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Crazy Neighbor #1 -- The Garbage Bomber

I live in the back half of my building, which is in a row of houses. Outside my windows is a double row of gardens -- for our block and for the next block north -- sort of a green canyon between two cement cliffs of flats.

Now, this green swath is thick with blooming forsythia, lilacs, chestnuts and other shrubs, trees and flowers. But in the winter, it's a wretched wasteland of black twigs punctuated with plastic Tesco bags suppurating garbage. It seems a man who lives in the block opposite likes to pitch his trash off his balcony into his neighbors' gardens.

One day last winter, I found a half-hearted attempt at a Molotov cocktail in our garden one morning -- the shattered remains of a vodka bottle with a paper towel stuffed in the neck. The paper towel had been lit but hadn't burned very well. I suspect the bottle was empty before the bomber threw it.

The landlord says the man also connected to the mafia and warns me not to look up when I'm in the garden. Before I got that warning, I never considered looking up. But now it's like an eclipse -- I know I'm not supposed to look, but ...

posted by Theo @ 8:43 PM