The neighbour is up again. He likes to sit on his back porch and smoke Camel cigarettes and sneakily peer over the fence into my kitchen. I catch his gaze every so often but pretend not to do so; I know I should be outraged by such a breach of privacy but for some unfathomable reason I'm not.
He must be close to seventy. When I first moved in we would strike up friendly conversations when we chanced upon one another in our driveways; he served as a Marine in Vietnam, he has two kids who he never sees, his Wife of forty five years died last August. He rarely gets out these days and his health is degenerating at an increasingly rapid rate. He is an earthy guy, raw but gentle, certainly no threat, and he has obviously known a great deal of pain in his life. I liked him; there was a fatalistic sadness about the way he spoke that managed to maintain dignity without requiring sympathy.
But we haven't spoken in weeks, and our only contact has been of the unspoken variety as he peers through my window. It is an unusual development, and to be honest, I am trying to not think too much about it lest I get the creeps. Because it gives me a certain sense of excitement, a certain tingle of anticipation that when I pass that one spot in my house I am on display and that there is someone who is interested enough to be watching me. My entire house is sacred space and my own private castle where I am safe, and I make sure of that, but in that one section I am in the spotlight and on centre stage.
