The Saga Continues

While I wouldn’t call my summer epic, it has been very busy. First it was the birth of my new nephew. Then, 3 weeks later, my new niece. Following that, my 87-year-old Grandmother fell and broke her femur. Compound that with my Mother In Law’s 70th birthday celebration…our 1 year wedding anniversary, creative projects, working on the second draft of my book, the knowledge that I quit my job 7 months prior to the summer starting and me still dwelling on that. Not to mention all the things that consume my attention that are happening in the news… and of course the drama happening in my neighborhood, I’ll get to that.

A few years ago my, then, fiancé and I decided to rescue a dog…one dog…we ended up going home with two… and one foster-rescue later, three. We have three dogs. We are now on a self imposed banned from fostering or rescuing for the foreseeable future. Our three best friends are a handful, not to us, we have a routine, but to someone else, it can appear overwhelming. And since we cannot board them, based on their complete disinterest in doggie hotels, the fact that one has cancer (Pickles), and the feeling that I am failing as a parent if I don’t let my dogs stay in their home while I travel, well, it’s been a thing. So, we face the task most pet owners face, we have to find house sitters for when we leave town – free house sitters, since Pickles’ cancer costs us a small fortune. And with the number of events happening to our small family (see first paragraph) none of whom live in the same state as us, or each other, means, this summer has been - exhausting.

Fortunately, we have a house. Most folks here in Los Angeles live in apartments. Which means, we have a free-no-coins-needed washer and dryer, a yard, a porch that was built for sitting, reading and enjoying cocktails and we always keep a bottle of bubbly in the fridge for anyone who stops by, spends the night or housesits! Our dogs will give anyone that stays for more than a night the royal treatment - love, affection, doe eyes, it can be a bit over the top in my opinion, but they are conniving street rescues. What do you expect? Overall, if you stay at our house you get the full puppy pampered treatment. So…

First, I went to Detroit alone to tend to my Grandmother’s fall – FYI, it’s been like 3 months and Grandma’s back to driving. As soon as I returned, Jason, my husband, went to New York to attend the birth of our nephew…and change a diaper or two. Up next we celebrated our one-year anniversary, here, in L.A. working, but when you love what you do…scratch that, Hawaii would have been better. Yes, that’s what happens when you’re a grown up, people. You work on your anniversaries and birthdays…sometimes. Then came our first joint trip to Michigan to see our new niece. And here we posted our first advertisement to our friends for a dog sitter/house sitter. We got so lucky. First try! Our lovely friend, recently acquainted with the doggie rescue world as a volunteer, agreed to stay and watch the pups for a long weekend. Aside from a small house alarm error (which cost me 30 minutes of online alarm school – easy and free) the weekend went off without a hitch! All four residents of Chez Stickle-Beeber were content. The temporary Master of the home was happy to do laundry in solidarity versus spending those hours with every Tom, Dick, and Harry at the corner laundry-mart and our pups adored her affection...sometimes I think my dogs have evil intentions, but it turns out they aren’t into the soul buying business, they actually do just love to be loved. Well, Jason and I made it home to find gourmet ice cream as a welcome home gift in our fridge. That’s correct, you read correctly. We were rewarded for leaving. Our dogs must have really won over our house sitter because we received the most amazing gift you have ever tried lemon curd, specoolous cookie ice cream. There are no words to describe this magic. But it did leave me feeling far more confident for the upcoming week long 70th birthday extravaganza in Nantucket.

For our Nantucket adventure we had an adorable family of three coming to stay with our pups. A full house, mom, dad, baby and three mutts, easy like Sunday. Right? Everybody was snuggled in – the bedroom looking a little cramped, but cozy and we were off.

We arrived in Nantucket 12 hours, one car, two planes, and a cabbie later. Eastern time threw us into a small bit of jetlag since we came from the West Coast. Which is what made the early morning text message so much more alarming. Oh, that’s right, there was a text message.

TEXT #1 from our dear neighbor and friends:

“The neighbor set his goons on us! Our rental car’s windows & door were smashed in last night & the neighbor told us to “watch what we’re saying outside.”

Well, if that’s not the best way to start a trip, then maybe having your M-I-L imply that you’re “fat” is? Which would you rather hear more about? The neighbor and the goons, right? Me too. Because honestly, everyone’s got a M-I-L and nobody cares if you’re really fat or just a size small. So, before we could respond we immediately got a follow up text.

Text #2 from our dear neighbor and friends:

“May we please get in touch with your house-sitter? We’d like to look at your camera footage before going to the police station and filing a report.”

If I could make this story up, here’s what I would do. First I’d make these text messages way more dramatic and entertaining. I'd send them with a 911 emergency button. I would embellish... a lot. Alas, I am not making this up and as I stood staring wide eyed at my husband – speaking in silent code so the rest of his family couldn’t hear us, we don’t want them to think or know we live in a neighborhood that has it’s share of less than savory antics – we knew we couldn’t postpone it till we got home a week later. We were definitely going to have to call our house sitters and tell them what was going on and ask them if they minded our neighbor coming in and watching the tape. But it just wasn’t that easy. First we had to think of a way to make it light, ya know, the whole thing about the fact that while they were sleeping a lunatic smashed in the neighbor’s car window and door… like right outside our house…where you, your family – baby, and cars are staying. And with a dramatic deep breath, I made my husband call. That’s what marriage is. Now, without so much as flinching (or maybe they did and we couldn’t see it) or gasping, our house sitters adamantly insisted and agreed, “Yes, please of course send them over.” And that’s when the story revealed itself.

