Some places are destined to never see any kind of stability in terms of long-term occupancy, in that no one entity remains at that location long-term.
Every few years, a new occupant; and it occurs in both residential and commercial properties.

In the realm of commercial properties, that trend is common in the fast food industry/Store Front Small businesses in that I can think of, at least, a dozen places that are now something they weren’t two or three years ago.

Today, they’re Aztec Tacos; whereas, for four to eight years prior to that, it was Chicagoland Hot Dog Stand, and two years from now, it’ll be a Batteries Plus or a Dana’s Donuts, or whoever wants to rent out the space after the current business either re-locates, or goes out of business — the latter case, of course, probably making up 80 percent, or more, of the causes for the changes in occupancies.

In the realm of residential, single-family dwellings, similar issues exist with the property being occupied by someone else every few years — in both rental units and owner-occupied structures, where I can think of several reasons why current tenants become former tenants , such as :

[ 1 ] in the realm of rental units, the soon-to-be-former tenants have saved up enough money to buy their own house; or

[ 2 ] both owners and renters can suffer financial setbacks ( such as a layoff or a drastic pay cut ) wherein they’re subsequently unable to afford to continue paying the same mortgage or rent payment and need to relocate to something less expensive; or

[ 3 ] both owners and renters find new joba that pay better but are too far to commute to on a daily basis, so they move much closer to to their new job for a more reasonable daily commuting distance; or

[ 4 ] In the event of a divorce, the owners sell the property and divvy up the proceeds according to the divorce decree; or….

[ 5 ] The tenant died; or….

Any number of reasons could account for why Occupant A moved out and Occupant B moved in.

But for the house to go through that change repeatedly ( and relatively often ) over the course of a few short years ( both as a rental unit and as an owner-occupied structure ) would seem to indicate that something else might be operating somewhere in the background in the dynamics of the frequent occupant-changing transactions — details that are unseen to the public’s unprivied eyes “on the outside looking in”; facts revealed only to the owners and occupants of the property .

One such frequently-changing house is located right next door to my house :

It is a house of emptiness; it is the house next door.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I-Different Dudes : Same Story
— A-Ryan Anderson ( Gamer, kinda ) Pre-Cancer
—— 1-Our First Encounter
—— 2-Reveals to Us That His Father Owned The House
—— 3-The Music Angle
——— a-The Recording Session in My Basement
——————–*-An Ugly Surprise
——— b-His “Hatred” For Altered and Open Tunings
——— c-His “Love” For the Blues …….& Why I Mention It
—— 4-His Relationship with his Dad
—— 5-The Good,…Ahem, “Bad” News
—— 6-“Gamer” : Why I Mentioned It
— B-Willie Vaughn : A Boy And His Dog & Their Three Returns( Gamer )
—— 1-Return #1 : First Contact
——— a-An addition to His “Family” : Luke, The Beagle
——— b-He Had No Furniture
——— c-Deja Vu : Reveals to Us That His Father Owned The House
——— d-The Change : An Arizona Funeral
——— e-For Sale : By Owner
——— f-Bon Voyage 1
——— g-Side Note : House Became A Rental Unit For Several Years
—— 2-Return #2 : He’s Baaack! And Why
——— a-Five to Seven Years
——— b-Taylor Gets Married And the Bride Evicts Willie
——— c-Willie’s Week at My House
——— d-Bon Voyage 2
—— 3-Return #3 : He’s Baaack! Again! And Why

II-Pests
— A-Kingdom of the Spiders
—— 1-You’re Never More Than Six Feet From A Spider
— B-The Victims
—— 1-Ryan’s Room Mate.
—— 2-Willie, Himself

III-Conclusion

I-Different Dudes : Same Story

The two sub-headings for this section have been appended with the remarks “Pre-cancer” and “post-cancer”, simply to highlight the period of time in my life that I encountered these two individuals.

When Ryan lived next door, I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, yet, and I was still 265 pounds; when Willie moved in, it was shortly after my treatment, which included chemo, radiation, and surgery, and I was only about 130 pounds — I was literally half the man I used to be.

Anyway, the point is : I really was a different person in these two sequential timeframes.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Traci ( my wife ) and I moved into our home in March 2007.

I think we closed on the 3rd, and officially moved in on the 10th ( That was 16 years ago; and I frequently have difficulty in remembering 16 days ago ! LOL ).

However, the next day on the 4th ( after the closing but before moving in ) , we stopped at the house just to look around and toy with various ideas of what we wanted to do with each room, etc., and those kinds of considerations.

Being that the garage is a detached garage, and it’s located behind the house, and is accessed via the alley, there’s no driveway in front of the house, so, we parked out on the street in front, and walked up the sidewalk, up the steps, stuck the key into the door, unlocked it, opened it, and stepped into an empty reverb chamber with no carpeting or furniture to soak up the echoes against the hardwood floors and bare walls.

“Wow! Home, sweet, home, Sweetie!” I said as we both looked around in gleeful anticipation of our new lives in our new home.

As wonderful as that description sounds of us walking into our home for the first time ( as the official homeowners, that is, and not as “prospective buyers“ ) the truth is, Traci and I were having an argument about something within the first ten minutes of being there.

Specifically, as we entered, we left the front door opened, as we walked around the main floor, where the frontroom, kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms are ( not counting the basement below or the attic above ) .

A few moments later, while Traci walked around in the bedrooms, taking measurements, I went downstairs into the basement to look at a few things and then returned to the kitchen, where Traci also returned to, and we ended up disagreeing about something and our voices did get loud enough to make the disagreement sound a tad heated.

The point is, when two people are in the middle of an audibly heated discussion, most intelligent people think, “I’ll hold off approaching those people until things calm down. It does not look, or sound, like a good time to go say ‘ Hello’ .”

— A-Ryan Anderson ( Gamer, kinda )

But not this guy.

—— 1-Our First Encounter

I could see if he was, say, a cop, and he was ( out of concern for someone’s safety ) , just investigating to make sure that a loud discussion didn’t turn into an act of violence.

But no. This guy was actually coming to welcome us to the neighborhood.

There we were : Traci and I going at it .

“Oh, yeah!? Well, blah, blah, blah!” I’d say, and she’d retort, “That’s a crap idea! Blah, blah, blah!”

Back and forth we yelled our opinions, when suddenly, there was both a knock on the door, and the doorbell rang.

“What the…? Who’s ringing our doorbell and knocking at the same time?” I’m thinking, as I looked at Traci, when our argument got strangely interrupted.

I turned away from Traci and proceeded from the kitchen to the front door, with Traci in tow, to see who was there.

Just as my leading foot stepped across the threshhold going from the kitchen and into the living room ( where I intended to stand in my doorway and observe who was standing on my porch trying to get our attention, and talking to them through the screen ), I heard our screen door open up , and whoever was on our porch was letting themselves in without our invitation.

“Whoa! What’s going on?” I asked stepping in the way of the home “invader”, which turned out to be this guy, in his 30’s, with a stupid 1980’s-style mullet-like haircut, and this really goofy grin on his face.

“Yes?” I said, stepping in his way.

“Hi. I’m Ryan, your next door neighbor.” he said, ever so nonchalantly, pointing southward, over my shoulder, toward his house next door, and fumbling out an explanation that was not very convincing in its sincerity.

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were right here in the kitchen. I thought you might be somewhere in the basement, or somethin’.”

“We were just shouting at the tops of our lungs, right here in the kitchen, just six or seven feet away from where you’re standing, with the screen door’s screen wide open, just as you were knocking and ringing the doorbell,” I was thinking to myself as I looked at him in silence, “How could you have not noticed the yelling, and still thought that we were somehow ‘ in the basement, or somethin’ “.

“This guy is so full of shit, and I don’t like him already.” was all I could think of at that moment. “He’s got shitty timing; and questionable ethics….and a fucked up haircut!”

“Oh, I’ve been in this house a million times before.” he added, giving a brush off-like gesture with his hand, as though that somehow entitled him to just, in perpetuity, continue letting himself in without being invited in.

“Wow! And the hits just keep on comin’!” I thought, as I continued to stare at him in disbelief, in total silence, how his every word ran contrary to what I wanted to hear.

“Listen, man, this is really not a good time.” I told him as I pushed open the screen door, making the message unmistakably clear, to leave.

“I’m Traci, and this is Floyd.” Traci said over my shoulder, trying to make the otherwise series of awkward moments a little less frigid.

“Cool. I understand.” he said, as he stepped back out onto the front porch, and I closed the screen door, continuing to talk to him through the screen.

“Yeah, we need to talk about a few things, and right now’s not a good time for a visit from the Welcome Wagon.” I added, making up any excuse to get rid of his unsolicted and unwelcomed presence.

“Alright. That’s cool.” he said, somewhat gun shy from the less-than-open-armed welcome he got from me, as he stepped down the stairs, turned to face his house, and walked across the lawn instead of along the sidewalk.

“I didn’t want to be rude to the guy.” Traci said, as I slowly closed the big door.
“And, I’m lockin’ the son of a bitch, too!” I exclaimed, referring to the door lock, “Just in case he decides to come back, open the door on his own, stick his head in the doorway, to say something like, ‘ Oh, and if you need anything…’ “.

“Yeah, right, Buddy! You’ll be the first person I call.” I concluded sarcastically, shaking my head in disgust at his personna. “Wow! He’s gonna be a real nightmare, I think. Well, more accurately, probably a very bad dream.”

And I was right.

He was nowhere near as bad as my former “friend”, Fahrenheit, but I’m definitely glad he doesn’t live in that house anymore.

Whew! Good riddance!

“I just can’t get over how he just nonchalantly let himself in like that!” I continued on, considering the encounter to be forever remembered as an “unwelcomed invasion. ”

“Yeah, that was something.” Traci nodded in agreement, as we then continued on in our mission of interior design.

