Good night Ron Jeremy

When I was about seven years old, my mother said, “Don’t get too close to the neighbors.” I looked at her like she was swiss cheese, because she was the one who dropped me off at Sunday school where I heard the exact opposite. It was the pasty white bald dude with the white tight starched collar that said to us with persuasive passion, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Was I to believe the woman who birthed me or this guy who seemed like he pretty much knew what he was talking about?

Actually, there are not too many words of wisdom I remember my mother teaching me, but “Don’t get too close to the neighbors” hung around in my brain bank, as money I didn’t want to spend, and I had a nagging feeling at some point I would wish I had made a withdrawal.

***

A fish should not be out of water, and people should need people. Barbara Streisand sang about it so it must be true. When I moved three states away from my roots, I thought, “So what that I don’t know a soul. If I want some friends, I’ll go pick some up at Wal-Mart.” It’s that easy, right? Maybe some people find what they need in isle nine, I found a lot of disinterested, “too busy to make new friends” personages and not just at Wal-Mart. Walking my dog around the neighborhood I was beginning to think he and I were the last life left on the planet. Newly retired, I refused to feel like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, except for the fact that most of what I had planned to do with my time began and ended with the word BEACH. What I neglect to mention is, I am married, and he’s retired too, so I am not alone, but I’m married to a guy that is more into the rectangular box that answers to a remote control then the woman that calls him for dinner. We are not the grey haired couple you see in the AARP commercial walking on the beach holding hands if you catch my drift.

My dog, not my alarm clock kept me on schedule. Before coffee I do not approve of long walks, much to my dog’s chagrin. On a Saturday morning, early June, the weather was a Farmer’s Almanac 10, causing my dog to get his frisky on, and I in my pajama pants, made an exception, venturing off my block caffeine free. And then I saw them coming towards me, the aurora borealis, with a cute little Bichon that spotted us first. Our dogs were initially responsible for the meet and greet, doing their leg lifts and sniffs like we humans say how do you do. Not embarrassed at all that I was meeting this couple in my pajama pants, we started talking and I did believe I couldn’t have selected better had I clicked all the boxes on FRIENDMATCH. They dropped down from somewhere, and landed one block over, mine for the taking.

We said our goodbyes, but not before I decided to invite them over for happy hour. Walking back to the house, I was so excited to share the news with my husband, when I entered the kitchen, I forgot to pop in my pod. “Do we have to, he said? It’s Survivor night.”

“Yeah. We have to,” I said. “I already invited them. And don’t worry, they already said they like to go to bed early, like us, so they’ll be long gone before somebody gets voted off at tribal council. Our similarities are uncanny. Don’t forget their names. Sal and Marie. It will be fun. I promise.”

And it was. After a couple of happy hours, our place and theirs, a dinner out and a foursie trip to the beach, I felt happy as a clam, especially since this budding friendship had taken my potato off the couch. What could go wrong? Even the pups were in love.

They had invited us over to their house for dinner. Turns out Sal’s father was an extra virgin imported Italiano, that had perfected tomatoe sauce and NY pizza, teaching none other than his first born son, our new bestie, to cook. Better yet, he made his own wine, from concentrated grapes imported from Italy. The gift just kept on giving.

Over appetizers, we chatted, and just like in my house 24/7, not by my design, the TV was on in the background. It would not have alarmed me if the food channel was on, but it wasn’t. FOX News. It suddenly occured to me I had forgotten to ask them if they were on the Blue or the Red team. Truly I am not a hard core leftists, I’m a moderate and I have relatives that are conservatives and independents. We all get along. But there is one thing I’m really turned off by. The lock her up chanters sporting the make America great again hats. Brother please. As a born and raised New Yorker, I know a con when I see one. A FOX News watcher doesn’t necessarily fall into that category, so I was curious about the politics of the man who was serving up New York Pizza with anchovies, paired with his homemade vintage. And then the bomb was dropped. A half a slice in, Sal glances up at the TV and vomits, “Hillary should be in prison and Obama is a thief.” I’m crushed. “Don’t tell me this honeymoon is over,” I’m thinking. Nah! His pizza reminds me of home and the wine is divine, so I reply, “You’re kidding me right?” He says, “NO”! “I am deadly serious.” And he repeats his drivel with pizza hanging off his fangs, and I could visualize him sitting in his car at a red light pumping a fist to Rush Limbaugh.

What do I do? I simply reply, “You know what Sal? Let’s make a deal. We are to never again mention anything about politics.” He looked at me sideways and I was wondering if he had falsely assumed that my husband and I were squarely on the Red team. I got over my disappointment and shock quickly and resumed eating the best pizza I had eaten since I left NY. Sometimes me myself and I can skip over principle for substinance without blink. And it was then that the subject matter took a darker turn, when he began talking about a salt spa place that they frequent in West Virginia. We listened intently as it sounded alluring when Sal blurted, “We bang in there.” “Come again,” I said, almost choking on the mozzerella, and I swear there was no pun intended. I’m polite, and perhaps I heard wrong. I did not. He took my “come again” out of context and used it as a ticket to ride, graphically describing their sexual escapades within the salt bath. I was so shocked the only thing I could think of to say was, “Do they clean it well after you leave?” And he says, “oh yeah,” all jizzie like in ohhhh yeah baby. I believe he assumed by my comment that I was interested and ready to jump in the pool with him. I most definitely was not. And then he says it. “We swing. Do you?” And I knew instantly he did not mean as in gymboree. My husband heard him, and did a big ole fake yawn, bless his heart. He was done eating pizza and we were both done with the conversation and with our soon to be former new besties. Good night Ron Jeremy.

So the words of my mother were resurrected long after her passing, ergo I couldn’t tell her that she in fact was right and that scripture can be flawed. Or perhaps she and the pastor were both right. Wasn’t she in her own way just trying to warn me about the pitfalls of knowing too much about what goes on behind the blinds next door or at the very least, to proceed with caution? Perhaps she had dealt with her own Ron Jeremy in the neighborhood. Going forward, can I bare (no pun intended) to walk past Sal and Marie, even while dressed in non nighty attire? Had I heeded my mother’s words, on that first meet and greet, I would have said how do you do and then kept on walking, but definitely not before letting my dog investigate their dog’s junk.

As far as my neighbors, I’ve decided to love them all. From afar. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve accepted, just like making NY pizza and friends, nothing good in life comes easy.