Now, we don’t have all the answers yet, so we can only make educated guesses, speculate, and have moments of flash anger, but I’ll explain what the tapes revealed after a little more history on the residents of Happy Street…

If you didn’t read my first blog (When You Can’t Win) you should, just for a little more history. And no, this epic tale is not about Disgruntled Neighbor this time. No, this one is about PTSD VIETNAM VET neighbor. The one whose truck was torched outside my house, along with 3 subsequent arson attacks to his other cars and garage. PTSD VIETNAM VET has been a 20+ year resident of Happy Street. He and his wife are in their early 60s/late 50s. They keep a tidy home and a tidier lawn. He is a “preacher” at his church, the church of Jehovah and a retired bus driver. She is a wife and possibly retired, factory worker. They are true salt of the earth, blue collar, working folk and I appreciate that more than anything. Both previously married, this is the second marriage for them both and it seems they were meant to be together. PTSD VIETNAM VET has two sons from his first marriage, they are both men, in their mid to late 30s and have little to no relationship with PTSD VIETNAM VET. The only son anyone has ever met is the son that has a severe and unfortunate addiction to meth. Meth son comes around when he’s looking for money or help, and let’s be honest, to a meth addict help means money for drugs. He’s definitely not looking for food, shelter or sobriety from the minimal amount of information I have or have seen. The peculiar thing I’ll point out, is that one block over on Ave. 99, there is a flophouse for meth heads. The house was foreclosed on and sold and because of squatter laws in California, it will take months before the police can get the “floppers” out. I wonder if this is where PTSD VIETNAM VET’s son lives. I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s rare you see the meth addicts. Super rare. I’ve walked by the house so many times on the Neighborhood Watch walks and all you can hear is music being blasted out every window. It’s frightening and sad and while my heart may bleed for the ill inside, these are actually violent, angry addicts who are dealers, were dealers, gang members, were gang members and possibly more. I may want to change the world and you may think you want to change the world, but wanting, saying, and being capable of doing are all very different things. This is not what this story is about. I will refrain from making judgments on the ill. This story is about the possibility of a cover up, a lie, and the victims of these lies.

PTSD VIETNAM VET asked Jason (my husband) if he could install extra security cameras at his house for him – of course we could. Additionally, since we live directly across the street, PTSD VIETNAM VET bought an extra camera and asked if we would put it up at our home in the direction of his property – giving one more view and attempt to catch the culprit. Of course we did. After four arson attacks we just didn’t want anything worse or more to happen to anyone. And it became clear, since no one else was attacked with attempted arson, that PTSD VIETNAM VET was being targeted. He told everyone at the police station, at the councilman’s office, at the neighborhood watch meetings, that it was gang members and meth heads from the Ave. 99 home who were being “paid” to attack him by the retired, 86 year old gang boss that lived two doors down from us. If only fiction were this entertaining… am I right?

We live in a country that says you are innocent until proven guilty. I believe in that. We all should. And it is the reason why I discussed with PTSD VIETNAM VET that he shouldn’t be making accusations without any basis or merit to them. But he insisted…and insisted…and insisted and I was pulled in many directions. With one neighbor pleading his innocence and infuriated by the presumption of a lunatic - PTSD VIETNAM VET - and also by, now labeled lunatic, PTSD VIETNAM VET and his unarguable fear. Until the night the car window of our dear Neighbor and Friends was smashed in.

It revealed on our security cam, the same hooded sweatshirt figure from the arson attempts, but the difference now, is we saw his face, in profile. And we had him recorded for 20 minutes. Long enough to see him. Long enough to watch him pull out his cell phone, call his father - PTSD VIETNAM VET (yup, big reveal!), watch his father come out and have a conversation with him at 5:00 a.m. and long enough to watch them argue, until finally, his father, PTSD VIETNAM VET, marches back in the house and shuts off the lights.

I know what you’re thinking, are you EFFING kidding me? And no, I’m not. Conveniently, when asked for his recorded footage of his cameras from that night, PTSD VIETNAM VET has 20 minutes of uninterrupted snow. No recording. All the footage is there prior to the altercation and all the footage is there after, but none of the 20 minutes in between.

Well, no one knows the address of the hooded sweatshirt, meth addict. PTSD VIETNAM VET swears to Jehovah it’s not his son, and when confronted with the footage from our camera denies he knows the fella and has no reason why he was talking to him or why he was there in the middle of the night. PTSD VIETNAM VET says he was afraid of the individual, but yet he never called the police.

It’s all still fuzzy, but we will get to the bottom of this mystery… stay tuned my friends, stay tuned…

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