Anyway. The point is : there would never be a second chance at a “good” first impression where Ryan was concerned.

2-Reveals to Us That His Father Owned The House

Somewhere over the course of the next few weeks, he would again uninvitedly invade our privacy repeatedly by inviting himself over when it suited him to do so.

Although I do not remember him ever repeating the mistake of simply self-allowing himself to open our front door and enter our home ( after a “customary knock or doorbell ring”— where he got that idea, or the concept that I agreed with the idea in the first place, is beyond me ), he continued to frequently just waltz on over when he’d hear or see Traci or I sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette, since we didn’t smoke cigarettes inside the house.

Well, on one of those depressingly frequent self-inviting days, he explained to us the situation of “who actually owned the house” and other answers to questions that we never asked him to provide.

It turns out that his dad actually owned the house, and he bought the house specifically for his son to reside in.

All Ryan had to do was make the monthly payments on :

[ A ] the mortgage ( the property taxes were already escrowed into the monthly mortgage payment ) ; and

[ B ] the utilities

“That’s an awesome privilege, to be given a hand up like that from your own parents!” , I thought to myself, contemplating how some people struggle for years to come up with a down payment on a house, to break the perpetual cycle of paying someone else’s mortgage in the form of a rent payment that’s just as expensive, if not moreso, than an actual mortgage on a home that one would actually own at the end of it all, when there would be no more payments — paid in full!

Well, the government would still hit you up for yearly taxes; those will never go away.

But to come up with 20 percent down isn’t exactly easy when the figure you’re trying to raise 20 percent of, is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which would make the 20 percent down payment in the tens of thousands of dollars — not exactly “pocket change” for 90-plus percent of the American population.

But then, there’s people like Ryan’s father, who have enough wealth to just whip out their check book, and write a check for the down payment, that would otherwise remain years away for his son.

“So, here you are son, here’s a home for you!” his father says, bestowing a home upon him.

So, here he is : my (un)grateful neighbor.

I only mention it, because in the year, or so, that we had the “pleasure” of living next door to him, never once did he have a job.

He was always home when I got home from work in the evening, so I knew he didn’t have an evening job; and my neighbor on the north side of our house, worked all different kinds of crazy hours, so he could be home at any time of any day, and he said, every time he’s been home, he’s seen Ryan’s car parked out front.

If it was ever not there at any given time, he’d be home within an hour, or two, so, he obviously didn’t have a day job.

“How is he paying the bills?” I wondered daily.

He wasn’t.

It turns out that the deal was his father would pay the bills until Ryan could get up on his feet, and start doing it all on his own.

This deal was not meant to be one in perpetuity, but rather one with an expiration date.

That date was not pre-ordained.

If it took Ryan six months to get that job to pay the bills, then, so be it. That’s how long it took.

If it took longer, it took longer. Life sometimes works out that way.

That’s just how patient Ryan’s dad was with Ryan.

As long as Ryan was making an honest effort to find that job, his father would keep writing the checks. .

But Ryan wasn’t.

Not only was he not making an honest effort, he wasn’t putting in any effort at all, whatsoever. He hadn’t sent out a resumé in months; and he had no intention of doing so, either.

His father, fortunately, eventually figured out what was going on, and acted accordingly ( translation : wisely ), and sold the house out from under Ryan.

When I see fools blow golden opportunities like that ( that very few people ever see ), I want to publicly point and laugh at them, since to feel sorry or compassion for fools who deliberately didn’t even lift a finger to better their own lives, really is just as bad as being the fool, himself.

—— 3-The Music Angle

Unbeknownst to me, Ryan had a guitar ( a Seafoam Green Fender Strat, to be specific — and that’s my least favorite color in painted guitars ) and he was equally unaware that I had gear, too.

Ryan was barely a beginner; he’d have to do some serious educational advancement just to be considered qualified to be considered an “intermediate”.

And semi-pro or pro level status?

Hardly. That would be a status that he would likely never achieve.
In any case, one Saturday afternoon, I was in my studio in the basement, jamming out on some tunes, and Ryan, in his bedroom with the window open, overheard the music, and within a few days, he made an effort to casually “encounter” me in my back yard, to start up a conversation about getting together to do some jamming.

As soon as I mentioned “recording” gear, he was “all over it” with attempts to make an official date to get together.

Being right next door, it would be difficult for me to “fake it” that I’m not home, when he’s got a front row seat to see and/or hear everything I do .
Not wanting to be too much of a dickhead to him, I convinced myself to allow him to come over and see what kinds of things this mullet-headed dufus wanted to do.

——— a-The Recording Session in My Basement

It was a Saturday, and I had all day to work in the studio if I wanted to do so.
It was around 1:00 PM when Ryan came over, and entered through the side door.

He walked down the stairs into the basement, carrying his Strat in a case in his left hand, while his right hand ran along the bannister.

Once he saw the layout, as he took his last step off the stairs, his pace slowed down — evidently, to soak in the sight before his very smiling eyes!

It wasn’t so much that I had anything monumental ( in terms of size or quality — i.e., I didn’t have a hundred-thousand-dollar Fairlight® sampler or a 64-channel desk or anything jaw-dropping like that; in fact, as far as my studio mics were concerned, I didn’t have any! Not a single one! There were no $3,000 Neumans or even $100 cheap ones; I had no pop filters; all I had were three cheap stage mics ) but rather that I had essentially “one of everything”:

• * One electric six string guitar;
  * one acoustic six string guitar;
  * one nylon-stringed classical guitar;
  * one 12-string acoustic guitar;
  * one 4-string bass guitar;
  * two keyboards and one expansion sound module;
  * a guitar synthesizer;
  * an electronic drum set for anyone who plays;
  * four drums machines with thousands of drums beats for those who don’t play drums;
  * three amps ( one acoustic guitar amp, and two keyboard amps ) ;
  * one PA head with two Bull Frog PA Towers;
  * three cheap stage microphones;
  * three effects processors;
  * two harmonicas ( one Chromatic ; one Key of C );
  * one mandolin;
  * one violin; ;
  * two 8-track digital recording decks; and a
  * “Partridge in a Pear Tree” and a few other things that I’m momentarily forgetting to mention.

About the only thing I couldn’t supply was … singing talent !

That was something I couldn’t provide if you put a gun to my head to force me to sing well.

If death was the punishment for bad vocals, I’d be executed before the first verse was finished.

I can’t sing.

And neither could he, apparently, as we’d eventually see by the end of the evening when we reviewed the recordings we made.

Prior to doing any recording, when he first stepped into the studio, though, and he saw the arsenal of equipment that was available to him to make a decent recording, he must’ve thought he was going to record some kind of masterpiece.

One could almost hear a degree of self-assured cockiness in his demeanor, as he started to set up in the corner that I pointed him toward.

In his arguably unrealistic expection or anticipation of creating this “Dark Side Of the Moon” caliber of compositional excellence, he was visbly elated, as far as his facial expression seemed to indicate, upon seeing the seemingly adequately-equipped home studio, which he did not possess in his own home.

All he had was his Strat, and a small practice amp.

I don’t believe he even had any PC-based software, such as Pro Tools, or any other third-party DAW software apps.

So, he didn’t do any kind of recording on his own : no old school standalone recording, or modern, digital, DAW-based software for PC’s and Mac computers types of recording.

This was all new to him.

Although I had basically an entire band’s worth of instrumentation in my arsenal, I was, essentially, a “student of all, and a master of none”, myself, as far as my knowledge of the instruments I owned was concerned.

Although I consider myself a guitarist, who dabbles in other instruments, I don’t consider myself a “master” of guitar simply because of simple common sense-induced modesty : I know there’s “a lot I don’t know”.

There’s always someone better than you just around the corner.

Seriously! There really is! Always!

But, despite my non-legendary status as a guitarist, I was willing to lay down any tracks he wanted me to create, and we spent the next 10 hours, or so ( it was somerthing like 1:00 PM, when we started, and closer to 11:00PM when we wrapped it up for the night ) doing exactly that.

You see , lead guitar was not his forté, and normal, rock-style, rhythm guitar really dosn’t interest me, so it worked out to both of our advantages, as he played rhythm, and I played lead guitar.

He also asked me to play some mando on two of his songs — keeping in mind, that I’m not Sam Bush, on the mandolin, either, but he didn’t know that; and I wasn’t going to tell him, because I didn’t need to be.

Finally, it was around 8:00PM when we finished with the initial tracking, and needed to start making the stereo mixdowns.

“Hey, can we add some reverb to this track?” or “…some delay or chorus to that track?” and other requests came flying out as we listened to the mixes, and finalized the stereo recordings on the CD burner.

I made a master CD and a copy, and gave them both to him.

* An Ugly Surprise ( NO CREDIT for Work Done )

Then, in the last 10 or 15 minutes of our time together in this session, when he had his two CD’s in his hand, and I was sitting there smoking a bowl ( Cannabis was allowed in the basement ) , he mentioned that the reason he was doing this recording, was to give it to his father, who was the one who magnanimously bestowed the house upon him….

I’m thinking, “That’s kinda cool for him to do that for his dad.”

As far as my contributions to his project were concerned, I played lead guitar and bass guitar on every song, mandolin on two songs, and keyboards on two songs, and added drum tracks to all his songs. .

Oh, and I also did all the initial tracking, mixdown, and CD burning.
About the only things I didn’t do, was sing or play rhythm guitar.

So, if we had to print up a package ( e.g., “album cover” or “CD case”), I would have envisioned that Ryan would include in the credits : Lead Guitar, Bass, Mandolin and keyboards played by Floyd; project recorded, mixed, and finalized by Floyd.”

But no.

Without my input, he would have had only a guitar and his voice. That’s it! He didn’t even have the means to record his performance.

