Shit: neighbors. I can’t watch that. Stuff that for a lark, off you pop. There. How can so many people watch that crap? Cracks me up so it does. Its’ on twice a day because you can’t believe it the first time, you know. Soap freaks. Half hour community clowns. Hell, it’s a lot easier than reality, yeah? No problem taking a stroll down Coronation Street, Brookside, or Albert Square is there? No, but you see them in the real street with their bags held close like shit to a blanket and their furtive, scared, looks full of suspicion. No, best just a half hour community or an hour on a Sunday. Catch the omnibus. One for Albert Square please; how much? A cup of tea? One sugar? Do for me. No thanks. Some folk just don’t know where the off button is, do they? Most of these punters likely don’t even know their real neighbors. Everything just hunky dory as long as there’s just Kiwis next door.
Mind, real neighbors can be bad news sometimes. I’ve had some bad ones myself. This guy now, he looks a bit iffy. I hope not. Maybe like Ron was, pretty mild really. Yeah: Ron. He was the first. I’d never had trouble at all before then, had I? Still, it’s a world away now though, the farm and the vans. My hermitage, escape from the world.
Ron was in the other van, he’d had some kind of a nervous breakdown, thought everyone was talking about him. Huh: he should be so lucky. Midnight Cowboy, ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me’, yep, ‘only the shadows of my mind.’ Yeh, good old Ron, he was into CnW too. Soaps as well of course. Just needed some confidence. I helped that mush, built him back up, good Samaritan, moi. Oui, certainment. Some of the things he came out with though. Jeez, I got worried I was starting to think like him at one point. Shit. No chance though, I was rising again, slow but sure: sure. Hmm, sure came through some shite on the way though.
What was that next guys name? No, can’t remember. Christ, I went to borrow some sugar, you should have seen his eyes, and he’s got glue all over his face! What a tube! Yeah, Evo-stick, stuck on you. Man, something else, and then the bus stop. Nine in the morning and he’s pissed, little red pig eyes, sugar. ‘I’ve drunk twenty two cans through the night.’ he says. Somehow I understand this. Twenty two! Through the night, on his own! Shit. The sod was nicking my food as well; I thought it was mice at first, I mean, farm and all that. It takes a Helluva mouse to get into the ice box and take one crispy pancake though. I was glad to see the back of him, I’ll tell you. Neighbors? Tell me about them. Who needs fantasy?
Next was a couple and they were sound, we all got on fine. Even had barbecues then, oh yeah, the cat. Their cat had got stuck up a tree. No problem says me, comes out with the golf brolly, puts it up next to the tree, cat steps on, brolly comes down; brilliant. Except the wet ground decides to give way underneath me and there’s me and my brolly tumbling down the slope, somersaulting past the septic tank. One bust brolly, one bruised me. Cat was fine though, talk about raining cats and dogs. That was when the drainage to the septic tank bust too. Wonder if my tumble had anything to do with that? Hell, cat’s fault if anybody’s!
Shit, mind that last month? I come home and there's this head case trying to tell me that somebody’s been deliberately sick in his shower. What? Piss off, let’s have a look. What a hero, hah, what an idiot, I just blast my way past through the shower door and – oh shit – close it fast, back off coughing, I’m gagging, near as damn sick, septic tank, shit, this is too much. That’s not sick, I say, when my breath is back; it’s shit! There’s been a back flow, must be a blockage. God, that was awful. He didn’t believe me! Why the Hell not? He goes out, shithead, so like back then. Smell was seeping into the room though. I went in, got a towel wrapped around my face, got the window opened and washed away what I could before I had to breathe. Phew: it did the trick for the night though, and the caretaker fixed it the next day.
No caretaker back then though, just the farmer and he was on holiday. Did it myself, new pipes, new route to the septic tank, took me two days but I did it. Phew, what a hero. Carol came down, I heard steps and looked out from under the van, saw her legs at my door, nicer by far than this shit down here. ‘Hi,’ I say and roll out from under the van. She jumps back, surprised. ‘Plumber at your service,’ I say. ‘You’re a mess,’ she says. ‘Yes I am that, plumbing the depths.’ ‘I need a baby sitter, not a plumber.’ ‘Sure, no problem; later? I’ll be up to fix your TV aerial anyway.’ ‘Thanks,’ she says, ‘See you later.’ I watch her go down the slope seeming to sink into the septic tank as she goes; what a waste. Two hours on and I’m having my tea up at Carol’s having fixed the aerial just in time for neighbors.
Clear flow for the septic tanks though. He’s a TV next door, watches neighbours as well. They all reckon that violence on telly’s increasing violence in society, don’t they? Bullshit! It’s all these bloody soaps making people inadequate. They can only handle fantasy neighbours for half an hour. Reality lasts too long and you can’t switch it off can you?
Anyway, that couple went to be replaced by another not as good, not too bad. They were filthy and you couldn’t really trust them but they weren’t too much bother, but, well, talk about shit on your doorstep; jeez. After them there was no-one for weeks, great, no hassle, peace, then he came.
