So Here's the Story

The guys at Flanagan's - Louie and Philly and Jake, Tiny, who's over three fifty on a good day, and Big Ed, who's a dwarf or a midget - I can never remember which - "I'm a 'little person,' you stupid prick" he yells at me - all of them think I'm a goddam creep. Maybe it's because I don't have a steady job. Yeah, as if all of them do. Maybe because it's the way I look at people, probably because of my glasses. And maybe it's because of my stories. Whatever. They can screw themselves.

I know what they're thinking and what they say behind my back, and also right to my face. "C'mon, Froggy ..." they say - and that's another thing. They still call me Froggy, and that f'in nickname goes way back to high school when I wore thick glasses with those heavy black frames - "... tell us another one of your bullshit stories."

"Gimme a break. My name is Hal ... H-A-fucking-L," I say."Have some respect." But just like back in Van Buren High, when I got so pissed off that I ended up breaking Louie's nose after landing on him elbow-first, they ignore me and keep calling on me Froggy, as much from habit as to spite me. But since they buy me glasses and pitchers of Budweiser on tap, I tell them stories about my crazy neighbors - Gladys and her two sons, Bobby and Georgie.

And there's one more thing: I don't care what they think or, for that matter, what you think. After all, this story ain't about me. It's about my three neighbors - and I call them Gladbag and Bubba and Jlubba. If you knew what I know, you'd know why.

Now, you gotta remember that it's not Robert and George, but Bobby and Georgie. You'd think the names the old hag calls them, they were still nine or ten. But you'd be wrong. Add 30 years, give or take, and you'd be closer to the truth.

Gladys and Bobby and Georgie: they're a sight that makes eyes sore. Gladbag's a beast - a big, fat, stinking beast. Bubba and Jlubba are so far over the hill that they've fallen into - waddya call it? - yeah, a ravine. You gotta picture the three of them, waddling down the street - mama in her mumu pushing her squeaky shopping cart with her boys right beside her, with their thinning, uncombed hair, with rags for clothing and what might as well be a potato sack for Gladbag, all with evil-looking teeth and their goddam "never see nothin'" dead eyes. And I thank my lucky stars that I don't see them all that much because the boys are usually holed up in that apartment next door with their crazy mother. But I sure hear plenty, because the wall between our two places is thinner than an old lady's lips. I guess at one time it must've been one big apartment and they split it in two with the cheapest plasterboard seconds.

Most days, when the weather's good, I go downstairs and sit out on the sidewalk in front of Amazing Savings, a place that sells everything from toilet paper to toilet water - you know, the sweet-smelling kind. Sometimes they pay me to watch over the merchandise they put out on the sidewalk so nobody walks off with any of the junk that they pile up in little cardboard boxes magic-markered with prices. The good thing is that they pay me in cash, which adds a bit to the disability check I get each month.

I'm surprised that I hardly ever run into Gladbag and her scumbags. After all, they have to go out sometimes to buy their groceries, and even cockroaches come out at night. But even though I spend most days sitting under the store's blue and white awning, on an aluminum garden chair that I picked up off a trash heap, I almost never see them shuffling by. And believe me, I watch everybody - especially the Catholic school girls on their way home from Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, or whatever their f'in school is called. Hey ... I'm human too ... what d'ya want from me?

In the afternoon, when it gets too hot, and the sun's beating down and that awning's not worth a damn, I fold up my chair, get a sawbuck or two from Artie, the store manager, and climb back up the rickety wooden stairs to my apartment above the store. The damn A/C is so crappy that I've got to turn it up high, and it makes so much noise I also have to turn up the TV, and then Gladbag or one of the sons will start banging on the wall for me to turn it down. One of these days, they're gonna punch a hole right through that plasterboard. But they're so stupid or so fucked up that they don't even realize that I can hear them as clear as day through that paper-thin wall. Boy, if they ever knew that I could hear them clear as day!

But you didn't come here to hear about me. So, here ... grab the pitcher and pour yourself a glass and I'll tell you the story, too.

"C'mon already, Froggy. Forget about the stranger." It was Tiny, always a pain in my ass. "You already had a coupla glasses on our dime, so let's hear it."

"The shit usually starts early in the morning. Three, four, maybe five o'clock, sometimes.

"That voice of hers is like chalk on a board. It grates on my ears, grates on my nerves. It's raspy and gruff - a chain smoker's voice. I could do her for you - no, I wouldn't do her, not like that - you know what I mean. I could talk like she talks, but it would hurt my throat.

"Where was I? Oh yeah ... 'Mama's cold.' So I hear a shuffling of bodies in the other room, and then her boys' voices, one arguing with the other: 'It's your turn.' 'No, it's your turn.' 'No, I did it yesterday.' 'No, I did.' And it goes back and forth like that. Her pride and joy, Bubba and Jlubba, having a brotherly disagreement.

"'Make sure you cover my feet. You know how cold they get with my poor circulation and all.'

"Poor circulation? I'm surprised that her blood can even get through all that fat."

"'Oh, Bobby, my sweet heart. I'll love you to death. You're my favorite son. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.'

"And here it comes: 'Bobby? Sweetie? Mama's cold. Can you get into bed next to me and warm me up?' I can even hear her patting the mattress.

"'C'mon, Bobby. Just for a little while.' I can just imagine that pitiful look on her face, the look of a cow in heat, pleading with that dead-eye, stinky-ass son of hers. The thought makes me so sick I wanna throw up.

"The bedsprings creak. It must be Bobby climbing into bed with his mommy. Then there's quiet for a little while.

"And then, the bed starts bouncing and creaking for real. The bed's banging against the wall and the wall is shaking, like it's gonna fall down any second. There are moans and groans, a high-pitched cry now and then, like a dog yelping. I picture it in my mind and I wanna puke and then I can't get the picture out of my mind. Then, there's one final grunt, like they're pushing out a load, a baby, what have you, and then there's silence. But by that time I'm wide awake.

"So I go into the kitchen and boil some water and make myself some coffee. I turn on the TV - I've got an old black and white on the kitchen counter - and flip through the channels. Ever since 9/11, the reception sucks, so I watch whatever's on: commercials, cartoons, Cops. Maybe, the early news. When I start to get sleepy, I get back into bed again."

"No, shit, Tiny." I answer, as I pour the last of the pitcher into my glass. "I ain't shittin' ya. You really think I would?"

I finish the glass, swallow in some air and let out a belch, wipe my mouth on my sleeve and get up off my stool.

Rev 8 / November 22, 2006

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November, 2006…Copyright © 2006, Lloyd B. Abrams

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