Yet, after all my work, as he’s walking up the stairs, exiting my basement, he turns around, and makes the WTF remark of , “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m gonna tell my dad that I did all of this myself.”

“Wow! Seriously?! This dishonest piece of shit isn’t even going to tell his dad about the other people that were involved with this recording — in this case, me! He’s just going to take all the credit himself!” I thought to myself in total disbelief at this guy’s shitty ethics.

“Hey, thanks, though, for everything you did today!” he said as he walked out the side door, and went home, next door.

“What? You’re not even going to mention that I had anything to do with this ?” I thought of the question as he closed the door behind himself. “How do people like that get created in the first place?”

——— b-His Hatred For Altered and Open Tunings

A few weeks later — maybe a month — I was out in my back yard, playing on my acoustic six-string, when Dufus McRyan just ( repeatedly ) made himself at home ( again ) , and just came into the yard ( without being invited explicitly, or even implicitly — he just invites himself and magically appears out of nowhere, as though whoever’s privacy he invades is somehow considered “such a close friend” that an official invitation isn’t even required ) and he just nonchalantly just sat down in a lawn chair right next to me while I played one of my originals.
It’s actually kind of creepy, especially when you really don’t like the person who seems to think you’re “friends”.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I momentarily put my guitar down in the portable stand , and he immediately picked it up ( without asking, of course — Shock ! ), and fingered out a chord, and then started strumming away, but it immediately sounded like crappola because the guitar was in an open tuning, which, in this case, was Open E, and not standard tuning.

Every note he attempted to play was “sour” to the ear.

He quickly realized something was wrong.

“What the fuck? You’re fuckin’ guitar is all out of whack, man!” he said as he immediately reached up to start re-tuning it.

“Whoa! No, don’t, man!” I quickly interjected, the nanosecond I knew what he wanted to do because he was all confused.

“Whaddaya mean, no?” he asked genuinely sounding like he knew for a fact that it was me, that didn’t know what I was doing. “it’s way outta whack, man!”

“It’s not outta whack, …man!.” I countered emphasizing the word “man”, because I was mocking his stupid tone of voice. “It’s in open tuning. Open E.”

“Yeah, right.” he added, plucking the open High E string in 16th-notes, obviously not understanding what I saId, “open E string?”

“No, not open E string, Open E Tuning!” I emphasized.

The look on his face was not one of enlightenment, but rather one of a displeasured-like grimace.

“What, are you trying to do something the guitar wasn’t designed to do, or somethin’? Like tune all the strings all wrong, or whatever?” he so cluelessly said with furled eyebrows, as though I was just making stuff up as I went along.

“Seriously?” I asked with a somewhat insulting chuckle, revealing how turned off I was by him being so deliberately obtuse, “You’ve never heard of altered tunings, like Open E, or Dropped D or Double….Drop…D…”

I slowed down almost to a screeching halt, when I realized that he was reacting to my mildly hostile rebuttal with a facial expression that seemed almost like the beginning of a snowflake’s “why-are-you-yelling-at-me?” type of “squinted eyes” look.

On the one hand, with me being a non-confrontational introvert, myself, who wants to avoid conflict wherever I can, I actually cringe at the thought of me hurting someone’s feelings ( at least, in social situations — politics is an entirely different matter ) .

On the other hand, his sudden change in demeanor had me momentarily wondering if I had somehow succeeded in “making contact” with Planet Ryan, and that he was now making some internal re-assessments regarding his own conduct, and thus, might start behaving differently — e.g., respecting other people’s property and privacy, and not condescendingly second-guessing what knowledge they already possess.

Yeah, I know : “Good luck with that one!”

What happened was his mood creepily changed immediately.

His facial expression changed in that it looked “several clouds darker” than a moment ago as his normally-stupid-looking-grin on his face unnervingly morphed into an emotionless straight line, no longer giving me the impression of general happiness, but was now far more of a look that was noticeably more stern, almost like the prequel to a moment of anger.

“Yeah, I don’t do that stuff.” he said, showing his ignorance of the very existence of altered tunings, by trying to avoid talking about them in the first place.

“I’m tellin’ ya’, man, ya’ don’t know what you’re fuckin’ missin’, dude!” I said, in defense of altered tunings. “They open up a ton of new worlds! Some of Zeppelin’s finest acoustic songs are in open tunings! South City Midnight Lady, from the Doobies; or, there’s even a couple of Stones tunes….”

“Nah, I’m not into that shit! I hate open tunings!” he interrupted in such a way that it was obvious that he was just so embarassingly transparent in his ignorance on the subject matter, that a moment ago, he never even heard of them, and now, seconds later, he hates them.

“Yeah, right. Ok, Ryan” I wanted so badly to say out loud. I really hated that guy! I really did!

I think I hated him because he couldn’t, as a human being, respect privacy or property and was horribly unimaginative as a musician!

And that f***ing mullet made him look irreparably defective and stupid.

How he “thought”, just didn’t compute with me.

When it came to Ryan, though, nothing computes! And I mean, absolutely nothing!

Anyway, I then took the guitar back from him, strummed it with no fingers on the fretboard to demonstrate what Open E tuning was all about.

“See? Open E.” I said, picking out 16th notes wth my right hand while not using my left hand to finger any notes. “Just as though I was actually playing an E Major chord.”

I then played this pretty cool, medium-tempo arpeggio to demonstrate what an open or altered tuning can do.

He just silently shook his head “no”, with this smug smile, as though he wanted to say, “No, thanks, but I’m above all that silliness.”

“OK, whatever you say, Ryan.” I thought silently, blown away by how intense his witlessness was.

I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t feel sorry for the guy. I felt somewhat that he deserved to be the idiot that he was.

That may not be the compassionate or appropriate way to look at someoen who might actually have a mental deficiency,. but in Ryan’s case, I just don’t give a rat’s ass what others think about my conduct toward other undesirables like Ryan.

I think his personality would make even Jesus snap!

I then put the guitar back into the stand and told him, “Hey, if you wanna fuck around with Open E tuning, have at it! I’m cool with that. Just don’t re-tune it to standard E. I’m workin’ on some stuff right now, and I don’t want to re-tune it again.”

It only takes two seconds to tune it to any tuning, but that’s besides the point.
If anything, you’d think he’d like to toy around on it just to lean how to make chords in different tunings.

But no.

The disgust in his facial expression at a guitar he could not sound good on, suddenly inspired an idea as soon as he spoke.

“Eh,” he let out a frustrated sigh, giving the guitar a sour look “Not right now. I’m good.”

“I just remembered, I gotta go take care of a couple of things. I’ll talk to you a little later on.” he said so unconvincingly, that I wanted to say, “Yeah, I’ve used that excuse, too, and it does seem to work.”

But I didn’t want to jinx a good moment. I figured I’d quit while I was ahead, and kept my mouth shut.

He then stood up and went back to his house.

“Wow! And I thought I was a strange bird!” I joked with myself. “This guy, wow!”

Then, that metaphorical light bulb suddenly flickered on. “Hey, if I tune all my guitars to an altered tuning, and tell him to not change the tuning, he might be discouraged from ever wanting to come over here and play my guitars again! Hmmm. Now, that might be an awesome idea!”

——— c-His “Love” For the Blues …….& Why I Mention It

A mile, or so, south of us, is the Lansing Airport, and along that route was a now-defunct tavern called “The Landings”.

Like many taverns that are owned by music lovers, the folks at The Landings held “open jam” sessions, which are different from “open mics”, which I’ll elaborate on shortly.

Anyway, late one evening around 10:00PM, or so, Traci and I were on our front porch, having a smoke, and you know who suddenly came walking across the front lawn.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on, folks?” he asked, in that unbearably annoying voice.

“Not much. What’s up with you?” Traci responded in kind.

“Ah, just got back from The Landings.” he replied.

“The Landings? What’s that?” I asked, not being familiar with the place.

“Really? You’ve never been there?” he said, genuinely shocked that I had never heard of it.

“Nah. Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” I replied.

“Ah, man, you’ll have to come with me the next time I go.” he offered, not realizing that, coming from him, it was more of a threat, than an offer.

“Oh, fuck! What did I just get myself into?” I wondered silently to myself, fearing that I might have somehow committed myself to some kind of a nightmare.

“Yeah, maybe.” I said, allowing myself to continue conflating civility ( which he didn’t deserve ) with not making clear my total lack of desire to do anything with this dude.

“Yeah, The Landings’ a bar, over by the airport where they occasionally have live music,” he said, momentarily playing air guitar, to dramatize the comment, “and like once or twice a month they do one of those open mics, and I’ve been goin’ to that one for about three or four months now.”

“Huh. I did not know about the place.” I admitted, not too enthusiastically, since I immediately got the impression that if he liked the place, it might be something I wouldn’t like.

And, as it turns out, I was right….again.

Well, not about the place, per se, but rather, the featured activities — in this case, the open jam night.

“Aw, man, you’d love it!” he added, “We did a bunch of blues tunes, and it was pretty awesome. It really was. You’d really like it.”

“Was it an open mic, or open jam?” I inquired.

“Open…mic…I think?” he replied, squinting, sounding obviously unsure of his own answer. “Why?…Is there a difference?”

“Oh, yeah, a big difference!” I added, “Is there a house band?”

“Well, sure, absolutely!” he exclaimed, “That’s exactly who everyone jams with.”

“So, no one just goes up on stage, by themself, to start playin’, say,…Pink Floyd’s ‘ Wish You Were Here’ ? ‘ on an acoustic guitar?” I said, mimmicking an air guitar.

“Oh, no, it’s not that kind of setup.” he said. “You sign up, and tell the band what song you wanna play, and then, when it’s your turn, you just step up on stage, and the band already knows what to do.”

