Neighbors by Elise Warner

A soft, steady rain washed the neighborhood last night. I inhale, close my eyes and savor the smell of warm, damp earth as it drifts past my open window. An ensemble of weeds, conducted by a morning breeze, sways gently, lulling me into the half-sleep of remembrance.

I lean over the sill and study the garden. Once nurtured by two ancient German refugees, on a small narrow plot of land supplied by our building’s landlord, the garden now suffers from neglect.

The gate at the far end of the court complains – a grating sound. I spy a workman pushing a rickety shopping cart loaded with sacks. If the rumors are true the sacks hold cement. Our patch of green will be turned into a cold, gray strip.

My bedroom faces the garden. The living room’s French doors lead to the terrace. A good place for a lonely, old widow to get to know her neighbors.

Through the years, I watched my suburban neighborhood of mostly one and two family houses grow into a sturdy community of apartment buildings, two supermarkets and a cut-rate drugstore. The garden stayed the same. Coaxed, chastised, inspired by Emile and Anna – the refugees – it pulsed with life.

We knew spring had arrived when the crocus and daffodils were joined by tulips and baby’s breath. The azalea flowered next – a showy display of crimson and claret. Roses, the color of peaches and cream, grew in June and emboldened by the heat of August honeysuckle vines climbed past Mr. Taylor’s first floor window and poked their delicate floral faces against Mrs. Reilly’s screens. Mr. Taylor, elderly, widowed and, unfortunately, retired from his job as a music teacher was my next door neighbor. He occupied the corner studio next to my one bedroom, grew violets in clay pots and played Chopin and Liszt on his upright piano, three hours a day, five days a week.

Mrs. Reilly, horrified at the thought of ants invading her apartment, would raise her venetian blinds, and, in a firm voice edged with the brogue of her childhood, ask Emile and Anna, to cut down the honeysuckle.

"Who died and left her boss?" Emile would ask Anna as he clipped away at the vine.

"Everybody’s a boss," Anna would mutter. The galoshes she wore, no matter what the season, flapped as she stomped away from him. Emile and Anna loved the garden as much as they disliked each other. Every morning, the sound of shovels, a wheelbarrow crying for oil and their constant bickering would wake the tenants on the garden side of the building. No one dared complain. Better Emile and Anna’s squabbles than a hard, cement courtyard. At night, the pungent scent of flowers in full bloom wafted into my bedroom, encouraging me to dream of distant lands, exotic adventures. Dreams only occasionally interrupted by the high pitched mews of cats using the greenery for assignations. Chrysanthemums grew well into September and lasted ‘til the cold warnings of winter forced them to fade.

After Christmas festivities were past, Emile could be seen gathering discarded evergreens, tinseled branches twinkling in the morning sun, and placing them on the perennials. There they would rest while the tenants anticipated spring.

The remainder of the apartment house slowly deteriorated. Nothing but weeds grew on either side of the building though a few flowering shrubs and two dwarf elms fronted the entrance. Scraggly and misshapen from lack of care; they were a constant reminder to the older tenants of the gardening abilities of the last, never to be replaced night porter.

The landlord had tightened the belt of the building. There was no night porter, no doorman. The lobby was furnished with wrought iron furniture, substitutes for the old couch, burned beyond repair by a tenant’s careless cigarette, and the chair whose stuffing had been scattered by a generation of children who used it as a trampoline. The landlord had once, much to everyone’s surprise, installed new furniture and stored the wrought iron in the basement storeroom. It soon returned, the new furniture having been stolen along with a fully decorated Christmas tree.

Still, the building, except for constant boiler breakdowns, a leaky roof and Mrs. Latessa – third floor above the terrace, tone deaf, one sansevieria plant – being knocked down by a mugger hiding in the laundry room, retained a quirky charm until we lost Jones. Jones, the super, was a decent repairman, good-natured and even-tempered. Every 4^th of July, he’d drape the terrace with red, white and blue bunting, invite the tenants to a barbecue and play his favorite music. He favored songs about lonesome cowboys, deserted wives and lost love. Jones kept the porter busy washing and waxing the floor and there was a surface shine to the building despite its recent difficulties.

The tenants missed Jones. We tried to get him to stay. Failed, of course. We all understood his feelings; couldn’t blame him one bit. He had planned to retire - the "incident" with Freddie and then Mr. Taylor’s eruption only hastened his departure.

Freddie had problems. He made problems. He was a great, big problem for his mother – Mrs. Fowler. Her apartment was directly opposite mine. She grew parsley and basil in window boxes. Jazz and Dixieland slipped through her apartment door. Mrs. Fowler had disowned Freddie. Thrown him out of the house. Separated from her husband when Freddie was a child – so they said. Gossips claimed she had never been married. Mrs. Reilly thought Freddie became too hard to handle and his father just left. Dumped the whole problem in his wife’s lap.

