was a time when I could have turned to my neighbours for support. But the old ones are in Florida or mildewing in some hole of a nursing home. The few remaining are caving in to the relentless ring of the developers. The new ones have a tendency to scuttle through their front doors the second they see me. Their expressions suggest Mrs. Sybil Sharpe has put out the word I’m some elderly female version of the Antichrist, accessorized with the Baskerville hound.
I have tried in vain to pinpoint the moment when everything changed. All I know is the neighbourhood is going fast. Post-war bungalows and fifties-style duplexes have been flattened by spreading brick homes, gangling town houses and something called lofts. Where children played jump rope and street hockey, now huge, lumpish vehicles cut off the view. Instead of laughter across fences, now I hear the swish of leather cases and the beeping of small phones.
Gentrification, they call it. Real estate agents ogle our remaining properties with dollar signs in their eyes.
I can take that. It’s only Mrs. Sybil Sharpe who pushes things beyond endurance. She has the light of battle in her eye tonight as she rages on about the spread of weeds, as she calls them, from my garden. It was naughty of me to plant mint so close to the boundary of our property, but I have derived a certain amount of pleasure watching it sneak onto her manicured Kentucky blue. I enjoy the resulting puce mottling on her neck when she spots the latest clump.
The woman from the developer sports a pair of python boots. How fitting. She feigns sympathy for the plight of the elderly abandoned in the increasingly dangerous and hostile urban jungle. That would be me. Her hooded eyes give her away. Doesn’t fool me. I know whose prey I am.
She would like to help, she says. To take me away from this. Set me up with enough cash to fund a retirement residence. She has brochures conveniently on hand. No worries. Round the clock attention. Nurses. Communal dining. Bingo. Naturally, a suitable family could be found for Silent Sam. I am fascinated by the way her tongue flicks in and out as she spins her tale. She makes coy references to the amount I could be offered for my small war-torn property. I am expected to feel lucky.
“What led you to me?” I ask, all innocence.
“It’s a booming market. We keep our eyes open.”
“There’s an excellent property next door,” I point to the pristine expanse of Mrs. Sybil Sharpe’s house. “A fine view of the river from the upper stories. I would think your buyer would find that of interest.”
The heavy lids close and open again. What does that mean? Could the so-called developer be none other than my enemy next door?
“I’m more interested in yours.”
“What company did you say this was again?”
“It’s a numbered company. I am not at liberty to say.”
“Really?”
“It’s not significant. Guess what they choose to offer,” she hisses.
“An apple?”
Certainly the randomness of my garden outrages Mrs. Sybil Sharpe. But logic tells me it is the house that causes her eyes to bulge out so dramatically. She’s not one to appreciate the sexy curl of the roof tiles, the holes in the screens that beckon to adventurous bats and the lovely weathered grey shingles under the peeled paint. I will not be able to afford to paint properly for two years. There may not be any shingles left by then. They seem to have more health problems than I do.
If only I’d spent my working life like a sensible person instead of hopping overseas for a year or two whenever my savings built up to the price of a ticket. A sensible person would have a full teacher’s pension. And wouldn’t have to choose now between a cluster of new climbing roses and paint for the house. It wouldn’t come down to repairs to the roof or a pond on the east side. A new lock for the back door or a new dog at my side. But then if I’d been sensible, I wouldn’t have been me. Now I’m hoping I can continue to be me just a little bit longer.
I keep checking the price of paint at Decker’s. There are other regulars there, including dangerous looking young men who hang out in front of the Krylon display.
I am standing in the garden considering whether to take advantage of fine bargains on leftover custom-mixed paint at Decker’s. No two colours are even remotely alike. Some you would think couldn’t possibly belong to the same spectrum. I like that. I think the entire effect would be rather like Joseph’s coat.
I have half convinced myself that climbing my old wooden ladder could be classed as a flexibility work, and a heavy enough paintbrush would be an improvement on my prescribed routine with handheld weights.
I can’t do it, of course, because the exuberant colours would overwhelm the subtle shades of the hosta and astilbe on the east side and provide unfair competition to the purple coneflower and hollyhock on the west.
Of course, she’s nice enough when she wants something. You would think I was her favourite aunt at the community meeting she organized to combat graffiti. She hit the combat trail at the first swish from a spray can. Tolerance of graffiti is the sign of a community in decline, she says, and she will wipe it out if it kills somebody. I wouldn’t want to be one of the junior expressionists if she comes upon him. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe takes no prisoners.
A young police officer has been assigned to explain the phenomenon of graffiti to us. We learn a lot from the meeting. Graffiti is not meaningless. It consists of territorial messages and threats of bodily harm. We learn that it flourishes where young people are outlyers, lacking positive outlets for their time. I immediately think of street hockey.
He tells us some of the city’s graffiti artists are just creative kids in competition with each other. I hear a sharp snort from you-know-who on this. But as a former art teacher, I would grade some of the samples he shows us quite highly. We learn a lot about “tags”, which are signatures, and “bomb”, which means to cover an area with your work, and “burn”, which means to beat the competition with your style. The teacher in me is impressed with many of the designs.
Mrs. Sybil Sharpe clearly has the young officer in a panic. He loosens his collar and explains for the third time why we can’t call 911 every time we see a swirl on a mailbox. He keeps trying to edge away. I could tell him it’s not easy to do.
Mrs. Sybil Sharpe intends to petition our Member of Parliament to have it dealt with seriously. The police officer clears his throat and explains that vandalism is already well covered in the Criminal Code. If I were a legislator, I would start looking over my shoulder.
I have nothing to lose, really, so I put up my hand. “Does a bit of graffiti really matter? Can’t we just paint over it and get on with life?”
Mrs. Sybil Sharpe shoots out of her seat. Her face is the colour of my clematis. While purple is attractive in a flowering vine, it can’t be healthy in a human. “Does it matter? It is the slippery slope to the teeming, drug-infested slums. It is nothing less than the rape of our neighbourhood. I, myself, feel violated by every instance of it. We have our investments to consider. The next thing you know we will be surrounded by hovels.” The look she gives me tells the world who the subject of the next community public meeting will probably be.
“Oh, well then,” I say.
What next? I should have been expecting the property standards by-law enforcement officer. I had not realized that broken windows were within their purview. Of course, I hadn’t realized I had a broken window. But there it was.
