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My Neighbor

 The neighbor who swims with pigs? He has a new story.


"I stopped by a Caribbean snack shack and ingested a parasite. So, last weekend, I'm back home, and I'm just puking my brains out. I'm arranging a trip to urgent care--and my husband gets out of the shower. He's white as a sheet. He has pain in his upper arm.

"Flash forward. I'm at urgent care; my husband calls. He says, I just coded. I'm going in for surgery. Yes, coded. His heart stopped. And he's on the phone with me! Well--you can imagine--when the nurses put me in a 'private room,' I lost my shit. They never use the private room when they want to share *good* news.

"Forty-eight hours later, my husband is sort of rehabilitated. The doctors release him. My birthday weekend is next weekend. I'm thinking about Atlantic City...."

It's possible that I've never--in my life--given a speech that is half as long as my neighbor's casual commentary by our shared fence. I'm obsessed with the details--the pale skin, the private waiting room, the Caribbean snack shack. And I just like the philosophy underneath my neighbor's stories. There is no learning--there are no moments of "collateral beauty." Life is just one damn thing after another.

In so many ways, this person is my opposite--and yet there is something "simpatico" by the fence.

I have nothing to share--and certainly my neighbor doesn't ask for any kind of reciprocal story. The drama reaches its conclusion--and then, like the Tazmanian devil, my neighbor is spinning, spinning back toward his house. I look forward to next time.
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