Freddie would stand outside his mother’s apartment and bawl obscenities. Pelted her windows with rotten eggs one Halloween. Pried open mailboxes and stole Social Security checks. Broke into cars and slept in the back seats. Some tenants swore he took drugs. Claimed they smelled the sweet odor of pot in the elevator.

A minority of tenants started a petition to get his mother evicted. Others were more charitable. Said Freddie was morally deficient. Deprived of love. Something wrong with his genes. His mother had him committed to a mental institution a few times but he never stayed in long. He’s comb his hair before he went to court and the judge would rule him reasonably sane and release him. It got harder and harder to keep him in, his mother would explain, in confidential whispers, to any receptive ear. Mrs. Reilly said Freddie was the poster boy for revolving door justice. Outpatient clinics and chemical maintenance were recommended. Freddie just got worse.

It all came to a head the night Freddie charged onto the terrace brandishing a tire iron and broke every pane of glass in the windows and doors. Glass rained on the planters filled with begonias, the beach umbrellas, the tables and lounge chairs that made the terrace look like a fiesta in progress on a hot summer day.

Jones tried to talk some sense into Freddie. Freddie swung the tire iron at Jones; missed and hit my Japanese maple. Mrs. Jones came out of the Jones apartment carrying a can of hair spray. Her aim was accurate. Freddie’s face was as lacquered as Mrs. Jone’s teased hair-do and the wax flowers she kept in an urn. The police arrived and Freddie was hauled off to jail again. Mrs. Jones suffered an angina attack.

The tenants – except for Mrs. Blunt, top floor, who was hard of hearing, cranky from arthritis and wouldn’t open her door to anyone – chipped in, signed a get-well card and bought a huge bromeliad for Mrs. Jones. She was resting comfortable in the hospital when Jones had his heart attack.

We couldn’t blame his heart attack on Freddie but who could have foretold Mr. Taylor’s behavior? If the man hadn’t kept to himself so much. If he hadn’t resisted Mrs. Price’s offer of a home-cooked meal. It would have been convenient; Mrs. Price lived right across the hall and enjoyed Mahler and gladiolas. I heard Mrs. Price had been married three times and was looking for a fourth. Mr. Taylor probably heard that too.

Mr. Taylor had been battling with one of the new tenants. I never learned the young man’s name. He took over Mrs. Reilly’s apartment when she retired to Cork carting along a box of John McCormack albums. Tall, skinny, shy, the boy was extremely polite. Said "Hello" the few times we met. Once I saw him carrying a large cactus. Couldn’t have been over twenty-three and looked about eighteen. He liked the new music. Heavy metal, rap, hip-hop – he liked his music loud. Kids go for the latest craze. In my day, we were a little calmer.

The new tenant didn’t have any carpeting. It’s in the lease – every apartment is supposed to be carpeted but I guess he couldn’t afford it. The noise from his player traveled straight down through his floor and Mr. Taylor’s ceiling. The constant beat must have driven Mr. Taylor crazy. Notes were passed under doors; calls made to the landlord. Then they met in the lobby; must have been about two weeks after Freddie went berserk. Mr. Taylor began yelling at the boy and the boy yelled back. Mr. Taylor pulled a gun. Hard to believe. The new tenant wound up in the morgue, Mr. Taylor in jail and Jones in the same hospital as his wife. Two heart attacks in one family. I’m glad to say they both regained their health. We lost a good super. Jones said he’s had enough of big city living.

Mr. Taylor was evicted; sentenced to a year in jail. He’s out now. Guess they figured a man his age wouldn’t do it again. He lives somewhere in the neighborhood. Caught a glimpse of him in the library. Wouldn’t meet my eyes, buried his head in a book. The landlord gets three times the rent for the apartment. Two sisters share. Elderly. Sigmund Romberg, aspidistra and philodendron. Spend hours staring out their window. There’s an airline stewardess in the murdered boy’s apartment. She’s rarely home. The mailboxes haven’t been pried open in a while so Freddie is still locked up. Emile died two years ago and his wife joined him less than a month later. Missed the bickering, I bet.

"Hello lady." The workman stops beneath my window. He has a thick, well-brushed mustache and a fine smile.

"Permit me to introduce myself," he says. "My name is Garcia. Mike Garcia. The new super. You like tomatoes? Peppers? Soon we’re gonna have a garden like you’ve never seen."

He wipes his forehead with a large red and white handkerchief then lifts one of the sacks. The print on the label reads "Top soil." Top soil. Not cement.

"You mind if I play a little music while I work?"

I nod my head. Pleased that the garden is saved.

The air vibrates with a combination of jazz, blues and rock.

"My music," Mr. Garcia says. "Salsa."