Neighbors. Everybody needs good neighbors.

That's when good neighbors ... become ... good ... friends.

Those are the lyrics to an Australian soap opera that played daily in Britain when I was studying there. I did not need to watch this soap to learn too much about it. Really, it was interesting to live in an entire country where the goings on of a soap or two were actually significant. Compare and contrast to the U.S., where soaps haven't been significant in even the trashy media since "Dynasty." In England, it's pronounced "dinnestie."

But back to neighbors. I was going up the stairs to my pied a terre (is it possible to have a pied a terre on the fourth floor? What is a pied a terre anyway?) when my weird neighbor and I almost walked into each other. She was, of course, talking to herself. She was saying "Terminate! Terminate the money handouts!" while stabbing her finger in the air. Her other hand was occupied with a Sprite bottle wrapped up in a plastic bag. It occurs to me that such a clear example of the benefits of handouts should either refrain from inveighing against them *or* has had this told to her.

Anyway, I was reminded that I was going to talk about more of my weird past neighbors. I swear to God I have had more than my rightful share. Or else everyone in this world is bonkers and I'm the last to notice. After all, didn't the Osbornes throw a ham over the fence to irritate neighbors that *they* found too outre?

When I last left you, I was going to tell a tale not necessarily of neighbors but a strange occurance in the apartment complex I lived in in Hillcrest in Little Rock. This is a really pleasant neighborhood; shady trees, sidewalks, mixed use street nearby — basically the kind of place that is not being built anywhere else in Little Rock or its excessively huge sprawl.

I was much younger then. I was going to get lunch at my place, then go back to work and wait for the Arkansas Stocks to roll in.

I was pulling into the driveway when, from the apartment next to mine, about fifteen — I am not kidding you — gangsta youth come out of the door and pile into three custom hoopties. There was a single adult with them, a big black dude with a light colored suit. He had a Nation-of-Islam kind of air about him, although maybe because he was big, bald and suited and carrying some kind of clipboardy/notebooky thing that threw me off.

I just sat there in my car, watching bball jersey, cornrowed, doo-rag'd, gold-fronted young boy after another file out of the apartment like they were on a mission. I was like, was there a meeting in there? What sort of meeting?

I still have no idea what was going on, but I never saw them again. Of course, I rarely went home from work for lunch, so I got the feeling that maybe other stuff was going on there while I was gone. That apartment was later rented to Wanda. She is so special I have to be in a special writing mood to talk about her.

Since I'm not sure what was up with those "neighbors" I'll relate a story about Harvey, the nice but extremely tiny gay guy who lived with his boyfriend on the other side of the apartment building.

Now, just because someone is gay in Arkansas does not mean they are sophisticated. No! He or she is probably a big-ass redneck. So it was with this guy and his boyfriend.

It turns out the tiny man's boyfriend, who I never met, was kind of a drunk. Actually, they both were, but the tiny one was the only one that ever talked to me. He was apparently in an abusive relationship and, According to Wanda, one time he and his larger lover were having a fight right out in the parking lot and the complex called the cops, who got there just as the bigger dude clocked the little one, who rolled down the short but steep hill that made up the street access.

If I had seen that I would have beat the bejeezus out of the bigger guy.

See, I was in Arkansas, and under prolonged contact with rednecks, you become one of them. I don't know if this is true of other tribes — what's that Vonnegut word? Klepf? Grok? The word for tribe — but I'm not willing to test it out with gamers, fundamentalists or libertarians.