The Big Cone

This was quite some guy…

Back in the day, not long after my first wife and I separated, I found myself rebuilding my life again. I was on great terms with her parents, and they offered me a temporary home at their farm, a fifteen-minute drive from our former home.

To help us both out during this difficult time, they outlined a plan — they would purchase our home, my wife would move to a rental property in the same town to start her own life, and I would move back into our former home, as their tenant.

To some this might raise red flags, but, after thinking this through, I saw this as an opportunity to start again, and I knew my landlords, who had extended a kind hand during this difficult time. They still referred to me as family.

After wading through a mountain of mortgage paperwork and numerous visits to a friendly home finance manager, my in-laws (I still referred to them as this) breathed a sigh of relief when my ex-wife’s and my home loan was converted to their new investment property loan. They became the proud owners of a profitable tax deduction and I again became a tenant.

The next move was to move my remaining belongings back into my new/former home.

The Rebuild

I was soon settled into the home, which now had a different atmosphere now that it was home to myself only. First on the Rebuilding Mark list was rebuilding my list of friends, as most of the people that I knew were either her friends (who now found seeing me awkward after the separation) or her relatives.

I still went to our Lutheran Church regularly (she had left this to go to a more “progressive” type of church), and after chatting with some friendly faces, found myself in a singles group. I soon made friends with two guys who were in a similar situation to me.

One was a rather friendly type who owned a spring (drinking) water delivery franchise, and the other was a large, surly guy who, while also friendly, seemed to have a lot on his mind (I have shared his story in my article “The Sounding Board, and How it led to a Toxic Friendship”).

The next step was to find a co-tenant to enable me to halve my rental expense and free up cash. This would also enable me to embark on another project: Rebuild Mark’s finances.

After a quick financial discussion with my in-laws/land-parents, this was put into place, and I scouted the local papers for someone suitable, with a suitable income and a non-existent police record.

I thus temporarily became a rental agent, scrutinising potential lodgers for any signs of dodginess.

I was mulling over applications early one Thursday night when there was a knock on the door.

When I opened it, I was greeted by two young men. One looked a bit like this,

but without the smile. The other was younger, quite skinny, and had hair.

The intimidating one then did all the talking, informing me that the other one was his younger brother, Damian*, who was looking for a place to rent, and while he did not have references or even a rental bond yet, he was looking to move in the next weekend. He said that Damian was working full-time for his concrete pouring business, and affording the rent would not be a problem. He would also provide a reference.

I thought about it and said that it would be fine, but that Damian would have to provide a small deposit first, to secure the rental. What was left of any smile quickly disappeared from Damian’s brother’s face, and a chill spread over the entrance to my home.

Then, quickly, he agreed, and I internally breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that any risk of bone damage to me was disappearing.

The next day, the deposit appeared in my bank account, and the next weekend paperwork was rapidly completed and I had a co-tenant.

The New Neighbours

One of the first things I noticed about the neighbourhood after I began my new life there was that many of the previous neighbours had been replaced by new ones.

While the neighbour on the uphill side, Eric, was still there, I found myself living next door to a rather eccentric woman on the other. She initially was quite friendly (“Hi, I’m Bev, it’s great to meet you”), this quickly changed to conflict when I accidentally mowed over one of her melaleuca seedlings along the border of our properties one sunny Saturday morning.

I quickly went to a nursery to buy her another, and left it by her front door with an apologetic note, as she was not home at the time. That afternoon, she appeared at my front door, quite red and irate, with the remains of the seedling in hand “Hi, I’m Bev” changed to “my melaleucas!”. It soon became North Korea and South Korea after that.

The couple who had lived directly opposite with their young daughter had moved to their new home, and a kind elderly couple had taken their place. As my lawn mower did not venture near their gardens, no potential issue arose.

The house diagonally opposite had been occupied by anywhere between four and fourteen young women, and occasionally their (occasional) boyfriends. This arrangement resulted in many high-powered assets parked up and down the street, with their capabilities explored during the wee hours, usually leaving residual parallel markings behind.

This residence was regularly converted to Club le Debauchery, even on working nights.

When my first wife and I lived there, we knew that this house was owned by a rather tight German gentleman and his wife, who also owned a successful local electrical business. By tight, I mean that the tenants who had previously rented this property, the daughter and son-in-law of one of my best friends, found their rental bond reduced to nil by this landlord, who used all his powers to invent carpet stains and wall scratches to achieve this. The daughter then had to restrain her husband, who was keen on performing cranial surgery on this guy.

Thus, we knew that it wouldn’t be long before it was the German, not the police (who were regular guests at this residence), who would restore the tranquility of the suburban street. I wondered if the German would be owed money by the adventurous female tenants after their bond was destroyed.

When I moved back, the party house was vacant…

Conan

It wasn’t long before a new tenant moved in, introducing himself to Damian and me as Dennis*.

He was a very friendly man, in his early thirties, who had two small children, an equally-friendly boy, and a girl. I had my children over at my home every second weekend (as per my custody agreement), but was puzzled as to why Dennis had his children all the time.

As I got to know him better, he explained that he had sole custody as his ex-wife was addicted to hard drugs, to the extent that he had to take her to the Family Court to achieve this. He was concerned not only for their safety but also for their future.

He also said that he still loved her despite this, and had given her money to buy kitchen appliances. Unfortunately, this cash soon disappeared to support her habit, leaving her without a refrigerator and any other household appliance that was not cemented in.

It wasn’t long before my new church friends also met Dennis, and we soon became strong friends, having many get-togethers at his home and mine.

We soon found that while Dennis was a responsible, protective father to his children, he also had some interesting “hobbies”. One of these resulted in a nickname that me and my new friends bestowed upon him: Conan.

He thought that this was a result of him looking like a character from one of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s earlier movies, but no, it was a result of him having a tendency to be rather partial to one of these:

Maybe an apt description was “Conan on”, which he tended to do after the children were asleep…

He was also a fan of ’90s horror movies, with his favourites being Scream and Scream II. My two children from my first marriage, quite young and impressionable at the time, were introduced to these gems by his children, and still remind me of them to this day.

We often wondered how a great dad, with a penchant for the cone, could be so responsible, maintain a neat, clean home, and have a long-standing career working in maintenance for a lift truck company. But one steamy summer night, we found out how much the bubbly innards of the cone can affect the workings of the innards of the human cranium.

Damian, my two friends, and I were at my place, watching that summer Australian sport, one-day cricket when we heard a fidgety sound at the front door. Soon afterward, the door knob started turning erratically.

I walked over, and there was Dennis, coned beyond recognition, his outstretched right hand about 5 centimetres from the doorknob, attempting to turn it. “hi, mate, looks like I missed”, he gurgled, with a crooked grin.

In Conclusion

As time went on, I moved out of my former home to start a new relationship and lost contact with Dennis (Conan).

Many years afterward, I was working at an Adelaide Hills branch of one of Australia’s major banks, when I noticed a vaguely familiar young man at the counter. He looked at me, and said “You are Mark, aren’t you?” I immediately recognised him as Dennis’s son, and replied “Yes, I am, how is your father?”. He replied, “Good, he still remembers you”.

I wondered if he still remembers the door knob that got away…

*Not their real names

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