“Just so you know, that’s what’s called an open jam . Sometimes referred to as a Blues Jam, just in case you were wonderin’ ” I told him. “Open jams are where you jam with a house band, and an open mic is where anyone can go onstage and play by themselves, or with their own band, or even a house band. I, myself, prefer open mics, because they’ve got way more variety in genres, like blues, jazz, rock, country, singer-songwriter, folk, whatever, hence, way more creativity, whereas open jams are almost always, strictly blues, and that’s just way too narrow-minded for me. I call it straight jacket music.”

“Blues?” he asked all shocked.

“Nooo!” I clarified with a laugh, “I love blues! I’m talkin’ about the only-one-genre part. That’s straight jacket music.”

“Straight jacket?” he asked, not understanding the reference. “Why straight jacket?”

“No wiggle room on genres ” I replied, mimmicking someone in a straight jacket, being unable to move. “Wherever your arms are, that’s where they stay! All night long! They don’t move!. There’s no change in mood. Yyyyuuuck! No can do!”

My apprehension regarding the blues, is not with the music, per se, but with the vast majority of those who profess to “like blues”, because it seems to be a common trait on the part of those who claim to love blues, to want to play, or listen, to ‘nothin’ but the blues’ — and nothing else.

Yuck!

I don’t love any one genre to the exclusion of all others.

“That’s was one feature of Zeppelin, ” I added, “they combined the blues, like, ‘ You Shook Me ‘ or ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You” along with acoustic folk songs such as ‘ Battle of Evermore’, or ‘Going to California’. Heck you can even find country influence on ‘ Tangerine ‘ or ‘ Down By the Seaside’! I mean, if your albums have all those genres, your live shows should also highlight all those genres. Ya’ know? So, yeah, Zeppelin wouldn’t do only one genre. Every album and every concert contained some kind of combination of genres. I don’t believe in a one-genre show.”

There was an uncomcortable short silence, so, I kept talking.
“I couldn’t play ‘ nothin’ but the blues ‘, ya’ know?; or be ‘strictly jazz’ or ….” I added, when he interrupted me.

“That’s kinda what I liked about it, though, ya’ know?” Ryan said, rather sincerely. “Because you know exactly where everyone is at any given moment.”
“Why’s that?” I asked wondering what he meant.

“Well, like, if the guy’s in the key of G, after four to eight bars, you know he’s going to go to,….let’s see, ” he said looking down at his imaginary fretboard, “oh, yeah, the key of C, I think? Yeah, C. Then D.”

“Okay, so,…what if he’s in, say, the Key of A, instead?” I asked, wondering how he was going to answer.

“Well, then he’d go to…D, then E.” he replied, still envisioning his imaginary fretboard.

“And starting in the key of B?” I continued.

“Same formula. He’d go to E.” he said.

“Yeah, I knew the answers. I just wanted to see if you noticed a pattern in your answers.” I said.

“Whadaya mean ? ” he asked.

“Well, if you know where someone’s gonna be in any given song, because they all use the exact same formula or pattern, well, then, you’re essentially playing the same song, in different keys at different tempos singing different words. It’s still the same song, for all intents and purposes! That’s like singing the melody of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ in five different keys, and claiming you’ve written five differnt songs, when it’s all the same song, like I said, in different keys at different tempos with different words. It’s such a sham!”

He just shrugged it off.

“Yeah. Nah. There’s just no way that I could do that : Just play one genre of music? One? All night long?” I chuckled, “Might as well be stuck in a recently-used bathroom, with no window or exhaust fan to let out the stink that builds up. Too much of one single thing just doesn’t work for me. That show would stink!”

His reaction was one where he had this facial expression that resembled that of someone with heartburn, as though what I just said somehow made him feel uncomfortable — which I didn’t care if it had; in fact, I actually hoped it had.

He was a constant black cloud for me.

.......& Why I Mention It

I mention the blues issue, because Ryan asked me if I liked the blues, and not realizing ( especially with him ) that I might have had to add in some clarifications, I ended up making a big mistake.

I just foolishly and erroneously replied with a simple, unqualified “Yes”, and the next thing I know, he’s in my back yard again, and trying to “jam along with me”, and the entire time I was in absolute misery.

Every time I’d noodle away on something boogie-ish ( it’s my yard, and I was here first ), or non-bluesish, he’d just lose total interest and start doing some sluggishly-slow chug blues chord progression, which is where I would lose interest.

it was like a see-saw : there would never be a moment when we would both be in the up position ; for one to be up, the other had to be down!

It was a lose-lose situation from the very start — and I knew that, before it even started!

in any case, every eight bars, or so, he’d look up at me and notice that I wasn’t even trying to jam along with him, but he’d nod, facially gesturing for me to play leads to his chug blues.

I might as well have had my testicles in a slowly-closing vise. It was almost that painful.

Evidently, although we both “liked the blues”, we obviouly and definitely defined “The Blues” very differently.

Personally, as I’ve mentioned, I prefer up-tempo blues ( some would call that “boogie” blues ) such as, say, Steely Dan’s “Bodhissatva” or Lynyrd Skynrd’s “I Know A Little” or Deep Purple’s “Lazy”, because, like I mentioned, they’re up-tempo.

Ryan was of the exact opposite opinion, and laughably tried using the already-overused excuse, “I’m a blues purist” to hide behind his fear of admitting he didn’t know any of those songs by claiming he wouldn’t need to, since they’re…ahem “not really blues tunes”.

So-called ( or self-proclaimed ) “blues purists” will always claim those songs are closer to rock and roll, and not blues because the tempos are much faster than the funeral dirge ( which is crawlingly slow in tempo ) “standard” they’re dishonestly using as a yardstick, to define the “blues” — as though blues is “intrinsically slow” by definition.

Faster than a funeral dirge?

“Sorry. Not Blues.”

I don’tknow who made up that rule, and I totally laugh that one off, since the existence of swing, which pre-dates rock and roll by about 20 to 30 years, shows blues at faster tempos, ( and with jazz — also not rock and roll — chords )

So, in my view, “boogie” is a type of “swing”, and not rock-and-roll, and the only reason anyone would dismiss boogie as blues, is that basic blues is easy for eveyone to play, ( and blues is often used to try to recruit or unite all musicians — competent and incompetent, alike ) whereas boogie usually involves musicians who are not beginners, and who are very proficient at their instruments.
Thus, a beginner is not likely to want to do boogie, ( because they’re less likely to be able to play it ) and those who want to hide their amateur-ness, will conveniently call themselves blues “purists” and reject anything that would spotlight their deficiencies, so they end up “punching up” at their betters by denying their kegitimacy — because they can’t keep up, and, as beginners, they’ll look silly being obviously clueless about what the next note should be, and thus, hitting sour notes every which way, making for an unpleasant “performance”.

So, reject the composition. Don’t play it! ( Or, more accurately, don’t butcher it!, which is exactly what they’re fearing about those songs! )

That’s an indefensibly poor excuse to knowingly exclude great music ( because it exposes— and embarasses — the incompetent ) — and beginners always seem to ruin it for the true lovers of music all the time by omitting that which they cannot perform, by laughably claiming it’s “not worth” performing, when it’s actually, “I’m not good enough to play that, and I just didn’t want anyone to know that , so I make fun of that which is above my pay grade, like a beginner making fun of a pro.”

I realize I went off on a tangent there, but that’s because people like Ryan use the blues “purist” crap as a shield to hide behind their own deficiencies, weaknesses, and ignorance.

It’s not about the “purity of the product”, but, rather, of the proficiemcy of the musician ( or lack thereof, in the vast majority of the cases where so-called “purists” are questioning the legitimacy of music their small music minds can’t comprehend ) , and it’s used by beginners who have no business using that excuse.

Just admit it.

“I’m a beginner, and I don’t know enough to play certain songs.”

There’s no shame in admitting you’re not “all-knowing” on your instrument.
But Ryan couldn’t admit his beginner status. He was a… ahem, “semi-pro”.

Yeah. Sure.

For me, if music was a highway, it would be the Autobahn, where there is no “Speed Limit” to enforce.

No one has any business slowing anyone else down.

So, there is shame in not allowing anyone to pass you because your car wion’t go faster than 55 mph.”

Your fantasy mandates that you have to be the “fastest car ( The Star ) on the highway”, and you think blocking others from passing you “protects” that image?

It doesn’t.

But amazingly, there are people who are that stupid — i.e., they believe it does!

They just don’t get it! Nobody believes the scam!.

The jig is up. There are faster cars nehind you!

We all know it!

You being in front by blocking everyone else, makes you a fraud, which we can all see with our own eyes.

So, please, stop being an asshole, and get the fuck out of the way! Stop using “purist” arguments to slow down the whole highway system because of your “beginner status” is too embarassing to admit and advertise.

The fast being legally trapped behind the slow is not analogous to :

[ a ] the abled-bodied, showing “compassion” or “respect” to the handicapped, by not passing them up ( and, thus, not leaving them in the dust with hurt feelings” ) ; instead, that’s far closer to

[ b ] the handicapped disrespecting the abled-bodied by blocking the lanes so none of the abled-bodied can do their FULL POTENTIAL and “legally pass up” the handicapped, and do the speeds of up to 150 miles per hour that their vehicles are otherwise very capable of travelling at..

Remember, this is the Autobahn, where there are no speed limits !

The slow have no rights to hold back the fast!

Period!

But I’ll alway prefer my version of blues over the usually-slower tempo’d compositions of the more traditional bluesmen.

But Ryan?

The exact opposite.

For Ryan, the slower, the better.

Those are the super-hyper-ultra-mega slow tunes with a tempo of around 40 BPM, which, for me, is more like listening to a funeral dirge — i.e., painfully slow.

It’s like watching “continental drift”, which, in turn, not only does not move me in the slightest, but it’s actually quite a pain in the butt to sit through one of those songs in their entirety.

