Jesus Freaks Through the Wall: My Neighbors, Part I

Oh the joys of living in the squalid, communal, shared-wall existence known in Baltimore as the row home. As in "I live in a rowhome, hon". And I do, god help me, I do. In some places in my house I can hear every syllable uttered by one of the five kids that Giant Jesus Lover (also know as the White Whale) has sired. He of the giant belly, the balding head, the glasses and the short stature (dude stands about 5 foot 5), has somehow convinced two women to breed with him. First wife he divorced after having three kids with her. Interesting, isn't it, how these holier than thou "christian" types frown on everything the rest of us in the secular world do because it doesn't gibe with their view of the world, which is largely informed, by the way, by a 2,000 year old book, but as soon as they personally need something to extricate themselves from some nasty, little mistake, say, a marriage, then with a wink and a nod suddenly divorce becomes A-OK. What a bunch of idiotic saps.

So White Whale breeds with wife number one and she spews out three urchins that we'll call Peppermint Patty (the oldest girl, named as such since her father has said that she'll be the first girl to play professional football, I think you get the picture), the middle boy is Junior Mint (so named since he's Jr. to his father and he's just a shade minty), and the youngest is the Other Girl (so named because, well, she's so nondescript and boring that coming up with a spayshul name for her just didn't make sense). These three are at their father's house, and therefore at MY house, too, constantly. Who knows, maybe wife number one didn't buy into the whole "Christianity is my life" like her wack-job ex and so is deemed "unfit" to mother by White Whale and wife number two.

Wife number two gets her own paragraph because she's just that...I don't know...colossal. We call her Brunhilda. Picture, if you will, a woman who stands, oh, about 5 foot 8 or 9, weighing in at a cool 275 with a face that would stop a clock and a hank of red hair (are you a natural redhead? EWWWWW), that is in a state of perpetual scowl. Brunhilde is so named because she looks just like she stepped out of the Valkyries, sans horned helmet. A big, brutish woman with a face that was etched into stone from 1,000 years of life picking potatoes in the fields of Lithuania and then pounding them into submission with the same zeal that she pounds her kids and the White Whale into submission. She don't give no-one no slack; our Brunhilda rules the roost with an iron fist and woe be to the man, woman or child that opposes her. She'll smite you, motherfucker.

Brunhilda likes to scream and when she screams in her house she screams in my house. So I get to hear this BITCH'S big, fucking mouth every godforsaken day of my life. What a treat, considering at a conversational pitch it's got that nasal, pinched squawking quality that when given the volume that those Valkyrie lungs can manage, can make your ears bleed. I hear her scream at White Whale's first three and I hear her scream at White Whale, and I hear her scream at her two unholy spawn, namely: Frankenbaby and Big Buford.

Frankenbaby is a freakishly giant three-year old whose steps on the hardwood floor of his upstairs hallway can be heard through a closed door. In my house. Through the wall. Yo, I'm not making ANY of this us up. How could I? I mean, really. Frankenbaby has his father's and mother's giant body, his mother's slitted eyes and round, flat peasant face, and his father's short, stubby legs, plus they've got his blond hair in a Marine buzzcut, which is inexplicably the style around here among the blue collar unwashed who are my neighbors. So basically, this incoherent (Frankenbaby still speaks in gibberish that only Brunhilda can understand) giant thunders around the house and babbles and when he gets a wild hair because one of his slaves (I mean step-siblings) doesn't hop-to-it fast enough to suit him, he opens a mouth and lets out a bellow that can raise the dead. So I get to hear him every day, too.

Big Buford is Frankenbaby's baby sister. I'd say she's just over one year old. Basically she's Frankenbaby with icky, pale brown hair tied into a preposterous Pebbles ponytail on top of her head with a pink ribbon. Thank Christ it's pink, to give people a fighting chance when they try to make a typical gender-based comment: "what a cute, little...girl?". We don't hear all that much from Big Buford yet but I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.

Did I mention that they're Jesus freaks? Did I? They drive a big Chevy Suburban that takes up two parking places on our parking-challenged, little street and they've got that fucking Jesus fish bumper sticker on one side of that big-ass boat of a car and on the other is the ever-so-subtle "She's a Child, Not A Choice". Well guess, what, fuckers: I'd say the jury's out on that just yet. We call that big, obscene vehicle The Jesus Van. It figures, right? I mean, why wouldn't people who are already taking up WAY more than their share of MY air and MY water and MY fucking SPACE on EARTH with their fucking BROOD of cretins, be driving a giant, gas-guzzling, environment-despoiling monstrosity that takes up WAY TOO MUCH ROOM?

In case you haven't noticed, I fucking hate my Jesus-loving, earth-over-populating, giant car driving neighbors who, since I live in a "rowhome, hon", LIVE WITH ME!