Heartland

Tonight while contemplating the neighbors' blindingly reflective multi-colored gazing balls, positioned carefully on their otherwise flat treeless lawn, I was struck again by the inevitability of human extinction.

My neighbors, true midwesterners, believe that "cleanliness is next to godliness", and have reported me, once again, to the "Housing Enforcement Specialists", those brave city employees who uphold decency, morality and high resale value in our neighborhoods through the enforcement of trimming, raking, hauling, removing, making uniform and (of course) spraying with chemicals. The brush pile has got to go. No "stuff" allowed. I must scrape, paint, haul, remove, make uniform. In 30 days.

We in the heartland are perpetually an inch away from hysteria, I think. The neighbors saw logs, resting up for another day of mad surveillance. On a typical day on my street, the schizophrenic woman who lives on the corner and arranges rocks in the shape of peace signs along her cluttered yard is yelled at by the fastidious gay man who lives across from her. She then blocks his driveway with her truck. The retired republican widow wants all the trees in the world cut down. The sexual molester next door paints his fucking tree trunks white and dreams of boobies! boobies! boobies! The Buddhist wannabee across the way skulks around in blissful walking meditation, quietly demanding community spirit from us all. The teacher on the corner petitions to keep students out of the neighborhood. No rental property! No hooligans! No "others"! The hyperventilation of sameness. Ha. Try to create heaven and you will get hell. From my little piece of paradise, I say come on in! Laugh and have fun. Make some noise! Burn some couches, for christssake!

In the night raccoons rummage in overturned garbage cans. I hear an animal pad gently across the roof above me. The phone rings at 3am, a blocked number. I listen to the drip drip drip of water leaking from the ceiling in the back room, rhythmically hitting the concrete floor on this unseasonably warm February night.