I had given the whole matter considerable thought and had come to the conclusion that I hated my neighbor. It wasn’t personal, I just hated him in a … neighborly sort of way. He hadn’t done anything to me directly, and I don’t think I’d done anything to him. I suspect he hated me too, and probably for the same reasons.

I spent a fair amount of time wondering about him. Not an inordinate amount of time, mind you, but an amount of time that, I think, is commensurate with being neighborly. I ran into him — or rather, shunted him, in neighborly fashion — a couple of times, on the staircase that we share. We exchanged a hggmph or two — the kind of non-greeting greeting that guys utter. I’d lived in my new place for almost 18 months by then. He was getting divorced when I moved in. I knew that because I had met his wife (on the staircase). We talked briefly. She seemed like a nice enough person. My guess is she left him. She looked happy, drenched in sweat as she was, hauling her boxed-up shit downstairs, humming to herself between breaths.

The guy next door spent an incredible amount of time on his car. He parked at the end of the row from me. I could see him and his car from my window. He was constantly tinkering. Look at him, I thought, he rotated those tires just last week and now he’s at it again! Or maybe he was doing something with the breaks. His obsession with the tires was nothing compared to what he had going on under the hood. He spent a lot of time there. I tried not to stare conspicuously.

When I first moved in (and his wife was moving out), he would sometimes play his music loud. Of course (it’s always like this, isn’t it?) you can’t actually hear the music when the neighbors crank it up. Mostly you get just the bass — thump, th-thump, thump, th-thump. Still, it was enough for me to tell that he had bad taste in music, no doubt about it. And then, some time later, through the bass came the lyrics: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE! I DON’T WANNA SEE YOUR FUCKIN’ FACE IN MY HOUSE AGAIN! GET THE FUCK OUT!!

Had his wife returned? I’m sure I would have noticed. Turns out it wasn’t his wife (ex-wife), but rather his new ex-girlfriend. (How could I have missed the move-in?) I felt somewhat vindicated because, as I said, his wife (ex-wife) seemed like an okay person. Having broken another relationship, my neighbor once again turned to fixing his car.

I decided to buy myself a new front door. I’d had a front door already, of course. It was white and made of wood. I wanted something in a nice shade of metal.

One day the neighbor’s car was gone. It never returned. Next door was quiet. Before long, a new neighbor moved in. She has a boyfriend who lives elsewhere. She’s quite nice, and hardly ever home.