sitting on houses

House sitting just got a little weird.

I've been doing quite a bit of it this summer, largely to escape the ol' ball and chain. That would be my own house with it's huge mortgage and cracked slab and greasy-fingered roommate. Oh no, that's not an extended euphemism. The mortgage is killing me. The slab has a big crack I found when I took up the cigarette-stinky carpet to stain the concrete. My roommate eats a lot of potato chips and KFC.

This is the third house I'm sitting since June. They've all been agreeable and easy to get along with so far. And doing this reminds me of freedom. I am alone and lightened—all except for the suitcase I have to lug around, reminding me I'm still miserably chained to the material world. That and I've forgotten my toothbrush again.

So house number three is notably different from houses one and two, both of which had cats, several peoples-worth of space, and cable with HBO. House number three is actually a small two-bedroom apartment. It does have air conditioning, thank all that is good in this world, and it's normally occupied by a single guy who's a musician, co-worker and friend. I have to say I'm impressed with both the living plants that inhabit it's less shady spaces and with the cleanliness. Maybe he did that special for me, but I doubt it. I think he might just be civilized. Sorry to tarnish your rep, Andy.

What makes it different other than size is its geography. If you live in Austin, you might know East 12th street. That's the strip where the hookers and dealers and crack addicts hang out and shift their wares. I'm on East 17th right now.

The neighbors here are great. Racially mixed community, nice families, great older houses mixed in with crazy student rent housing and people who have stretched the boundaries of city living to keep chickens and fine, fine roosters. Basically your whole assortment of plain good folks struggling to keep up their properties and stay in them since the values and hence the taxes have shot up higher than Texas governor hair.

Last Friday was my first evening here. I was sitting on the porch drinking a beer or two as is my weekend wont and I met a few of the neighbors. Let me rephrase that. I saw and/or met more neighbors in one night here than I have in a year in the suburban investment I refuse to call "home." Quotation marks here indicating a word that must be held up by aerial supports. Twinned twin balloons, squeaky with helium, stretched thin by the struggle to elevate a small, but awkwardly shaped and heavy arrangement of letters.

A particularly friendly older fellow showed up and tipped his hat and joined me for a beer. Mr. Jesse. I've forgotten his last name already because that's the kind of brain I have. He invited me to his church home. I winced. Don't really live here. Just here for bit.

"Oh, I see. Well that's all right. It's right around the corner if you're interested," and that's the end of that.

We enjoyed the still evening air for a bit and then he dropped his head and began examining the label on his beer. He asked what we were drinking.

"Negra Modelo. Not bad stuff if you like dark beer."

A refrigerated truck pulled up and the driver stepped out asking if we wanted any steaks. Steak on wheels. Heaven! Andy had left me highly praised ribs from the barbecue place down the street, so I thanked the gentleman but refused. Jesse bit and had the man pull down the street to the auto shop where he worked so he could pay him there.

He disappeared around the corner and I put his beer in the fridge to keep it cold. When he returned, we chatted for a bit and sipped for a bit. He tipped his hat again and told me he was at my service and to let him know if I needed anything while I was here. I shook his hand, bid him a good night and went in for the evening.

I was home. I was among people again, real people who were capable of generosity and conversation. I called friends to let them know I had found my place. I should've moved here. I'd messed up badly by not moving here.

"Yes dear, but you're still a single woman and it's not the best of neighborhoods."

Nay-sayer. Classist! This is the original neighborhood. This is the neighborhood neighborhoods wish they could be if they weren't so cluttered up with things, and electronic entertainments and social climbers. This is a home.

Yes, 12th is problematic. Wal-Mart is problematic. And thanks for the reminder about my singleness.

So Saturday afternoon arrived with my in-town holiday in full swing. I slept in and spent the morning reading a novel. I sat in a house silent except for the padding of my feet to and from the coffee pot. Luxury.

Some Jehovah's Witnesses stopped by around 10:30. I half-opened the door in my pajamas and they turned their eyes up toward the heavens and smiled. Did I know if any of my neighbors were Spanish-speaking as this day was their outreach day for their non-English speaking brothers and sisters. No. Sorry, just the house-sitter. Back to my novel untainted by a sermon and in the knowledge I had agitated the Witnesses with my slovenly sleep shorts and cellulite and unbound boobs. Who knew the power of these things?

Then a shower finally, and thoughts of lunch.

