Neighborhood Watch

Recently, I went to another location for work. I was assigned a housing unit in a long term contractor RV park. I don't have an RV, so they put me in a little single wide with a view of the highway and a distant mountain range, and I mostly kept to myself.

Until one day, a woman with unruly, white hair walked by me. She wore spandex biking shorts, and I'm not talking the kind you see influencers wearing on social media. I mean the kind my mom was riding the stationary bike in in 1994. She had on what looked to be a thrifted top, the style in the vein of Arkansas churchwear circa 1970. Lot's of tulle in sepia tones and then some fake pearls stitched to the tulle.

"Hello," she called to me.

"Good morning," I said back.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU," she screamed.

"HIIIIIII," I yelled back.

It was seven in the morning, I was drinking coffee on my little deck, but most of the construction workers in the surrounding RV's were already at work.

"I'M KAREN," she yelled.

I told her my name. She nodded like that was acceptable. "I'm married to Sal."

Sal was the guy who ran the place. Maybe owned it. It was hard to tell.

"Cool," I told her.

"OKAY THEN," she said, nodding again, and shuffling off. "GOD BLESS."

I continued to see Karen when I drank my coffee and looked out over the mountains. We would perform this same conversation, but I would always yell so I didn't get yelled at for talking too softly.

Then one evening my husband was there. We went to a work BBQ and he came back to my single wide before he drove back home, which was a state away.

The next week I saw Karen again.

"I saw you had a man at your house at midnight," she started, by way of greeting.

It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. Her husband had come over to fix the shower at one point, but that had not been at midnight.

"A man..." I said.

"WAS IT YOUR BROTHER?"

I almost laughed, but I did not. Then I remembered when my husband had come to visit for a hot second after the barbecue.

"IT'S FINE YOU HAVING VISITORS. BUT WAS IT YOUR BROTHER?"

"That was my husband," I said.

Today she was wearing teal spandex and more tulle, but this stuff was some shade of pink or off white. She nodded slowly.

"Your husband," she kept nodding. "That's good. God bless."

And then she shuffled past me.

The purity police were on the case.

God bless, indeed.