There are exceptions, of course, ( such as Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve been Loving Y ou” — another song that purists say, “isn’t really blues” ) but Ryan, and his ilk, wouldn’t have enough class to even recognize those tunes.

So, on his last uninvited time over before moving away ( Awesome! ), he tried jamming along with me, but it was total car crash from the very start.

Like I said before, every time I’d start one of my boogie tunes, he’d lose interest and start doing that slow chug blues, which is where I’d stop playing.

I don’t think there was 30 seconds of music between us the whole time he invaded my yard.

So, here’s this guy with a mullet ( I can’t prove it with data, but my experience over decades, is that everyone I ever knew that wore a mullet, were all kind of goofy in such a way, that it’s always made me feel somewhat uncomfortable being around them. I can’t quite put my finger on it ) who wants to play only blues — and only slow blues at that — and absolutely nothing else, while the guy he’s trying to connect with is looking for the exact opposite, and that he’s wanting to jam multiple genres, including blues, but only the faster-tempo’d blues.

There was no fixing this.

He :

[a ] hated alternate tunings ( my passion ) ;

[ b ] he didn’t like “too many chords” — three to four chords, at the most, in an entire song; and

[ 3 ] he didn’t like boogie.

That was definitely Strike One ( and that’s a big one — it’s like having a gigantic hole in the space shuttle at the time of launch ; a real “deal-breaker” ) .

He frequently self-invited himself to enter my home without an invitation and pick up my equipment without asking.

Definitely strike two.

But, just to be official, and call him out : he wore a mullet.

Strrrriiiiike Threee! You’re out!

——— 4-His Relationship with his dad

This part of the story, chronologically speaking, is actually the same evening that we — I mean, “he” — recorded his CD for his dad, in my basement, using my equipment, my knowledge, and my labor.

But I had “nothing to do with any of it”, according to his disturbed mind..
This conversation took place just before he actually picked up his guitar case, to turn toward the staircase, and walk upstairs.

What happened was — if you’ll remember, I mentioned me smoking a bowl — I exhaled one of my hits, and toward the end of the expulsion of smoke from my lungs, I let out a small cough — and I normally cough loudly.

But this was a tiny one. I wonder how he would have reacted had I let out one of my typical “Sweet Leaf” coughs ( Black Sabbath fans will understand that reference )?

He probably would’ve called 9-1-1.

“Ya’ know, my dad smokes pot, too.” he said, but with a degree of apprehension toward saying it without the negative vocal inflection to not-so-subtly display disapproval of it.

“Why do I get the impression that you don’t approve?” I asked noticing his attitude toward his dad’s personal and private activites.

“I just don’t get into that shit, that’s all.” he replied with squinted eyes like he was suddenly stressing out as though he really didn’t want to talk about it. “I just think it….does ….something…. I dunno.”

“Wait! Didn’t you say your dad owns his own insurance agency?” I asked, just to clarify that his dad was not some homeless person living under a bridge somewhere.

“Yeah, why?” he asked, not understanding my reasoning behind asking the question in the first place.

“Well, I mean, is he showing signs that he can’t run the business anymore, or somethin’?” I asked, wondering what this “something” was that he was referring to, when he said “I just think it does something”.

What does he think should be happening to his dad because he smokes pot?

He didn’t have an answer.

Of any kind!

Not even a slogan to recite.

He just continued to shake his head in a “that’s-a-shame” kind of way.

But what, specifically, is a shame?

Ryan either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say.

Because he didn’t know, himself.

“I dunno, Ryan.” I added with a sigh. “I say any self-employed pot-smoker who’s smart enough to amass enough legitimately-acquired wealth to own at least two, or more homes, plus a business, is a far better person than a non-pot smoker who doesn’t own any property or possess any significant amount of money in their personal checking accounts, or doesn’t even have a job.”

Translation : “I think your home-owning, business-owning, pot-smokig dad is a far better person than you are as a non-owning leech, with no job or money in the bank”.

I think that was ground zero, where I dropped that bomb.

Which might explain why he planned on excluding me from mention in the credits.

Ryan just stared at me with a perplexed look on his face.

“I hope this dufus doesn’t think he’s a better person than his own dad, because his multiple home-owning, business-owning, father smokes cannabis.” I wondered as I tried to interpret that weird look on his face.

——— 5-The Good,…Ahem, “Bad” News

Finally, one day he saw Traci and I sitting on the porch, having a smoke, and he came over uninvited, as usual, to tell us the “bad” news, which he didn’t realize was actually great news! Well, for me, anyway.

We’re sitting on our porch, having a cigarette, when uninvited visit # 182 resulted in him telling us, “Yeah, I think my dad’s gonna sell the house. Looks like I’m gonna be moving. When? I don’t know. Not sure yet.”

“Woo hoo!” Traci and I shouted out loud as we danced with glee, “Alright! Lyin’ Ryan is flyin’ outta hear! Let’s celebrate!”

Just kidding, of course. That didn’t happen.

We cried our eyes out!

Yeah, right.

No, again, just kidding, of course.

You can definitely bet that didn’t happen!

“Aw, gee, sorry to hear that.” we both said with about as much emotion as heaing about a total stranger moving away.

“Why’s he selling?” Traci asked, out of idle curiosity.

The look on his face was priceless, in that he didn’t know how to answer the question without making himself look breath-takingly stupid.

We both knew the answer to that question : he literally refused to get a job, and take over paying the bills, and his dad got tired of writing checks he should have never been writing all along the three years Ryan was there before we moved in, plus the year and a half, or so, after we moved in, which would have meant that his father wrote approximately 48 to 54 months ( four years, plus or minus ) of checks that he shouldn’t have had to write in the first place had Ryan got off his criminally lazy ass, and got a job.

This guy was a total piece of shit.

I couldn’t help but entertain myself with pretending that my turds were him in the toilet, when I’d flush after dropping a deuce.

“There goes Ryan!” I’d imagine as they’d swirl in the bowl of yellow water with soiled toilet paper into oblivion.

Too much information?

About the turds?…Or Ryan?

Possibly both?

I know, it’s difficult to decide.

——— 6-“Gamer” : Why I Mentioned It

Up until recently, pretty much my experience with people who were “gamers” was that literally 90 percent of those who played regularly, were lazy fucks who didn’t want a full-time job, because that would involve putting the joystick down for eight hours a day — and that’s eight hours “they’ll never get back”, so, screw the job, and just keep playing games!

I wrote “up until recently” because I now know of two or three gamers who’ve actually showed up for work regularly now for about two years, so, I guess, not all gamers are shockingly ultra-hyper-mega lazy.

But until I met those guys, the first four that I met all had that trait that “putting down the joystick” was unreasonably painful to do.

And Ryan?

Yep. He was a gamer.

I’m glad he took his joystick and went elsewhere!

— B-Willie Vaughn : A Boy And His Dog & Their Three Returns

Unlike Ryan, Willie, was someone I liked ; and, in many ways, I still like the guy, but there’s a component to his personality that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to continue trusting the guy.

—— 1-Return #1 : First Contact

At this point in time, it’s now post-cancer, so I no longer smoked cigarettes, or any form of tobacco.

But I did still smoke Cannabis — throughout my treatment ( with my oncologist’s approval, I might add ) and afterwards.

So, when Traci would go out on the front porch to smoke a cigarette, I’d frequently join her by smoking a bowl ; and even when I didn’t have any, I’d still go out there and sit with her while she smoked.

One day, when I didn’t have any, and we were sitting on the porch, I was just saying to Traci, “Can’t wait to get paid. I can go get a quarter; maybe a half, then.”

“What? You ran out?” she asked.

“Yeah, like a day, or so, ago.” I replied.

Suddenly, our new next-door neighbor, emerged from his front door, and he “pulled a Ryan” and walked across the lawn to come over and introduce himself.

“Hey, how you guys doin’?!” he said as he came within 10 feet, or so, of us and reaching out to shake our hands as he approached. “I’m Willie. Your new neighbor!”

We reciprocated with the handshake and the exchanging of first names, and a friendly conversation commenced, entailing all the usual introductory information of where we’re from, how we got here, and those types of topics.

We also briefly mentioned the fact that I was currently in recovery from my treatment for cancer, ( where parts of my upper digestive tract had been removed and what remained was surgically re-routed ) which Willie was completely able to relate to, since his own mother was currently undergoing treatment for cancer.

So, his mother and I had the cancer thing in common as far as having any form of cancer is concerned. The main difference was I was past my treatment, whereas Willie’s mom was still currently undergoing her treatment.

Somewhere in the timeline of the following 20 minutes, or so, he slipped in a mention about weed.

I don’t remember his exact words, but I think it was something along the lnes of ‘ Do either of you smoke?’, which we both realized he meant cannabis, since it was obvious that he wouldn’t have meant tobacco, with Traci standing right there smoking a cigarette.

Suddenly, Traci just let out a chuckle.

“Seriously? You couldn’t have timed it better.” she shook her head in amazement at his timing, then pointed toward me, “I don’t smoke, but he does, and he just ran out. Without it, he has a little difficulty in generating an appetite, and then eats like a bird; and then, once he eats, he gets nauseated really easily, so, he also fights post-meal neausea with pot, too.”

“Well, that’s expected for there to be some after effects when they rip out literally the top half of your stomach, the bottom three-quarters of your esophagos, including the lower esophageal spincter, your spleen, and four lymph nodes, throw those into a garbage can, and then they sew the bottom half of your stomach to the top quarter of your esophagus”, I said, holding my flattened hand, palm facing down, at my solar plexus to show about where my stomach was in my chest, instead of my abdomen, “leaving my tiny, tiny stomach about right here, or so.”