As I was shuffling around the rib-laden fridge, my "neighbor" returned and knocked on the door. Distinguishing quotation marks here indicating cuts, twinned twins of cuts, one to punch out each of the tires on the surprisingly diesel-fueled, smoke spewing modern carriage of my romantic notions and let them fizzle flatulently into disappointment. My new-found favorite neighbor was a rather more roving form of neighbor than I had at first thought, not so housebound, rather like me and yet not..

"I'm so sorry to bother you with this, but I have this prescription for my seizures. I gotta refill it and I'm just in a really bad way 'cause I didn't cash my paycheck last night. I'm not sure what to do. I just hate that I'm even here bringing this to you. Would you at least ask me in out of the heat?"

"No, I think, um no, let's just talk on the porch." [Why do I have such mulch for brains?]

Then the frenetic display of props.

He waved around the pill bottle he'd had cupped in his hands. It was possibly older than he was. I should have asked him to hand it over so I could read the label which was still mostly intact, but I was afraid my lack of pharmaceutical expertise would make things worse. Only if it was something really obvious. "Aha! And how do you propose that this bottle of antibiotics from 1984—My God! You were supposed to refill it!—is meant to prevent a seizure? Please take your virulent bacteria and go sir, and good day to you." As if he wouldn't have wiggled to some other story from there, and as if I would have been clear-headed enough to call his bluff. I was just trying to keep my clinical niceness at bay.

"Well, do you need someone to bring you somewhere? [Um, what did I just say? I'm not getting in a car with a stranger.] Let's see if the apartment manager is home. [That's what I'm doing. Right. Thank you brain. He's with APD. Please run this guy off so I don't have to. Damn. Not home.] Wow, see the thing is I really don't know you, man. If I knew you...but I don't. [He reeks of liquor. No needle marks. That's good. Good, good.]"

Next he flipped open his wallet to show me the black and white photocopied driver's license that would prove that he was who he said he was and therefore...what? I tempered my look of existential weariness with just the tiniest dollop of pity due both to aforementioned clinical niceness and a healthy modicum of anxiety.

"I think you're going to have to call one of the other neighbors who knows you. That's what you better do." [Please go away and don't make a scene.]

"They all treat me real bad. Real bad." [Maybe if it looks like I'll make a scene...]

"Oh, I'm really sorry, man. But you're going to have to talk to one of them. If I knew you better, but I don't." [Repeat, repeat, repeat.]

Both of our performances were suffering by then. I was less and less convincing as the nice, concerned neighbor. He was increasingly losing his grasp on the momentarily desperate church-going gentleman role. The actors' motivations were intact, but there was something artificial, the chemistry not quite right. The whole drama was coming apart at the seams.

"Where's that Justin? His car ain't out here. He ain't home is he?"

"He was just here. Just went to run some errands I bet. I'm sure he'll be back soon." [What's he thinking? Is he thinking single woman home alone, I could knock her aside and grab that nice guitar I saw through the door just now?]

"Well, we're still friends, I hope. I sure hope I haven't offended you because I didn't mean to do that." [Extends hand. Maybe I'll try again next week...?]

"Of course, of course. Sure sorry I can't help. Best of luck to you." [Oh thank God. And please don't come back.]

Performances momentarily re-invigorated. The drama moves successfully to its conclusion.

Door shuts. Man dons hat and exits stage right toward street. Woman paces frantically, watching through keyhole. Waits, alert. Moves to back door, checks keyhole, unbolts and opens. Looks around. Closes and locks door. Returns to front door, checks keyhole and opens. Looks around, walks out a few paces, cranes neck toward street, but does not move further, walks back into house, locks door, and paces for some time.

All in all, perhaps a bit of an overreaction. Happens all the time says my friend who knows people who've moved out here. People wander over from East 12th.

"You didn't give him anything did you?"

"What? No way. Of course not. No. I knew what was going on. I wouldn't have given him anything." [Except maybe if he hadn't gone away so easily and I'd gotten just a tiny bit more agitated and I'd really wanted him to go, just go, especially since he only wanted about 5 bucks.]

"My friend got really good at it. He'd just open the door and say "no" and close it again. Seemed rude, but you know which folks are the scammers."

"Yeah. If he comes back I'll be meaner."

Meaner. Right. Andy, you owe me many, many more ribs.

Post-sitting-note: Andy knows Jesse. And yep, the neighbors are pretty mean to him. The open the door and say "no" and then close it in his face despite what is otherwise a lovely personality. He never pushes too much. Just moves on. Switch around a few socio-economic and educational details, have me drink just a tiny bit more, and that could be me. That could be many of the Friday bar flies I know. There but for the grace of economically exclusionary middle American suburbs go we.