Colin Cudby, cousin of the bloke of the good couple from before. Could be okay, looks a bit odd though, you know? Certainly looks clean and tidy. He comes round, introduces himself, ‘Just being neighborly,’ he says; right. I offer him a cup of coffee, he is definitely a bit strange, though harmless I hope. ‘Is this real sugar in this coffee?’ he asks. What? Real sugar, is there any other kind? Shit, he saw me put it in. ‘Yes, of course,’ I say. ‘Sure,’ he asks, looking doubtful, could be trouble, ‘Yes, sure.’ That was the start of it. Sugar, hard to believe now, clean yes, but his head, jeez, there was one head real full of shit and no kidding, and being the nearest being to him, geographically that is, I was about to be splattered from head to toe, no less. Sugar, short and sweet, no such luck, no, no. ‘Somebody’s been in my place,’ he says, ‘seen anyone suspicious?’ Apart from you mate, no. Shit, so did this guy, last week, exactly the bloody same, no, not another one. I think I’d crack up, shit, septic tank, no, no way, could be, no way. Always someone been in his place and had I seen anyone around? My arse, shithead was accusing me, just wouldn’t say right out, not then. Crazy bastard next door, he’s the same, he even bangs on the walls like that mental bastard back then, Cudby, could be. Wonder if he’ll change his lock as well? Man, that was funny, he bought the wrong kind of lock, he had a door opened outwards, like Pandora’s Box, but the lock was for a door opened inwards. What a wanker, ha! About as useful as a lock on the outside of a toilet I told him. He was so stupid he didn’t understand the problem, next day, he’s accusing me direct; I’m trying to poison him. Yeah, I’ve put glass in his cereal and poison in his chops. I’ve had sex with the farmer’s wife in his bed, whilst he’s out, well, it would be more convenient, veritable orgies in there, you name it, I did it, no kidding.
Yes, okay, I should have felt sorry for him, but this was most days for the best part of a year. Shit, it got so that I began to think he’d been in my place. Why not, that other guy had been, I’ll tell you, nutters for neighbors can seriously damage your health; mental. I started to tell people I knew about him but when I did I always thought that I sounded a bit crazy myself! ‘You’re getting paranoid mate,’ somebody said. ‘I hope so,’ I said, ‘it would be better than if it was true.’ I began to wonder if my friends believed me or not, I mean, if I hadn’t known this was true, I would have been more than a bit doubtful myself. This guy was mental, nuts, four and a half pence, you know.
I even went to the police about the day, really, I did, it got that bad, but, I’m not too sure they believed me either, but then again, how could you blame them? I must have sounded crazy myself, maybe even was a bit by then. Anyway, they said they couldn’t do anything until he’d done something. ‘Done something, isn’t this enough? I mean, the guys doing my head in!’ ‘Sorry,’ they said, ‘but that’s the Law.’ Wow, that’s great, isn’t it? If you want to know the time, ask a policeman, but don’t ask him to get you out of bad shit, forget that. You have to come in with a knife in your back, or maybe an axe in your head, before they can do anything, handy, yeah? It was time to change tactics.
This guy’s been accusing me of threatening him, right? I’ve told stacks of people about it, so, why don’t I do it? Why not? Who the hell is going to believe him? Nobody, I mean, they don’t believe me, so how are they ever going to believe him? Nobody, that’s who, so, poison him? I told him that I was a chemist, that if I really did I’d give him dysentery for a week to such an extent that there would be more of him in the septic tank than anywhere else. That scared the shit out of him for a while. I had peace for about six weeks: bliss. He came back though, needed his persecution fix too much. He knocks on my bedroom window at four in the morning. 4 AM, I mean, do you believe that, four-fucking-am? Goddamn, didn’t this crazy sod to do the same a bit ago? Yes, two in the morning, he’d locked himself out, same night the sewage backed up in the shower that was. Christ, and wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that two children died on a boat because of sewage problems? Horrible! 4 AM, I’m not kidding, but if I hadn’t been half asleep I think I would have killed that mad bastard that night. I really was at the end of my tether by this time: 4 AM. That was when I started thinking about the septic tank.
You had to pass the tank on the way to and from the vans. The tank had a cover of wood, but it was rotten, rotten to the core. If that cat had landed on it that time I’m not sure that it would have held. All I had to do was stand in the right place and wait for him to pass, a quick shove, and then he’s gone, bye-bye. Septic tank one: meet septic tank two. What’s a septic tank for anyway? Breaking up shit! Natural! Hell, I’d be putting this poor bastard out of his misery wouldn’t I? Not to mention me, why not? Damn, I wanted to do it, I really did. Just bother me once more and you are gone boy, gone. I’ll just flush you away. Who would miss him? Not me, that’s for sure, I had it all planned, make sure no-one else is around, quick shove and off he pops, like switching off the TV: peace. I used to stand and look longingly at that tank, waiting, just waiting for hours. Come on Cudby, come on, I’d think, quivering, come on - you – shithead – Cudby!
What if this guy’s the same, what if he is? Another Cudby, no, can’t be, no way, I’m not sure I could handle it. I don’t think I could take another crazy bastard into persecution like that; too much. He’s watching TV, neighbors again, half an hour, why can’t I just switch him off? Half an hour I could handle. I don’t know what to do. What if he bangs on that wall? No, too much, I can’t take it, too much, I just can’t, just can’t, cracking up, septic tank, no, no, shit, no!
