San Diego Noir

by Maryelizabeth Hart

  Again, I am not an animal hater. I neither own nor eat animals, which, I think, actually makes me an animal lover of sorts. But I cannot stand a yipping, yapping dog. Two yipping, yapping dogs constitute sheer torture. So when our next door neighbor, Vida, brought home those wretched little toy dogs last June, Sheila and I knew there were going to be issues. Well, I knew there were going to be issues—it didn’t bother Sheila until later. They were miniature terriers of some kind, or perhaps a mix. Yes, definitely a mix and not a good one. The few glimpses I caught of them (they were confined almost exclusively to the house; I have no idea when Vida walked them because I never saw it) weren’t particularly pleasing—grayish, brownish, not very clean. But the problem wasn’t their appearance, it was the nearly incessant barking that started the very minute she brought those animals into her home.

  Now, you’d think such small dogs would be impossible to hear, especially downtown where we live. You see, all of downtown is pretty much directly in the flight path of planes coming in and out of Lindbergh Field. One can practically see the passengers inside them (who are doubtless horrified to be hovering so close to the ground) as they make their descent into America’s Finest City. There has been endless discussion about moving the airport to a more “suitable” location (although Tijuana was suggested as well, which, although less than twenty miles from here, is anything but suitable), but nothing has come of it. Who is going to approve putting an airport in their backyard? So here we are, occupying some of the priciest real estate in the country (recession be damned!) and watching the dirty undersides of 747s as they roar above our heads.

  When we first moved in, Sheila and I used to live in fear that one of them would accidentally dump that royal blue toilet ice in our backyard on the way in—and that was not a totally unfounded fear. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. In California. But we got over that (mostly) and also managed somehow to integrate the sound into our lives. When an airplane went over our heads we just spoke a little louder without even noticing it. This is why we did hear the dogs. Also, at a certain point, the planes stopped flying for the night. The dogs were ceaseless.

  “I think I should go talk to her,” I told Sheila one night over dinner.

  Sheila picked at her asparagus and gave me an impatient look. Her hair was tied back with a yellow ribbon and she seemed tired. “Talk to who? About what?”

  “Vida.” I gestured toward the other condo. “About those dogs.”

  “Are you sure her name is Vida?”

  “What’s that got to do with it, Sheila?”

  “I just don’t remember her introducing herself as Vida. I think you might have made that name up.” I didn’t dignify the comment with a response. She sighed. “Anyway, what about the dogs?”

  “They bark all the time. It doesn’t bother you?”

  Sheila shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Well, I haven’t been able to sleep at night.”

  “I don’t think your insomnia is caused by the dogs,” Sheila said.

  “Well, I’m going to talk to her.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  Sheila hated making waves of any kind, which was admirable on one level, but also, frankly, sometimes a little annoying. I understood that she didn’t want any kind of ugly scene with our neighbor, but I had to say something. The dogs were driving me mad. And I would have—I had even planned which words to use—if not for the fact that on the very afternoon I had chosen to go next door, Vida brought home a human guest and, well, I just couldn’t.

  I was at my kitchen window when I saw them pull up in front of our condos. Residents are not allowed to park here. Because of space constraints and the desire to maintain property values, we are all assigned single parking spaces in a covered lot around the back of our buildings. So right away I knew she was up to something. Then I saw the blue “handicapped” tag hanging off her rearview mirror and was even more intrigued.

  Vida got out first. She was smiling and looked almost deranged with happiness. The flowery muumuu she was wearing only added to that slightly nutty look. I don’t know which sadistic designer first came up with the idea of the muumuu but he (for it really has to be a “he,” no self-respecting woman would ever design such a garment) deserves a special place in fashion hell. Vida is not a heavy woman, but the muumuu, festooned with bright, badly painted hibiscus flowers, made her look like she weighed three hundred pounds.

  She walked around to the passenger side of her car and, after a bit of effort which I couldn’t see because it was obscured by Vida’s sail of a dress, helped another woman out. The “new girl,” as I immediately began thinking of her, was small, blond, and very pretty. She was also an amputee—and a recent one by the look of it. Her left leg ended at the knee and was bandaged in what appeared to be a haphazard manner. The dressing didn’t look all that clean, either, and there were bloodstains at the bottom.

  New Girl put her arm around Vida’s shoulder and with much awkwardness they hopped and dragged their way up the drive-way to Vida’s condo. They had no crutches and no wheelchair. It was altogether most peculiar—as if they had both come directly from the scene of an accident. Needless to say, I couldn’t go over there at that moment and complain about the dogs. It would have been rude.

  We didn’t see either one of them for a few days after that, though they were clearly at home. The lights were on and there was plenty of noise. There were the dogs, of course, yapping and squealing as if their miserable doggy lives depended on it, but there were other sounds as well. I’d never heard music coming from Vida’s place before, but soon after New Girl’s arrival, we were treated to the sound of thrashing guitars on a daily basis. Apparently, New Girl was very fond of death metal and loved to listen to it near an open window. We also heard construction—hammering, drilling, and several suspicious crashes. It wasn’t until I saw Vida hauling canvases and easels up her driveway that I realized she—they—must have been building some kind of art studio in there.