“What used to be able to consume a typical McDonald’s meal of a hamburger, small fry and a small Coke, now maxes out at about a half of that hamburger, half of the fries and half of the coke. Beyond that, I start getting nauseous,”

“That kinda sucks, huh?” he said, shaking his head.

“And, it becomes somewhat of a balancing act in that although smoke allows me to get an appetite, if I eat too much, I can get nauseous from overeating,” I said holding my hand over my abdomen to dramatize the nausea comments, “but if I smoke to fight the nausea, I risk getting the munchies again, which, in turn, risks more over-eating, and hence, nausea. So, I gotta be careful to not eat too much, or too fast, and I won’t need the smoke to fight post-eating nausea. Bur if I don’t smoke at all, then I won’t even have an appetite in the first place, and guess what? I can get nausea from being too hungry, as well.”

“It really is kind of a unique situation of balancing my herb use to coincide with cycles of an empty-stomach/full-stomach paradigm of sorts; in some ways, it feels like a lose-lose situation, wherein, I really can’t win, per se, so I fight the pain , translation : nausea, with Cannabis.”

“Did they try to prescribe you something, officially, for the hunger-nausea issue?” he asked.

“Yeah, a thing called Megace.” I replied, not too positively, that’s for sure, “But the shit, like any other drug, has its list of side effcets, some of which can be quite scary; and I saw one website that listed literally over a hundred side effects, of which, something like more than ten were considered deadly. Really crazy shit, ya’ know?”

“Are you on the pot program?” he asked. “Ya’ know, the medical marijuana deal they got?”

“No! And you know why?” I offered .

“Uh-uh. No. Why?” he said, shaking his head.

“Willie, it’s both a financial scam, and a legal nightmare, at the same time!” I exclaimed rather angrily. ‘Only in illinois do they think up crazy shit like that…I think

“Why? How so?” he continued inquiring.

“Well, on the financial end of it, you have to pay for a license — an actual fucking license! — for this so-called privilege to smoke weed, and it ain’t cheap! It’s like three or four hundred dollars every….two years?…I think?…” I said trying to recall the specifics, “And!….And the money doesn’t go to any doctors, or research facilities. Oh, no! That money goes to bureaucrats who want you to repeatedly make these payments in perpetuity. The payments never end! What…the…fuck!, Ya’ know?”

“Plus! No joke! It’s cheaper on the street! I shit you not!” I added. ” I can get an ounce for just under, to just over, $200, depending on who I get it from, whereas they want the equivalent of about sixty to seventy bucks for a lousy three and a half grams at the medical dispensaries, which is like a piddly eighth! That’s a buck twenty for a quarter; over two hundred for a half….Four hundred for an ounce! Oh, how fucking compassionate of them! I mean, no! That’s absolutely fucking ridiculous! I go to Billy’s, and I get a half for about a hundred to a hundred twenty. Again, depending on who I get it from and the quaklity of the strain.”

“Four hundred for an ounce?” he laughed and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that is fucking ridiculous!”

“What was the legal end of that?” he continued.

“Wow! These arrogant sons-of-bitches actually believe, if they grant you this privilege, to smoke weed,” I said, emphasizing the word privilege to imply I believe it to be a personal right, not subject to their “approval”, shaking my head in total disbelief, “that they somehow also have the right to nullify your Second Amendment right, too. Literally! They can tell you to surrender any guns you have! Surrender your Firearms Owner I.D. card! These are rights, you stupid mother fuckers! Not “privileges”! Wow! I can’t believe how mother-fuckingly stupid and or evil those pieces of shit lawmakers really are! It’s absolutely breath-taking! And I’m sure it’s both your inner city Democrats representing neighborhoods drowning in violent crimes, and downstate Republicans who agreed for whatever reasons they concocted to explain their lack of constitutional judgement.”

“So, no! I wasn’t gonna let them put me on some register that says, ‘ if Floyd wants a gun, he can’t legally have one, so you can’t legally sell him one,’ kinda thing. Ya’ know?” I concluded, shaking my head in disgust at the retards we refer to as Illinois politicians.

“But, no, on Friday, I get paid, and I’ll go out to Billy’s and score a half…for half the cost!” I laughed, and no fuckin’ license to do so. What fucking turds those politicians are! Ya’ know?”

“Really? So, right now, you don’t have any?” he said with genuine concern in his voice.

“It happens.” I replied. “Sometimes the dollar doesn’t stretch as long as the week.”

“That’s very true.” he nodded in agreement.

“Hold on.” he added . “Don’t go nowhere. I’ll be right back.”

With that , he turned around and went back into the house and about two minutes later he came back with one of those black Kodak film containers that are about the size of a “D” battery, packed with a couple of buds of some medical grade cannabis.

“Here. This should hold you off until Friday.” he said as he handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I asked, not knowing what it actually was, but fully aware of what it likely was, as I accepted it from him.

“Just a couple buds. That’s Diesel, by the way.” he said, “Weird name, I know. But tasty. And, no, it has nothing to do with actual diesel fuel.”

“I didn’t think it did.” I grinned.

“Wow! Seriously?” I asked, as I popped open the lid and peeked at the interestingly multi-colored flowertop. “For me?”

“Absolutely!” he smiled back.

“Wow! Willie! Thanks, man!” I said, almost teary-eyed, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You just said it : thanks .” he laughed. “Nah. That’s a gift for you, brother. Enjoy. For right now, I gotta go take care of a few things. I just wanted to come out and introduce myself, ya’ lnow.”

“Well, I appreciate that.” I said standing up to shake his hand again.

“Hey, no problem.” he replied. “I’ll talk to you a little later on.”

With that comment, he went back home.

“Huh. God provides.” Traci said, smiling at me, as she turnbed to go back into the house.

“Yes, he does.” I replied, with myself right behind her.

That wasn’t the only time that he had done that for me.

Probably not too much longer after that date, he sent me a text telling me that he left me a present on my front porch, and I went out there to look, and he had another “care package ” in an empty Walgreens prescription bottle.

He was just that kind of guy; and I’m sure he still is.

—– a-An addition to His “Family” : Luke, The Beagle

Shortly after he moved in, Willie went to one of the local humane societies and adopted a dog — in this case, a Beagle-type dog, which he named Luke.
Most dogs from Poodles to German Shepherds have basically the same mechanism for a bark, varying mainly in “hoarseness” and “pitch”.
But Beagles have — at least, this one did — a really weird bark that kind of starts low in pitch and rises. I can’t quite explain how he sounded.

But Willie took Luke everywhere.

——— b-He Had No Furniture

One odd thing about Willie is that throughout the entire time in that house, I never saw him have furniture.

The only things I saw him have once I was in his house, was , literally :

[ 1 ] A box spring and mattress in his bedroom

[ 2 ] One of those $19, plastic, see-through three-drawer clothes drawer setup; for his clothes;

[ 3 ] A large screen TV that was used as a monitor for his gaming computer; and

[ 4 ] his computer.

That’s it! Literally!

He was a gamer on steroids!

He made Ryan look like an infrequent participant.

These two guys were two of the three sources where I got the impression that gamers were people who didn’t want a full-time job — but they still want an adequate supply of food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare, and, of course, endless amounts of time for gaming!

The other one was the ( fortunately ) very temporary boyfriend of a relative’s daughter. He changed jobs every two months, and in between jobs, he played video games 100 percent of his free time, which was essential, 24/7, while he was unemployed.

Anyway, back to “all of Willie’s worldly possessions” .

In the kitchen cabinets, there were some pots and pans and dishes, but I wouldn’t consider that “furniture”.

It’s possible he might have had some things in the garage, since I was never out there. But outside of that possibility, unless he had things in some storage facilitry, he had absolutely no furniture whatsoever.

In the front room, there were no couches, loveseats, recliners, chairs, of any kind, and there was no cocktail table.

However, there was an end table with a plugged-in table lamp on it. But, I get the impression that table probably came with the house. It was antique, beat up, ugly, and definitely not Willie’s style; and he definitely didn’t take it with him when he moved out.

——— c-Deja Vu : Reveals to Us That His Father Owned The House

Like Ryan, within a few weeks of him moving into the house next door, Willie offered up the information that his dad had actually owned the house and that he just needed to get up and running on making the payments, himself.

Boy, did that sound like a familiar story.

The main difference between the two stories was the location of the house-owning fathers : in Ryan’s case, his dad was local, just a few towns away; whereas, in Willie’s case, his father was 2,000 miles away in Arizona.

Both Ryan and Willie were both from the area.

Although Ryan’s father was still working, as a self-employed insurance agency owner, Willie’s father was a retired school teacher, and upon retiring decided to relocate to Arizona, and Willie initially went with him, but eventually became homesick for the area he grew up in, and the friends within that area, and wanted to return, which is why his loving father bought him a house to live in back in his hometown.

I found Willie’s revelation to be so creepy in it’s parallel to Ryan’s situation — in both situations, not only did the father own the house, out of love for his son, but the son, didn’t have a job at the time he moved in, and, ultimately, neither one ever landed a job, because neither one ever put any serious effort into looking for one, so the father had to sell the house out from under the son he was trying to help, but to no avail, since the son didn’t seem to want to help himself.

How could both stories be so parallel to each other?

Was there some kind of lesson in being exposed to these two back-to-back stories?

Also, both Ryan and Willie took in boarders to pay bills.

I’ve seen those kinds of households before : there’s something intrinsically cold, lonely, and self-destructive of every one that I’ve seen; and this house was no exception.

In Ryan’s case, his roommate was a woman at least 20 years his senior, and she was only a recent development after we moved in.

In Willie’s case, his room mate was employed as a pizza delivery driver, which is where Willie ended up getting a part-time job, and doing the same thing, which, by itself, wasn’t even close to paying the bills.

