Brian_7_I

Let me start off by saying this, my dad is an urban terrorist.

This is a story I could reflect in class but may as well put it here since it ties into this chapter so well.

On page 159, Simmons talks about adversarial relationships describing another of us vs them sort of situations. One rang very true of a situation I've lived for a good part of my life: "or a neighbor who continues to let her dog poop in your yard...".

My old man is a salty ex-hippy, with 20+ years as a Cleveland Iron Worker...he's worked with the worst type of folks in the world. These are the sort of guys that'll smoke a crack-rock before holding the rope you're father is dangling from while he's welding iron in -10 degree weather at 300' in the air. These guys don't do stories, they do revenge and my dad was the master.

So back to the neighbor with the dog. When I was about 12 they built an extension on our street with homes costing 250k...making our original part of the road looks cheap @ 130k. Mostly young professional families with fast cars and no regard for the children that played in the regularly quiet road moved in. It spurred a you vs me mentality between a lot of us, basically bridged only by the willingness of each groups children to play together.

One of these new neighbors had two large dogs. Originally they'd bring them down to my house near the intersection and they'd shit in our few acres of side yard. Not a big deal except that this yard was basically a playground for the neighborhood children. So my old man makes the calm suggestion that the guy pick up his dogs crap. Being an ignorant young rich guy he basically told my dad to go chase cars. So my dad took to shooting golfballs at the guy while he walked his dogs. A rather good tactic until the guy started sending down his wife instead...in my dad's words...'she needed the exercise' and would gently remind her of that from time to time. She was a snarly old biatch so my mom didn't complain at his level of sexism.

Eventually he confronts them both by stopping his car in the road and not letting them pass. They get into an argument and he makes the point that all the kids play in that yard and he's a f-ass for letting the dogs shit there. Instead of being rational, the guy peels into our yard and passes my dad's truck. I assume he went home to beat his wife...steroid-heads like that always do.

That point forward they'd have the dogs shit in my parents front yard near our house when my dad would leave for work. I'd catch them sometimes and since I was a surly little shit they would also avoid me like the plague. Anyways, we'd come home to little landmines in our yard from time to time.

So I setup a hidden camera system, caught them in the act, and filed charges with the community organization. The family started getting heat from others and their visits were less frequent. My dad didn't quit. He found their property was split between a commercial and a residential zoning lot and made them jump through hoops to keep their house and costing them a ton of money in legal fees.

Finally in a final act of revenge, my dad organized a crew of neighborhood children (with me quietly leading much of the cause of course) to clean all the poop out of the side yard and leave it for the neighbors as a present. Their driveway was nearly impassable so when the wife got home for the day she pulls up to the driveway and gets out of her car screaming. All the kids as well as myself are hiding in the woods near the home chuckling to ourselves. Her husband, who had already driven through the pile staining the entire driveway, came out calm telling her to just drive through it. She continues screaming, he approaches, she slaps him telling him that this whole thing was his fault.

She moved out about a week later, him to follow the next spring.

Morel of the story, don't let your dog shit in the yard where the kids play or you're going to end up divorced and living in a motel.