There's a policeman laying in my front yard...

I was discussing the happenings in my neighborhood with a friend and he suggested I should write a book because it's so crazy. It's true - some weird and bizarre things have happened in the almost 12 months since we moved to this new house.

I decided that if I do write a book about this neighborhood, the title will be "There's a Policeman Laying in my Front Yard: One year in a south Baltimore neighborhood" - or something like that.

I forgot what all I've shared on this blog about my 'hood. I do know that I shared the story of my one neighbor who threatened someone over the phone with "I will cut your f*cking head off with a f*cking saw!" That happened when we first moved in last June.

What's funnier about that neighbor is that he's turned into one of our nicest neighbors and even mowed our lawn for us one afternoon because (as he told me with a big smile), "I was just in the mood to mow some lawns." I had meanly referred to him as "Assface," but that was dropped quickly when I realized he was actually quite friendly. So, sorry about that, but hey - first impressions go a long way. Especially when my first impression of you is your threatening a brutal death on someone.

Anyway - Herman is a nice guy.

We're also fortunate to have very nice neighbors on either side of us. Mary Jo watches our fat cat Tuesday when we're out of town. Ron and his daughter Charlene are also friendly. Ron guts big Rockfish in his backyard on occasion (yeah, wonder why we have rats?). Ron also thinks just about everyone in the neighborhood that he doesn't know personally is a drug dealer - and that's especially true if you're not white. Ron is a racist, but thankfully he does not drop the N-bomb. He just whispers.

An example. One afternoon Ron and I were chatting on our front porches when a comical sight happened. A grown man zoomed by at a high speed on one of those tiny, tiny motorcycles. It was clown-like, with his knees all bent up as he fit himself onto this tiny zooming machine. Ron and I paused until the sound died down. Then when the guy was gone Ron said in a very small whisper, "Probably a drug dealer." The clown on the motorcyle was black.

Why would I assume that he said that because the guy was black?

Another example from earlier in the year. When Amy and I were tearing stuff out of our house, we would put it out in trash bags just to see what all the garbagemen would actually take. We decided if they wouldn't take it, we'd just take it to the dump ourselves. It was a test.

One afternoon when we returned to the house, Ron was in his backyard and pulled me aside.

"You know, those garbagemen almost didn't take all those heavy bags you put out there," he said.

"Oh yeah, we were just seeing if they would take it. I'm glad they did!" I replied.

"Well, I was out here when they came by, they said they'd take it if i gave them a little extra," Ron said, making that money sign with his fingers.

"Oh geez - you didn't give them anything, did you? You don't have to bribe the garbagemen for our trash. We would've just taken it to the dump ourselves," said said.

"No way, I didn't give them anything. They still took it, though. But these guys wanted some money out of it."

Then Ron came closer and whispered. "They were black."

Thanks, Ron.

Beyond his racist undertones, Ron is a nice guy. For a while, we would battle to see who could mow the other's lawn first. We have tiny front yards, so it just doesn't make sense to only mow your tiny yard and not your adjoining neighbor's as well.

Ron recently hurt his foot and so now I always mow his lawn with the agreement that I get to use his electric mower rather than my human-powered mower. Much faster and much nicer.

So you can see the nice people that live around us.

The weird stuff happens just beyond those neighbors. Last fall a row house several houses down from ours (not attached to our group, thankfully) burnt. It was a rude awakening at 3am to hear glass shattering and people shouting "get out!" Fortunately no one was inside. Then later from the neighborhood gossip vine (of which Charlene and Mary Jo are old and founding members of) we learned that the burnt house had turned into a drug house and the neighbors had called the cops on them numerous times.

So people weren't that unhappy to see it burn. And then we learned that it was the druggie homeowner who burnt it - he threw a burning bottle of gasoline through its back window at 3am - like no one in our neighborhood would see that happen.

That home has sat as a burnt out shell since then. I feel bad for the immediate neighbors, and yet it makes the whole neighborhood look bad when you have a burnt out shell on your block. Who knows what will happen to it.

The title of the book about the policeman laying in my front yard - that also happened. I came home late one Saturday in November. Amy was out of town that weekend. Anyway, it's about 11pm or so, very dark outside. We have few streetlights at the our end of the street. As I walk up to my house after parking down the street, I notice a man laying in the grassy area between the street and the sidewalk in front of our house. I stop and stare. He's laying halfway underneath a car there. He must know I'm behind him because he quickly leans out from underneath the car and sits up looking at me. He puts his finger to his lips and goes "shhhhhh..." and then leans back down and lays again half under the car.

Just imagine what would go through your mind at that point, and it probably matched what went through mine.

"What the hell...?"

I think, even though this dude is not laying under my car, I'll do this for my neighbor. I would hope if they saw some guy laying under a car near them, they'd do the same and check on what the heck was going on.

So I respond to the "Shhhh..." with a logical question.

"What in the hell are you doing?!"

The guy leans back out again from beneath the car, pulls a police badge from out of his jacket, shows it to me, then puts it away and goes back to his under car position. I then whisper "Sorry!" and run up my stairs and into the house - where I then call Amy to tell her that there's a policeman laying in our front yard and no, I don't know what he's doing.

That experience was interesting because I like how his badge was a reasonable excuse for his odd position on our grass and under a car. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was hiding and trying to watch somewhere on the other side of the street from his vantage point beneath a car. And I probably blew his cover - but that could have easily been avoided by him showing me his badge the first time he emerged from its wheel well rather than just trying to have me understand his position with a simple, "Shhhh..." Like he's some strange automotive librarian or something.

After that policeman yard incident, things quieted a bit on the street. Then sometime this winter, I forget exactly when, a new family moved in four row houses down from ours.

I'm trying to figure out what to refer to them as - The Crackhead Family or The Douchebag Family. Let's go with The Crackheads.

I'll share more stories about The Crackheads in another post. Highlights include
-Fireworks in their backyard
-Is that a real or toy gun?

And then another upcoming story: Why you shouldn't attack someone with a hammer. Stay tuned!