Truthfully, Willie also tried his hand at dealing weed. But he hadn’t developed much of a client base, by the time he had to move, so, I really couldn’t see anything he might have done in the pot-dealing department that would have generated enough income to pay for even a fourth of the monthly mortgage payment — plus the other bills!

Unfortunately, for Willie, and his ability to pay the bills of that household, that wasn’t the type of job Willie’s dad had in mind when it came to being able to pay the monthly bills including the typically large bill of a monthly mortgage payment.

Like Ryan’s dad, every month that Willie couldn’t pay the bills in their entirety, Willie’s dad had to similarly write checks to pay his kid’s bills.

That had to have gotten old pretty fast for Willie’s dad.

——— d-The Change : An Arizona Funeral

At one point within the next few months, Willie’s mother succumbed to her cancer and passed away, so he went out to Arizona for his mother’s funeral, and I’m sure, to take of other family matters.

When he returned ( like a month later, since his pizza delivery job wasn’t something he wanted to rush back to ) , his demeanor had changed into a more serious, stern-like attitude about things.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a productive change that would indicate that he was going to take things far more serious from that day forward, but instead was closer to being angry about something he couldn’t change.

He never volunteered the reason for his change in attitude.

——— e-For Sale : By Owner

“But what could he be all worked up about?” I momentarily wondered, guessing that he might be facing a Ryan-like situation where his father is planning to sell the house out from under his son.

Now that his mother was gone, he probably had “no one in his corner” to speak up for him in regards to remaining in the house. Mothers do tend to be more lenient about certain things than fathers in certain situations.

My guess?

As soon as his mother passed, his father probably had “the talk” with Willie :

“Listen, your mother wanted you to stay in that house for as long as possible, but, Willie, I can’t keep writing those checks to keep paying that mortgage.

This is my retirement years, and I shouldn’t be writing for two mortgages, of which one, I’m not residing in. So, I’m selling.”

Like I said, that was just a guess.

But, a month, or so, after his return, I came home to see a For Sale By Owner sign on Willie’s front lawn.

“Here we go again.” I thought silently, shaking my head in disbelief, at the house being sold again in less than two years, or so.

Of course, Willie was over that very night to fill us in on the details.

“Yeah. It Looks like this is it.” he said, with not-too-subtle disappointment in his tone. “My ol’ man’s sellin’ the place.”

“Wow, Willie!” I said, similarly disappointed in one way, but completely unsurprised in another, “What are you gonna end up doin’?”

“It looks like I’m going back to A-Z.” he said, shaking his head. “I wish I had some alternatives, but I don’t.”

I had known the guy for something like two years, or so, at the time, and in that timeframe, like Ryan, I never knew him to have a job.

That’s problematic for me.

Like I said, as much as I liked Willie as a fellow human being, with a pleasant personality, and his benevolence when it came to sharing his personal stash with me, I’m deeply suspicious of people who do not want to work.

I certainly felt happy that Ryan was displaced due to his disgustingly intense laziness; but I was not as pleased to hear the same thing happening to Willie, for the exact same reasons, even though it’s only fair to hold Willie to the same standard.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that I felt it was justified that Willie was losing the house — but I enjoyed rubbing it in Ryan’s face, but didn’t want to do the same to Willie.

But…

I also couldn’t offer him to stay with Traci and I because my theory was :

“If he won’t get a job for his own father, he’s certainly not going to get one for me!”

And, no, I couldn’t stand the thought of someone rubbing their “un-removeable” presence in my face in my own home.

Yes, I’ve had that done to me, not once, but twice! I’m a little gun shy about opening my home to anyone. Period!

You don’t know the nightmare they can become, once they realize you can’t remove them.

So, I had no intention of offering him that “alternative” he was looking for.
In the end, though, he didn’t go southeast to Arizona, but rather north to Canada, to go work for an ( illegal, of course ) indoor grow operation that was operated by some fellow gamers he met online.

——— f-Bon Voyage 1

The evening came when he was leaving for Canada.

He chose to leave in the evening, and not at the top of the morning.

Although he never specified, my guess is that he probably didn’t want to hit morning rush hour traffic, which, in the Chicago area, is so bumper-to-bumper bad, that it’s likely surpassed only by L.A. and New York !

I don’t know that for an empirical fact, but one session of traffic on the inbound Stevenson in the morning, or southbound TriState in the afternoon, and you’ll likely feel empathy for those who engage in road rage : “Yeah. I can kinda see why you might want to kill a driver like that !”

Anyway, there we were standing on the curb, shaking hands, saying goodbye.

Again, it was a heartfelt moment. I really liked Willie.

I just can’t relate to the self-induced “indefinite unemployment” he so passionately embraced.

He had so little in the realm of physical property, that everything he had — everything ! — fit into that car, and the back seat still had some room for boxes if he had needed the space, which he didn’t.

He got into his car, said goodbye, put the car in drive, gave us one last smile, tapped the accelerator pedal, and away he went, down the street, on his way to Canada.

The car he was in was an older four-dour sedan — a larger-sized dark blue Chevy. Impala? Way bigger than a Cavalier or Cobalt. But I don’t think it was a Monte Carlo. Maybe it was. Or a Lumina. Whatever.

In any case, we thought “that was it. Willie’s gone. Time for the new tennants”.

——— g-Side Note : House Became A Rental Unit For The Next Several Years

The guy who bought the property turned around and made the house a rental property, until he sold it to the woman who lives next door to that house, and she’s now using it to house her elderly uncle, who would otherwise be forgotten in the infirmary of a convalescent home, if that’s where he otherwise resided, because he is not, by any means, physically independent enough to reside in a unit designed for relatively self-sufficient people.

He needs care, and she just so happens to be a nurse by occupation, so she does what she can when she gets home from work.

But that house was a rental unit for easily the better part of ten years.

—— 2-Return #2 : He’s Baaack! And Why

It was probably far less than a year later, when I received a text from Willie :

“I’m baaack! I’m living out in Alsip at a friend’s house. I’ll give you a call a little later on in the week.”

And he did.

His friend was his best friend from college, Taylor, who was a paramedic or EMT for one of the local municipalities, but I know it wasn’t Alsip.

In any case, the reason for his call was not strictly social, but rather had a business component to it, as well : he wanted to know if I’d help him score some smoke, since he had a falling out with his connection.

Fortunately, it was about time for me to go out to my friend, Bill’s, and pick up some smoke for myself, so I could kill two birds with one stone, and pick up two bags.

So, from that day on, I also became Willie’s connection.

Of course, when I got to Taylor’s, to drop off their package, I had to ask Willie why he came back again.

The grow operation had to shut down or something like that, and Willie either couldn’t get legal employment ( I don’t know if an American needs something like a work visa to get legally employed in Canada — Willie never brought up those topics ) — or if he didn’t want any, but without the grow operation, he didn’t have a source of income or a place to stay, so he came back home to Illinois .

“I was gonna go home to Arizona,” he began with a disapproving look on his face, “but I don’t really get along with my ol’ man. So, I called Taylor up, to see if he could use a room mate, and, uh, it just so happens that he said, ‘ Yeah’, come on down! So, I did! And here I am!”

He sounded genuinely happy that he had a place to escape to, and didn’t have to go back to Arizona; and I was happy for him that it was all working out for him — and for me, too, in the sense that I now had a built-in “discount” in my expenditures on smoke.

——— a-Five to Seven Years

This new arrangement lasted for about five to seven years, because it started in the early 2010’s and easily lasted to almost late 2010’s. But I did lose count over the years.

Throughout that time I often wondered how Willie was getting away with living there without ever having a full-time job the way that Taylor ( his home-owning friend, who took him in ) did.

There was one run I did for them ( and this had to have been at least three years, or so, of his stay at Taylor’s house ) where by the time I got to Taylor’s house, Willie hadn’t yet returned home from whereever he was at, and it was only Taylor and I there, and we both went into “the room” where he had things set up for everyone to just sit around and get stoned, and listen to the stereo, and what not.

And I’m not sure how I raised the subject, but I somehow got Taylor to say, “Well, I’ve told him on many occasions to just apply online at certain companies that I know are always hiring, but, for whatever fuckin’ reason, he just never does it. I dunno, man. He’s gotta do something and soon! i mean the guy’s got two degrees! There’s no fucking reason in the world that no one would hire him!”

“Two degrees?” I asked, rather impressed.

“Yeah, he was a double major!” Taylor laughed. “I think what happened was, that he had enough credits in his minor, that he could qualify as a double major, or something like that! I dunno. But I know he’s got two degrees! And he won’t get a fuckin’ job! I mean, he gives me money to pay the bills, but he’s not showing any signs of bettering himself enough to move out on his own. I mean, yeah, he took that job at the ice arena, running the Zamboni machine, and only part time at that, but….that’s not a job, ya; know?”

Taylor talked on about that subject, so, I knew that topic had been discussed between them at some point in the past.

I wasn’t aware if those discussions ever got heated. If they had, that would have been a possible indication that something could change at any given moment.

But, I guess, Taylor just wasn’t confrontational enough to issue Willie an ultimatum : “Get a job, or get out!”

A few minutes later, Willie came home, and he entered the room where Taylor and I were smoking a few bong hits.

We weren’t talking about the subject of Willie looking for a full-time job, when he walked into the room, and I had no intention of re-raising the topic once he was there, since I didn’t think there was ever going to be a long-term solution that he was going to proactively propose, himself, and my asking about it right then and there, certainly wasn’t going to serve any positive purposes or expedite him into evaluating his seemingly indefinite residency in Taylor’s ( well, for the time being ) “bachelor pad”.

But unbeknownst to Willie, that was about to change.

——— b-Taylor Gets Married And the Bride Evicts Willie Upon Their Return

Being a paramedic, rolling patients on a gurney into an emergency room every day, Taylor encountered the most beautiful woman in the world in the triage department, and he fell in love with her enough to marry her.

