Living With the Animals
by David Slay
We had moved from a small, dank apartment in the Pacific Northwest to a rather charming Spanish-style stucco in sunny Southern California. It was the early seventies, I had completed my student teaching and had landed a position teaching high school English in a working-class suburb of Los Angeles. Although it had only one bedroom, the dwelling was built over four single garages and the living areas were spacious and airy. It had original black and lavender tile in the bathroom, lovingly refinished hardwood floors, and even a small but nice dining room separate from the kitchen. But best of all, the place sat alone at the back of deep lot, secluded from the street by a huge, overgrown pepper tree.
As our first year there progressed toward summer, however, we discovered we hadn’t quite escaped the tribulations of apartment living. An ugly two-story version sat crowding the lot next to us. The building was narrow and deep such that all the units faced our bucolic setting, with its inviting yard, flowers, and the huge, weeping shade tree. Former owners of our place had planted a hedge of red geraniums and lavender marguerites between our yard and the apartment building walkway, but it provided scant protection.
So it was with growing indignation that we watched from our upstairs windows as the apartment dwellers, mostly young layabouts who all seemed to know each other, blithely incorporated our front yard into their leisure-time activities. They would spread out beach towels and loll around drinking beer in our yard during sunny afternoons. On weekends they’d wash their cars on our grass using our water and garden hose. They thought nothing of driving over the sidewalk and up their walkway to unload groceries and cases of beer. Their clunkers left oil stains on the sidewalk.
Just as we were getting completely fed up with the interlopers, one of them bounded up the stairs and banged on our door. It was a warm afternoon and he presented himself shirtless, in frayed and dirty corduroy cut-offs, and still had on dusty orange work boots.
“Hey man, the name’s Eddie,” he said. “I live down there.” He jerked his head toward a lower apartment next door and stuck out a dirty, calloused hand.
“Yeah,” I said, “seen you ‘round. What’s up?” His hand felt like a leather gardener’s glove. He was somewhat younger than I—in his late twenties—
18