  “What do you think they’re up to next door?” I asked Sheila one evening.

  “I suppose they’re just living like the rest of us,” Sheila answered. She was sitting under a thin blanket on the couch watching Law & Order, a show she’d recently become addicted to, and she didn’t even raise her eyes from the screen to talk to me.

  “There’s something going on over there,” I said.

  “Are you back on the dogs again?” she asked.

  “Well, I was never off the dogs. They haven’t stopped barking yet, have they? But no, that’s not what I meant, Sheila.”

  “I wish you’d lighten up.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

  “There are other things that you could better focus your attention on.” She pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. “Things even closer to home than our neighbors.”

  I wasn’t following her line of reasoning so I walked over to her to ask her to explain. But before I could do that I thought of something else. “You know the guest star did it, right?” I said, and pointed to the TV. “The more famous the guest star, the likelier it is that person committed the crime.”

  Sheila looked up at me for the first time. The TV light on her face made it appear as if she was angry. “Way to ruin it,” she said. “Thanks.”

  About a week later, I saw Vida and New Girl emerge from the house to take a walk. New Girl had crutches now, though they seemed kind of old and beaten up. Not the nice new crutches you’d expect a recent amputee to have been given. But maybe that was it—maybe she couldn’t afford new crutches. I had no idea what Vida did for a living. Neither she nor New Girl ever seemed to work. Then again, many people around here don’t seem to work and still find ways of making money. I couldn’t see if New Girl’s leg was still bandaged because she was wearing long shorts that came down below the knee. The two of them were laughing and carrying on as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Vida was wearing another one of those hideous muumuus—daffo
dils, it looked like—and flip-flops. New Girl was splattered with paint of many hues and wore a pink tennis shoe on her remaining foot. Her hair wasn’t blond anymore—she’d dyed it an awful burnt umber color—but she was still very pretty. Prettier, maybe, than the first time I’d seen her. I wanted to go out there then and say hello, introduce myself to New Girl, and inquire after the dogs in a civilized manner, but by the time I thought of the proper words to use they’d disappeared around the corner and the moment was lost. I regretted that missed opportunity soon afterward because the next interaction I had with our neighbors was very unpleasant indeed.

  We had come to the thick of July when the windows were open all the time and the air had turned quite warm and still. Sound carried even farther than usual. The nights were heavy and not always comfortable. Vida’s place was an assault to the senses—the smell of turpentine and some kind of smoke, the death metal, the inconvenience of her car which was now regularly parked in the driveway. But all of those things might have been forgivable if not for the dogs. The dogs were making me insane.

  One morning, so bleary from lack of sleep that I forgot to put a filter in the coffeemaker thus causing an overflow of wet grounds and undrinkable coffee, I finally reached my limit and marched next door without even thinking about what I would say when I got there. It was a very short walk, but I was in a sweat by the time I got there. I knocked once and heard the dogs go mad. Each yip felt like a knife driven through my skull. I waited a few seconds and then knocked harder. Pounded, actually.

  Finally, the door opened. I’d expected Vida wearing another one of her muumuus. I feel sure I would have handled the situation better if Vida had answered the door. But it was New Girl and, save for her crutches, she was completely naked. The shock of it was a bit much and for a moment I lost my manners and just stared at her. I made a few observations in that moment. For one, she was tattoo-free, which, I have to tell you, is quite a rarity these days. Second, she had new wooden crutches, topped with cute yellow terry cloth ducks where she rested them under her arms. And then, because I had to lower my gaze, I couldn’t help but see that her stump was smooth and looked like it had healed well.

  “What?” she said by way of greeting.

  I tried to remember if I’d heard her speak before and if I had, whether her voice had sounded this deep and harsh.

  “I’m your neighbor—”

  “I know who you are. What do you want?”

  “Those dogs,” I said, pointing in the general area of her hip, behind which the canines in question were racing back and forth, yipping as they went, “are keeping me awake.”

  For a moment New Girl looked nonplussed as if she had no idea what I was talking about. As if, in fact, she didn’t even know the dogs to which I was referring. But her expression changed again and she scowled. Really, the picture of rudeness. Just then a plane roared past overhead. American Airlines, I could tell by its silvery flash. I thought again about that rank blue ice and shuddered. New Girl followed its path with her eyes and then turned them back to me.

  “How can you possibly hear anything with that going on all the time?” she said.

  “That doesn’t happen all the time,” I told her. “The dogs never stop.”

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Her scowl had turned into a sneer.

  “What, someone who likes to sleep? Yes, I am. But I can’t sleep because those dogs bark all night. Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “You know,” she said, “you should mind your own business.” And then she slammed the door in my face. I’d never had that happen before and it startled me so badly that I stood there for a full minute before turning around and walking home.

  “I think maybe I should call the Humane Society,” I told Sheila that night. She was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of wine.

  “Why?”

  “I just don’t think it’s right for dogs to bark like that. Maybe they’re being mistreated.”

  Sheila sighed and took a long drink from the glass. I hadn’t told her about seeing New Girl naked, though I’d implied that she’d been rude to me.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Sheila said.