Somewhere on their honeymoon, the bride, no doubt, told the groom, “Uh, Taylor, listen, Sweetie. No, where not going to allow Willie live with us in perpetuity! He’s a grown man, who’s been living with you for what, five, six, seven years, now? And after all this time, he still doesn’t have two nickels to rub together; he still doesn’t even have a bed frame for his mattress and box spring that have been on the floor, since Day One; he’s showing no signs that he ever intends to leave the nest, so to speak!…”

So, when they came home, they had a message for Willie.

But, the way Willie told me the story, it sounded like Willie saw Taylor as betraying him in some way.

Specifically, Taylor, being the non-confrontational person he was, wasn’t the one who told Willie to get out.

His bride did all the talking; but Taylor was standing directly behind her, as she told Willie in no uncertain terms, “you gotta get out tomorrow!”

He had nowhere to go, so he freaked out and called his dad, who said he could come home to Arizona.

By this time, Willie had long since junked the Chevy, and he had inherited his sister’s Ford Escape, which would have been fine for local driving, but he wasn’t convinced that the vehicle would make it all the way out to Arizona.

So, his selfless father agreed to pay to have his vehicle fixed to make it healthy enough to make it to Arizona. All Willie needed now, was a place to stay while his car was in the shop.

So, who does he contact?

You guess it : me.

“Hey, give me a call when you get a chance. I got something important to talk to you about.” read the text message he sent me.

Even though he didn’t use any caps or exclamation points to indicate any kind of urgency to the message, I still somehow sensed this was an important call, and I was right.

I almost didn’t call him back.

But, like I said, I like Willie, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and called him.

——— c-Willie’s Week at My House

Although Willie never did anything to me to indicate that he’d take advantage of me, I could not dismiss the reality that he did seem to take advantage of Taylor — for seven years!

“If he’d do that to his best friend, why wouldn’t he do that to me?” I wondered. “I mean, surely Taylor, who he’s known for decades, means more to him than I do.”

I only worried about that possibility, because of a room mate I had ten years earlier.

After he moved in, he told me the story of how his own brother had to take a motel one night when the cops kicked him out of his own house ( where he’s resided since birth ) , when him and his girlfriend ( who only lived there for two months! ) got into a fight, and when the cops arrived ( someone called them because their yelling was that loud ) he asked the cops to get her to leave because she wasn’t the owner of the house, the cop asked her if she had any proof that she legitimately resided at that address, she showed him a Vogue magazine with her subscription showing her address to be that house, and Rick was forced to leave his house, so she could stay.

Wow! That blew my mind!

If I had any say in that matter, no human who owned a house would have to vacate it in favor of a person who was not the owner.

Don’t get me all worked up!

The point is : my room mate told me that story as an ear bomb to make me realize that there would be nothing I could do to get rid of him, once he had so much as a single piece of mail with his name at my address affixed to it.

That was an odd way to show his appreciation for me taking him in : to let me know I can’t get rid of him even if I wanted to.

You know what they say : “No good deed ever goes unpunished”.

In any case, I wasn’t sure if Willie’s predicament would cause him to do something similar to me, and force me to accept him in my home, with no ability to evict him.

Willie really hated the idea of going back to Arizona that much, that it would not suprise me if he’d go to such an extreme!

I didn’t want him clinging to me in perpetuity, just so he wouldn’t have to grow up and get his own place.

I seriously “white knuckled” it all week, hoping he wasn’t going to pop any surprises on us.

Fortunately, he didn’t.

This would be the second time he launched a long road trip from in front of our house. The first time being, of course, his trip to Canada; and this time, to Arizona.

The last time, I was genuinely sad to see him go, even though I basically agreed with his father to sell the house, given Willie’s non-participation in paying the bills to keep living there.

This time, I was actually relieved to see him go .

Not the same way that wanted to catapult Ryan out of the neighborhood, but I was not totally comfortable providing him with an alternative to moving back to Arizona.

Anyway. There we were, again,standing on the curb, saying our goodbyes, and again, he got into his car, and drove down the street on his way on a another long road trip.

—— 3-Return #3 : He’s Baaack! Again! And Why

Then, about two to three years ago, maybe in 2020 or 2021, I received another text from Willie saying that he’s back again! And that he “misses the fuck out of us “.

Again?

Yep. Again!

This time he texted that he’s “living out in Lynwood”, and essentially said that the two reasons he came back to Illinois was that he didn’t get along with his dad, and Arizona was far more harsh on personal use quantities of cannabis, and none of his packages were personal use sized. .

The latter comment I took to mean that if people get 3 months jail time in Arizona for possession of two ounces of weed, he’d likely get 10 years for the non-personal two pounds he carried around with him at any given moment in time.

It wasn’t worth the risk to get caught dealing in Arizona; but he didn’t know any other way to make a buck — despite having two degrees, or a double major, whatever is more accurate to say.

So, he found someone in Lynnwood to take him in.

Why he texted me I do not know, since I never replied to his text.

For all I know, he could have been in the process of being kicked out of yet another place and was looking for someone else to leech onto again.

I couldn’t risk it.

So, I didn’t reply to his text, and I haven’t heard from him since.

II Pests

— A-Kingdom of the Spiders

—— 1-You’re Never More Than Six Feet From A Spider

You’ve probably heard that factoid that “you’re never more than six feet from a spider”, and I googled it to see if that was true or some urban myth, and there were plenty of links that discuss that topic,

I admit, Im a card-carrying arachnaphobe.

I don’t like spiders one bit, I don’t care how many “factoids” you tell me about their benefit to our environment.

Unfortunately, for those people who inhabit the house next door, they’re going to be encountering some brown recluse spiders, as did two previous tennants : Ryan’s roommate; and Willie, himself.

— B-The Victims

—— 1-Ryan’s Room Mate.

I only met the woman once, but she came over to our house in an emergency capacity.

I can’t remember her name, but I’m going to invent one just to make referring to her a little less cumbersome.

I’ll call her Lilly, since she reminded me a bit of “Lilly Munster” — i.e., a skinny body, with long, straight, black hair. But unlike Lilly Munster’s complexion which was almost powder white, this Lilly had much darker skin.

What happened was, at some point in the previous weeks, Lilly had been bitten on the palm by a brown recluse.

What happened that day was Traci and I were on the porch smoking, and we saw Lilly come out her front door and walk across the lawn directly toward us, holding her right hand out, with her palm facing up, and holding something in her left hand, swinging by her side as she walked.

She had never approached us before, so this was a first for us.

“Hi, I hate to bother you folks, but I was wondering if either one of you could do me a favor?” she asked, with an understandable amount of worry in her tone, as she approached our stairs and explained to us her predicament, “My nurse normally does this, but she just called and told me that she was stuck behind the train down the street, and this thing I’m supposed to do is supposed to be done within 15 minutes of the first step, and she just called and said can’t get here on time, and told me to hold off Step One until she got here, but when she called, it was too late, I already did Step One, and I’m thinkin’, ‘ Now what?’ I was wondering if either one of you could apply this creme to my hand. I know it’s nasty looking, and I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have done this, but I’m kinda in a predicament.”

Fortunately, for Lilly, Traci was present, because if she hadn’t been, I’d likely would have failed Lilly, because to say that I almost passed out would be inaccurate; to say that I wanted to pass out would be far more accurate.

I never saw anything like it.

The venom had literally eaten a hole through her palm all the way down to the bone at the center of her hand.

I never saw any flesh at the wound, but a hole filled with a white puss-like milky fluid built up in the hole, surrounded by what looked like dried blood-covered scab material.

It was an unforgettably disgusting sight.

I quickly learned that my ability to watch blood-and-gore scenes in the genre of horror films ( where people are getting their iimbs or heads twisted off, and watching blood vessels rupture one-by-one and squirting profusely in every direction and tendons ripping away, and bones snapping and tearing through flesh. etc ) without wincing once had not prepared me for the real world of real wounds.

I then realized that I would have never made a good medic in the army, if they sent me to attend the wounds, that soldier’s health would be in serious jeopardy. I would not be the man for that job!

We were suuposed to apply some kind of medicine to the wound, which Traci gladly did..

——–2-Willie, Himself

Yep, Willie, too, got bit.

In his case, he got bit on the inner right thigh , just above the knee cap.

Standing on our porch in shorts, he pointed it out to us one day, and it dawned on me that Lilly got bit, too, and I told him about that story.

It looked like Lilly’s case was not an isolated incident.

“How bad is the spider problem in that house ?” I’ve often wondered from that day forward.

I would never want to accept a gift ( where spiders could hide like tiny Trojan Horses ) from anyone who lived in that house.

I read online about one realestate developer that was being sued because the home he tried to sell was infested with approximately 4,500 Brown Recluse eggs, according to one exterminator’s estimate.

I couldn’t sleep in that house! Even with one eye open.

4,500!

Wow!

That just gives me the creeps!

III Conclusion

Currently, the house is occupied by someone who is not the owner, but is a relative of the owner.

He is a wheelchair-bound senior citizen who I’ve seen only once, very briefly on his front porch, at a distance of about 50 feet, or so .

The woman who owns the house, also has several kids, all grown, and all boys, no girls.

The oldest boys all have their own places.

The two youngest boys have wives and kids but can’t really move into the house since there’s not enough room for everyone with only two bedrooms, and one already being used.

Although the house is way more space than her uncle needs, for himself, there really is no one else that can fill the rest of the space .

It’s quite possible , when he passes, he’ll pass with no one else in the house, and nobody might even realize he’s dead until several hours later, unless she has a video monitor of his bedroom.

I wonder if it’s just a matter of time before he gets bit by a brown recluse spider.

It’s definitely a house of emptiness; and it is the house next door.