Won't You Be Mine?
A Story of Neighbors
Chris Friesen
October 1, 2001
The first one I can remember is Grandma Russell. She lived in the little house around the corner with Mister Russell. I was always wary of him, with his cane, faded shirt and suspenders, hooked nose, and piercing glance. Now, I think that look must have been a lifetime's bitterness, but in my childhood world he was just one more dangerous thing.
Grandma Russell, however, was not at all dangerous. The only threat she offered was an unwelcome hug and kiss for a young visitor. She wore the same kind of flowery old-lady dresses that my real grandma wore, with sleeves that exposed the fascinating flesh hanging from the backs of her elderly arms.
When our family went to the Russells' for supper, the food was strange, the kitchen sights and smells unfamiliar. Once, while we were eating, Mister Russell fell over backward in his chair and split his scalp open, leaving a big splotch of blood on the floor. He refused to let my dad take him to the hospital.
These people weren't our relatives. They were our neighbors. My parents seemed to appreciate them, but I didn't know what to think.
"Love your neighbor," says the law. Love my neighbors? I have enough trouble even liking them, enough trouble keeping them at a good arm's-length distance where they can be liked, over there on their side of the fence.
As I type this, the room smells of cigarette smoke, which is seeping its way through the T-shirt stretched over the heating grate in the wall behind me. The neighbors upstairs. All the heat for our basement apartment comes through this one grate, its rate of flow controlled by the thermostat on the main floor. We have a simple choice: wheeze or freeze. Usually we end up somewhere in the middle, settling for a mildly chilly apartment with a ...
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