Neighbors

Abstract

Neighbors Michael Downs (bio) “Quiet,” I whispered to the dog. Hackles up, she wanted to wreck our neighborhood’s mid-morning hush, to bark holy hell at the people—a dozen or so—who unholstered handguns and checked ammo clips in front of our house. An eerie sight, as unsettling here as it would be in your suburb, down your rural road, outside your condo. Where we live is East Coast, working class, city—but a neighborhood with grass and trees. Azaleas and mums, police helicopters and clogged street drains. Small and skinny houses, built in the 1920s of brick on narrow lots, once were homes for factory workers and tradesfolk. Those families knew that such a castle—even with a single closet-sized bathroom—improved on a tenement. Of those early families, some kids, now gray-haired, still live here. The rest of us are teachers and nurses, or we own small businesses; a few of us work warehouse jobs. On Sefton Avenue in Baltimore, our homes sit so close that we say good morning porch-to-porch, smell the bite of next door’s cigarette, hear that kid practicing clarinet though the windows are shut. Outdoors is public space, no matter who owns the grass underfoot. Rake or mow your yard, and [End Page 31] five or six neighbors will say hello to you or wave. Privacy, on Sefton, means you go indoors and draw the blinds.1 My wife commutes, but often I work from home—from the front porch in pleasant weather. It’s under a roof, with cushioned chairs and occasional tables, a footstool, and a decorative iron gate through which the dog spies on squirrels, cats, and other lowlifes. In the calm after the morning rush to jobs and school, I take black coffee and laptop outside, as I did that windless October day, about half past eight. It was quiet enough to hear a wren flap into the juniper bushes that front our house, to mark the rasp of a parking brake and my dog’s low, suspicious growl, which drew me up from my chair. Even the drivers and passengers of the three black, unmarked SUVs seemed to respect the neighborhood’s stillness. The men and one woman— jackbooted, in tight-fitting shirts and loose trousers—did not slam doors. They murmured as they fastened armored vests that labeled some as FEDERAL AGENT and others as nothing at all. When they reholstered, it looked as casual as putting car keys in a pants pocket. The dog wanted to warn the neighborhood. “Kaimin, shh,” I hissed. The dog is fierce, half Rhodesian ridgeback. Her ancestors hunted lions. She’s never given ground to another dog, no matter how much larger. Her name comes from the Salish, a traditional language spoken on the Montana Indian reservation where we adopted her before my wife and I moved east. People here often mispronounce her name, which rhymes with rhymin’. “Kaimin, inside.” I motioned her through the house’s front door. Though outnumbered and outgunned, the lion-hunter wanted the fight—but what did a dog know of firearms? Given the handguns, perhaps I should have followed Kaimin inside. See no evil. Hear no evil. But then, my breeding: more than a decade spent reporting for newspapers. So I didn’t think, just gave way to habit, and peeked over those juniper bushes my wife hated because they’d grown shaggy and shielded our pretty porch. [End Page 32] The gun-toting strangers gathered in threes and fours, chatting and chuckling. I hunched, hoping the bushes blocked any glimpse of me. What I saw chilled, gut deep. It wasn’t the weapons. Strangely, I didn’t fear anyone would shoot me. A misguided faith, I suppose, even for a middle-aged white man with no priors. No, what gave me pause was their ease, the body language not so different than that of my neighbors discussing steamed shrimp specials at the Bi-Rite. To these people, the morning’s drama was everyday as junk mail. To me, it was all mystery, with a mysterious aim. If anything seemed obvious, it was only that lives would soon change...