Neighbors Can Be the Strangers Next Door

When we strayed near her yard collecting horse chestnuts on an autumn afternoon long ago, our neighbor, who was the spinster daughter of Walt Whitman's personal secretary, emerged to say, "Stick to your own bailiwick." Those days, in the middle of the century just past, are what people pine for when they rue the unraveling social fabric. But even then, it could be hard to know how best to be a neighbor.

The best thing I could say about our new neighbors was that they were quiet.

Despite their car parked on an overgrown lawn and the squirrels that swarmed the trash on their deck, if I didn't look out my kitchen window, I wouldn't even know they were there. Two 20-something girls, a little boy -- about 2 years old -- and a young man. It was unclear if he was a boyfriend, the boy's father or just a friend to help pay the rent. He didn't seem to be there all the time.

But I did look out my window. I monitored the growing pile of garbage on the deck wondering if I should call someone from the city. When I went to bed, moving around the house turning off the lights, I stole glances through their uncurtained Florida room door as they sat smoking and talking late into the night. My family and I discussed them as if we were watching a new house being built, noting the little changes when a frame is complete or siding goes on.

After the garbage vigil, in which we waited and watched to see how many collection days would go by before they carried the trash to the sidewalk, our neighbors became too pathetic to criticize. What would they do if I went over with a box of Hefty bags and asked if I could help them?

It was through my kitchen window that I saw the sheriff walking around their yard one morning. My husband was standing in the driveway. The officer asked when they'd last been seen. A few days ago, we realized. We learned they hadn't paid the rent in months and had simply taken what they could carry and run away.

Later that day, everything in our neighbors' house was carried out to the sidewalk: couches, a baby swing, clothes, books, lamps, an old console television. I asked my husband if he thought the city intentionally scheduled evictions the day before trash pickup. I wondered at the ability of a single truck to take it all away. But by 11 the next morning, the pile was gone.

I can count on one hand the number of encounters I had with these people who lived next door for about a year: a wave to the blond girl from my driveway, unreturned smiles to the skinny brown-haired one and the little boy as we waited in line at the ice cream truck. (My husband learned from the sheriff that the girls were sisters.) And, once, a knock on the door from the young man. He came to ask permission to retrieve a beach ball that had gone into our yard. At first I didn't recognize who was at the door. Sure, I said, of course. Happy to have made contact at last, I went out on the porch to expand this new connection. The young man, with his soft black curls and dark eyes, gave me a shy look over his shoulder.

I tell myself my neighbors didn't want my waves, my smiles, my Hefty bags, my help. I tell myself if someone is drowning and calls out for help, you save them. But what if they jump in of their own accord with rocks in their pockets? Do you try to save them anyway or just let them slip under quietly?

-- Andrea Jarrell, Rockville