  “Can’t do what?”

  And that’s when she told me she was leaving.

  I tried to convince Sheila to stay but she’d already made up her mind by the time I pleaded my case. I blamed the dogs. The dogs had made me crazy and therefore impossible to live with. But Sheila just shook her head. “You really don’t get it, do you?” she asked me. It took her a few weeks to gather and pack her things. I let her take whatever she wanted in the end. Not that there was much. The funny thing about those weeks was that I hardly noticed the dogs barking. I’m sure they kept up as always, but for once I had more pressing things on my mind.

  I saw New Girl only once more in the flesh; in late August, the very hottest part of the summer. She was standing alone in the driveway looking up at Vida’s condo, her hands hanging down at her sides. She was wearing a shiny green bikini top and a very short black skirt. She was leaning on one crutch, its terry duck smashed into her armpit, and I could see both of her legs. She’d been fitted with a prosthesis, I noticed. From my kitchen-window perspective, it appeared quite lifelike. I couldn’t understand why she looked so sad.

  Sometime after that (days or weeks, I can’t remember now), they all left—Vida, New Girl, and the dogs. My ears were ringing from the silence. It was so bad I even went to the doctor, thinking I might have developed tinnitus. I wondered if they’d gone on vacation or if the move was permanent. I wondered how long the condo would stay empty before it could be considered abandoned. And I wondered why they’d taken the dogs. It just didn’t seem in character.

  I got a partial answer at least a few days later when I took my trash out to the dumpster in the alley I share with my neighbors. There, propped against the side, were New Girl’s wooden crutches, yellow ducks still attached. Next to those was a large canvas with a life-size portrait of New Girl—as nude as I had seen her and leaning on those very same crutches. The painting was surprisingly sophisticated and beautiful. The colors were bold and bright—blues, reds, and pinks—and contained a great deal of life and light. I was unprepared for how emotional it made me feel. I hadn’t liked New Girl at all, it was true, but it made me sad to see her abandoned this way.

  Without even thinking about it, I picked up the painting and carried it home. I left it near the front door at first, as if I was going to take it out again, but then after a few hours I brought it into the living room. The next day I hung it up next to the TV so that I could see it all the time, even when I was watching a show. I’m not sure and I’ll never know because there were no witnesses, but I think I may have, from time to time, conversed with it—with her—when I was feeling particularly lonely.

  Vida came back alone right after Labor Day, and for a few weeks that was how she stayed. But just last week she brought another girl home. This one looks like a thicker, coarser version of New Girl, but she’s also blond. And she’s also missing the bottom half of her left leg. I saw them getting out of the car—Vida in jeans and a sweatshirt proclaiming Hecho en Mexico (the summer of muumuus is over, I guess) and the new New Girl draped in one of those woven blankets you can get for ten bucks in Tijuana. I saw the crutches—the beaten-up ones—and the bandages and the awkward journey up the driveway. The girl said something to Vida as they got close to the door but her words were drowned in the howl of a passing airplane.

  Yes, I suppose all of us have trouble with our neighbors from time to time. And, yes, there is something very strange going on next door. But I am now convinced that New Girl was right—I should mind my own business.

  After all, the dogs are gone and Sheila is never coming back.

  INSTANT KARMA

  BY TAFFY CANNON

  Rancho Santa Fe

  So okay, it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. We’re all clear on that one. But what about a vulture?

  Laverne P
atterson probably doesn’t consider herself a bird of prey whose specialty is hanging around waiting for something to die before ripping into the carcass. And in fact the analogy is imperfect; there’s no creature in nature quite like this woman. At least I hope there isn’t.

  But it’s close enough. And time is short.

  A lot’s been written and sung about what it’s like to have nothing to lose, much of it poignant and evocative. Most of those authors and songwriters still had plenty to lose, however, hadn’t even come close to hitting that sweet spot yet.

  I have.

  Bull’s-eye.

  My name is Tina and I am going to die very shortly. I know, that’s a little too Twelve-Step cute for the announcement, but it happens to be true and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. As these things go, I’m fortunate that I’m not going the way some other people I knew already have. I’m still pretty lucid, retain control of my bodily functions, and have the bittersweet satisfaction of knowing that I did everything right and so did my medical team.

  It just happens that mine is one of those rare and relentless orphan diseases for which there isn’t yet the whisper of a cure.

  I am single, childless, and without siblings. My parents were killed in a plane crash while I was in college, leaving me a settlement that seemed sufficient to last a lifetime if I were careful, to allow me choices I might not otherwise have had. No need to conserve now, and not too many choices, either. I’m just glad I took some really cool trips in my early twenties, because I don’t have the energy for that kind of bucket list now, though I did buy a hot black Porsche after the diagnosis.

  I hated the endless unctuous sympathy when my parents died so I made an early decision not to share my diagnosis with coworkers, or with folks I thought of as friends who were actually acquaintances. My symptoms were never obvious and I telecommuted a lot anyway, so it was easy to hide all the medical appointments. I’ve gradually circled the wagons till there’s nobody inside but me and my cat, and I have arranged for her perpetual care when I go. Some charities will also be very happily surprised.