RACE — A QUESTION

Is My Neighbor a Crazy Racist or Am I Overreacting?

What do I do now?

It started innocently enough.

As part of my ongoing downsizing, I was cleaning out my storage shed. My intention, sell a large rolling tool cabinet and all the useless tools in it. Ditto for a circular saw I never use.

I was hauling both to the front of my house when I spied my neighbor walking about 50 feet away.

“Hey neighbor” I called out “You’re a tool guy aren’t you? I always see you working on your car. Is any of this stuff useful to you?”

“I haven’t even put the for sale signs on this stuff , but $70 takes it all away.”

We happily settled on $60 and my neighbor began to get acquainted with his bargains. In the midst of all this, intros were made, and names promptly forgotten, as is often the case on first meetings, fist bumps exchanged and a few remarks made. I learned for example that my tool-guy neighbor used to build houses with his dad. Figures, he’s a tool guy.

He’s also a white guy, like me, and we’re about the same age. But, unlike me, he owns a late-model Cadillac, a bright and shiny fancy one and a massive jet black, gleaming lifted dually truck. Every time I pass it the same word enters my head, MEAN! Maybe it’s the truck’s size, the fact that it crouches well above my head, lifted unnaturally high as it is. Maybe it’s the six huge studded tires or the enormous wrench welded to the grill for no good reason. Maybe it’s the four-inch spiked lug nuts that affix the tires to the truck. It just looks menacing to me.

Then there’s the matter of my neighbor’s two bikes. One’s a hog and every time he starts the Harley it startles me. He revs it for a good five minutes before blasting off down the street, country music, the real twangy kind, blaring.

He’s also fond of black boots, old Levis, leather vests and black tee shirts with motorcycle club emblems on them.

Nice guy while buying my tools, but definitely a different vibe from mine.

Back to our get-to-know-you conversation.

“Who was that woman I saw at your place a few days ago” he says right in the middle of things.

There’s no heat to the question. It’s said with the same even tone of the rest of our chat. Like “nice day if it don’t rain.” He doesn’t even look up as he asks it. His question slides by innocently.

I answer in just the same manner. Especially since I don’t really know who he’s referring to. Not that swarms of women stop by my place to chat, but I’m not a hermit either.”

“It could have been another neighbor. It might have been my sister. Could have been my girlfriend. I don’t really remember or know.”

At one point I asked “Did she have dark hair?” My attempt to be helpful and friendly.

He let it drop without getting an answer. Then he went happily on his way and I returned to my shed clean up.

I saw him later that day. We said “hi, how’s it going?” to one another. I think another pleasant normal sentence or two passed between us.

Then I forgot about the encounters for several days.

My girlfriend is an absolutely delightful human being, warm and friendly with a calm easy-going manner. She’s also five feet four inches tall, way cuter than I deserve and looks like she needs help getting stuck lids off of jars. She does.

She’s also Chinese.

“Some of your neighbors aren’t very friendly” she said to me the other day.

“Yeah I know” I replied. “Some seem to lack basic social skills. Even when I smile and wave about half of them don’t return the favor. I think the pandemic has drained the last ounce of humanity out of some of them.”

“But what do you mean though?” I asked. “Did something happen?”

“No, just when I drive past that house on the corner, if the guy’s out front he just looks at me” she said.

“You mean the guy with the Harley and the big black truck?”

“Yes, that guy.”

So now I’ve got a thought niggling my brain, several in fact.

I’d like to think that my tool-guy neighbor is just that, a tool-guy with some loud and large vehicles who likes country music, boots and blue jeans. Different than me, but decent. There are plenty of people like that. Different than me, but decent.

But …

Here’s the persistent, uncomfortable, series of issues poking at me.

I’m a Jewish guy with a Chinese girlfriend. She’s here all the time.

My sister and her husband long ago adopted a girl from China. She’s a teenager now. They stop by from time to time.

My son is bi-racial. His mom is Black. My son’s girlfriend is bi-racial as well. Mom, Mexican and Dad, Black. My son and his girlfriend visit occasionally.

Shortly, I’ll be gone for a week. While I’m away, two thirty-six-year-old Black friends of mine and my son will be staying at my place for a couple of days. They need a few days to chill. Their lives have been Hell lately.

I’m tall and these two guys tower over me, one taller than the other. When they’re together in an elevator, there’s barely room for me in the cab. They’re friendly as the day is long, with big booming laughs and easy natures but they’re HUGE.

So, what happens next?

Do I return from my trip to find that my two friends have been arrested, or worse, for simply living while Black? Does my girlfriend have a miserable conversation with my tool-buying neighbor? Does my sister and her daughter? What about my son and his girlfriend?

Or is this all nothing?

Truly hateful that I have to consider any of this, and so seriously, so very seriously.

For now, I’m holding on, hoping for the best, but prepared to face the worst.