The Nightmare House and The Butter House

Someone bought the house next to ours a couple of years ago and tore it down. They cut down all the trees, got rid of the lawn. Then they built not one but two new houses in its place.

The house that had been there before was not a house that made you think, Boy howdy, this house is the size of two houses! It had been a modest one-story house, less than a thousand square feet. So the two new houses occupying its footprint are, obviously, even smaller. Much smaller. It goes without saying, but I've said it. 

The one closest us is a nightmare house. It's tall and black and skinny, like a tooth in an old man's mouth. I'm looking at it out my kitchen window right now; I used to be able to see the sky out my kitchen window. Now all I see is the black rotted-tooth house.

The second house in the lot, on the other side of the black one, is short and yellow—that creamy butter yellow that all the houses were in the seventies—and it has no front door. I don't think it has side doors either, just a back door. Weird, right?

I think there are two main things that cause a person anxiety when the house next to them disappears. Two worries. The first is that the house built in its place will be super ugly, and the second is that your new neighbors will be...exciting, but not in a good way. 

 Welp.

That black house is like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You never see anybody moving in. You never see anybody moving out. But you know there are people in there because of the drug deals going down from midnight to five am just outside our bedroom window. You know that something's gone wrong by the line of police cars snaking down our quiet street. Sometimes there's been screaming, sometimes there've been contractors coming in and removing all of the carpets while police stand by and interview people we've never seen before but have apparently been living next to for months. Ah, the stories I have to tell about that house. Next time you see me, you should ask for the one about the play pens. (I will say, for a while there, a wonderful little family moved into the suite on the top floor and we quite liked them. They had a three year-old boy who didn't speak much English but he'd come out on their balcony and he and Scarlett would yell back and forth at each other and sometimes he'd come running into our yard to hug everybody and Scarlett called him The Friend, which was cute. I miss them.)

That big black house is so obtrusive and loud and exciting, that I find I usually forget about the little yellow house with no front door. I forget it's there. I mean, I used to. Until recently.

Apparently, while the black house is a rental, with three suites, one of which I think might actually not be legal, the yellow house is a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. One of the men who lives there is about my age, and I know this because now that it's warmed up a bit (we're hovering around 0, FINALLY) he goes to the grocery store, on foot, several times a day. Like, enough times a day that Scarlett has noticed, and will look out the window and say, "Oh, George (not his real name, obviously) is coming back with more groceries!" 

We ran into each other for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He was coming back with more groceries and he saw me getting into my car (I was, coincidentally, also going to the grocery store) and came over. I got the feeling that someone had warned him about the social distancing thing a time or two, because before he spoke he took a moment to assess the space between us. He took a little step back and then, satisfied, he introduced himself and asked me my name and whether or not I have air conditioning. 

"I do," I said.

"That is so great," said George, genuinely happy for me, in a way that felt absurdly nice—and maybe it just felt so great because we're in a pandemic and I don't have a lot of in-person interactions with people. But having a stranger be so wholesomely happy for you is a really great feeling that I now intend to heap upon all of you when this is over and we're hanging out again. Thanks, George. "I have it too," said George. "That's so great that we both have air conditioning." Like I'd told him that we were both millionaires.

"It's so great," I agreed.

"Well, but not right now," said George. "Since it's winter. Don't really need it. Might not be good to put it on right now."

"True," I said.  

"But in the summer..." 

"It'll be so great."

"My mom has air conditioning!" said George, genuinely happy for his mom.

"That's great," I said. "My mom does too."

"Oh, wow," said George, genuinely happy for my mom. "That's so great. Do you go to school?"

"Not anymore," I said. "Too old."

"Hey! Me too!" George's smile grew even bigger. "And do you have kids?"

"I do," I said. "You probably see them out in the yard all the time."

"Yes!" George said. "And do they go to school?"

"They do," I said.

And then George blindsided me by ending the conversation. He said, "Well, have a great day, Suzy!" and then he turned on his heel and headed off toward his little yellow house. I almost felt worried that I'd offended him or given him the impression that I didn't want to talk anymore, but now I know that this is how conversations with George go. He gets you into a rhythm, he asks you a lot of questions, and then he slams the whole thing shut like a front door and disappears down the street with his one bag of groceries. I kind of appreciate it? I'm not a person who knows how to end conversations. I feel awkward and rude being the one to say, "Well, I gotta go." Especially now, when I don't really have anywhere important to be. I don't, technically, 'gotta go' and everyone knows it. Another thing I could adopt from George, maybe.

Anyway. 

George and I are friends now, is what I'm saying; we have brief but wonderful conversations every time we cross paths (which is often, because we both do love our groceries) and I'm glad the Butter House is there, even if it came with a Nightmare House, like a beautiful flower with thorns on its stem. I think there's a popular saying somewhere along those lines—"Every Butter House has its Nightmare House," or something like that.