neighbors In The Know

At first I doubted my neighbors would know that I didn’t pay my 2006 county property taxes until the last day of February. But if they did, I wondered, would they think any less of me?

Would they just expect I suddenly came to the guilty realization that an extra $20 late fee would be added if I waited another day before I rushed home in a fit on a stormy evening and dumped a year’s worth of mail on the floor of my office and cried like a little baby because I couldn’t find the misplaced tax statement? Would they know that in such a dreadful state I would call The Wife and promise her anything if she’d hurry and help me find the damn thing? Would they assume that before I got home I would stop at the county courthouse a half hour before closing and speak with an uninformative Arlene at the information desk and plead for a copy of the lost document to no avail? Would they know that Arlene would just bat her large pitying eyes and tell me to pay it online or stand in line at the cashier’s window like everyone else? Would they then guess that I’d stand in a crowded queue which didn’t move an inch toward the window for 14 minutes before the woman and her three screaming kids in front of me made the small bones in my right ear rattle like dangling car keys? Would it not be surprising to them that I then ran from the courthouse like a madman and raced home with the windows down in my truck and yelled “Dumb! DUMB!” out loud frightening innocent road travelers at each stop light? Would they then believe I sprinted in the house from the drive and shut the doors to my office and briskly advised the affection-starved dogs in the hall to fend for themselves? Would they fully understand that while sprawled on the floor of my office, paging through old 1998 bank statements, The Wife would suddenly open the office door, stroll in with her coat still on and close her eyes, literally close her eyes, and with two well-placed fingers lift the errant document from the pile of yellowed papers and casually ask, “Is this what you are looking for?” Would they know that I then wasted the next 22 minutes frantically searching the online county assessor’s page before finding the correct user-friendly link to pay the tax and then go back and forth from the tax document to the web page nervously looking for something called a “Parcel ID #” before finally, finally paying the tax in full at 3:36 PM PST on the last day in February?

No, I don’t think any of that would surprise them at all.

I know the neighbors witnessed The Wife and I abruptly leave the house shortly after that ordeal. They saw The Wife driving the car and me leaning back uncomfortably in the passenger’s seat wiping the sweat from my brow. They certainly welcomed us with the routine salutations as we both entered the Two Dogs café on Main Street after the short drive down the hill.

They saw Heather, the bartender, knowingly reach for the Canadian as soon as I waddled in the pub door and they heard me remind her that two glasses would be needed since The Wife was in tow. They listened as Heather and I scientifically calculated how many drinks would be required prior to ordering two KC strip dinners. She was positive that it would only take Rodney the cook 15 minutes or so to prepare the steaks so we both openly agreed that a couple figurative rounds of pre-drinking were well within the indistinct realm of possibility.

After the first drink washed away the latent anxiety, the neighbors eavesdropped as The Wife and I recovered the facts. We said that once Mom was out of the hospital and the boys were on their way and the sun came out again that we needed to get back on the road to somewhere. A long journey was at first considered but, no, I said, this wasn’t just one of those things you talk loosely about at the bar, we needed to purposefully plan a trip that was within our means, a real walk-about some place within a 3-hour drive where we could spend a weekend and have some real fun and enjoy ourselves and forget everything we left behind for a while.

And then the second round of drinks came and with future plans still hanging in the smoky air Heather looked at me and I nodded. She looked at me again and confirmed, “No sour cream on the potato; Italian?” and I replied in the affirmative. She asked The Wife’s desire and then wrote on her order form, “The Works with Ranch.”

As the sun outside had set and the clouds of another threatening early Spring thunderstorm began to brew to the West, the neighbors began wandering into the pub two by two and my salad magically appeared before me at the bar. The Wife hugged and kissed and spoke to them all the while I waved a stiff hello from my perch occasionally and tightened my lips in the acute manner of my painful smile. The Wife chatted with a pair of ladies while I poked at my limp leafy salad with horrid shredded yellow cheese and dreamed of acidic ripe tomatoes, slices of pungent onion and gorgeously black fresh olives smothered in oil and feta like the traditional Greek ‘horiatiki’ which was once my staple on an island far away and long ago.

Another round of Canadian and the steaks were served and The Wife talked while eating and I ate while thinking. And The Wife was gossiping on with another pair and she said something and they said they hadn’t heard that and she said, “Oh? Didn’t Bamboo tell you?” and I felt the sting as they looked at me with devil eyes but I tried to ignore them as I pushed the phony butter away to coarsely chop my naked baked potato then stabbed another chunk of medium pink meat from my plate.

“Well,” laughed the one, “He doesn’t always say much.”

And the other said happily to The Wife, “But that’s why we talk to you!”

And they all gladly agreed to The Wife’s beautiful charm and personality and I chewed my steak and nodded my head to confirm that the overheard characterization was well spoken. In the end, when one thinks about it, I assessed as I sliced my steak, one needn’t say much when so much is already understood so well by so many.

Then the one said, “But he is a good dart thrower.”

“Yes, he is,” said the other.

“Yes,” said The Wife.

I ignored that last pointless summary and finished my steak. Heather came to take my plate away and recharge my glass, smartly saving the whiskey-drenched ice in the bottom as I had previously instructed her to do.

The Wife was now fully engaged with others and the loud chatter around the bar was reaching a new crescendo and I lighted a ciggy and strained to hear the sitcom playing on the TV in the corner. Confused, I suddenly couldn’t understand the muted language of the show. An old man at the bar growled at Heather, “Hey, why are they speaking Spanish?” She said she didn’t know, that earlier the weather report on the inbound storm front was in English but maybe somebody was messing with her.

And I thought, well, this could be great discovery. Perhaps I had been missing out on quite a bit at the old pub. Maybe once things quieted down somewhat, maybe I could sneak nearer to the TV and learn some Spanish and then maybe I wouldn’t consider the day lost. Maybe, I thought, I will go to Spain or Mexico some day and be endlessly welcomed by those who speak that language just because I had put in a little effort while drinking whiskey at the bar.

As I sipped my fresh Canadian and pondered that idea, Heather quickly forgot the Spanish sitcom and came to me and asked if the steak was good. I looked at her, swallowed cleanly, and then placed my glass squarely on the bar and said as quickly and clearly as I could in English, “Perfect”, unfortunately not remembering the correct word to say in Spanish.

She smiled but she knew it was perfect in any language before she had even bothered to ask me. She knew how to accurately sum up one plus one. She knew what I would drink, she knew what I would eat, and she knew what I would or wouldn’t say. She knew I wanted to go somewhere but I didn’t know where. She knew I was a good dart thrower and she knew what adventures I would consider while watching sitcoms in Spanish. She probably also knew that I would forget to pay my personal property taxes until 3:36 PM PST on the last day of February.

All the neighbors knew me that day. And I don’t think they thought any less of me.

Cheers,

Mb