Sinful Pleasures of Dirty Street

Christmas holidays always bring out the best of us, our instincts of charity, kindness, compassion and forgiveness are all boosted to extraordinary levels, overflowing our hearts to the brink of sinful gluttony.

The snow blankets everything, as it quietly piles into a soft cushion of cold, it's purity is unassuming and impeccably simplistic for angel molds. The decorations on our homes in the neighbourhood are plentiful, competitively bursting with grand aluminum evergreens full of blinking bulbs and mechanical reindeers with swinging heads. We stand in the center of the cul-de-sac, pivoting like the reindeers, pointing at each other's crafty panoply, which are always the same year after year.

Ana stands in the street for a long time. It's a bit unnerving, leading us to speculate she's spying again, which she is prone to do. But she's not very good at it, we can usually see her head pop out from the side of her house, or see her from the top window, blinds rolled up, window wide open to the dead of night. Not only does she watch us all, she wants to hear us all, too. Sometimes Daniel and I would have long conversations of fabricated stories, how our drug dealer is arriving soon, where do we bury the body, or discuss plans to erect an eight foot fence around the property, all in chain link and barbed wire.

Most people find Daniel more approachable than me, which I can understand because he truly is a nice guy. He doesn't like to make waves and would prefer quick, courteous solutions. His mindset is of communication that gently rolls in and out from sea, infuriating Ana more, since she assumes Daniel is a weak tide, dead stopped at the beach. I am not that nice westerly wind and when it pertains to this nutcase bitch next door, I am hurricane of furry.

Before the snows came, Fall had slumbered the trees along the creek, turning maple leaves into brown hands waving in the wind, until they fell off their arms and spiraled to the ground, covering the grass and street.

This irked Ana. She hated the messy aftermath of Fall, the stench of hibernation and the fun activities the children found while they paraded in the mounds of crackling leaves. She often screamed at them to move away from her property, pick up the leaves, or go to your backyards.

But the kids have become accustomed to Ana's outbursts and began to ignore her as well, since on several occasions her abruptness resulted in visits from the Surrey R.C.M.P., phone calls made by irate parents fed up with her harrassment. Pestering adults is one thing, but intimidating children is a whole different matter, and Ana treated the children as if they were deaf and aged.

One evening when Daniel came home from work, a particularly arduous day, he plopped out fo the van and began walking towards the front door, but was unexpectedly detained by Ana and her high pitched Romanian accent, "Daniel, who put this dirt on my driveway? Daniel, why you do this?"

Daniel could ignore her most of the time, but not when he's tired and just home from work, and certainly not when he sees the dirt she is grumbling about is only a few crumbs. I was proud of Daniel as he flew into a rant of expletives, how preposterous to think the neighbourhood is responsible for monitoring her precious space, then accountable for it, too. If she thought a grain of dirt was a big mess, she was in store for a healthy bout of reprisal.

That night, Daniel and I raked up all the fallen leaves, shoveled dirt and brought out the hose, and we littered the entire cul-de-sac with a mixture of debris, making for one huge mud pie. We made quite a ruckus at our task at hand, breaking into devious giggles, enjoying ourselves immensely as Ana rolled up the blinds. It felt good to be sinners.

The next day when we awoke, we waited for the fallout. The street was besmirched and damned, smelling like menstrual blood, stained and muddy, more than I remembered it under the cover of dark, under the blackness of Dracula's cape.

We heard their garage door open, then their car sped away, churning up leaves in it's wake, stirring the mess all up again. And that was all we heard for several days.

On the third day, while Daniel and I watched television with the kids, the sun was slipping behind the horizon casting an orange reflection clouds, there was a knock at the door. It was Ana and her husband, bearing gifts. She wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas and handed us a card and a bottle of homemade wine. Then she hugged me. As they walked away, my facial expression still frozen in forced smile and shame, Daniel and I pondered what was happening, was she surrendering, forgiving?

While sunset almost completed, releasing the last shimmering light into the street, Daniel and I raked up the mess, hosed down the dirt and returned the cul-de-sac to it's pristine state. We drank her wine that night, and then we forgave her for all her evil shortcomings, because somehow, free booze made us feel that way.


SPECIAL NOTE: This was Christmas 2003. Not much has changed since. Our neighbour is still a nutcase, still hates a messy street, and still harrasses both adults and children alike. The only difference is that we no longer answer the door when she comes a'knockin'.