Letting Go

Dale Carnegie

Across the street in an empty field of violets
Mr. Nedrow, neighbor, decided to build a split level

Dad said that stupid SOB, when I appealed through tears
Nedrow, white haired, tithed and constructed. No stopping him.

Dad once tried to fist fight him over pine trees planted on our side of the property line
Plus there was the hand gun Nedrow shot the rabbits in his yard with, my field bunnies.

When he built the house his pipes killed a beautiful tree, spruce, on the edge of our view
No sleeping that summer he liked to start a 5 AM with heavy machines

Into the lower lying aluminum sided new house eventually
Moved Mr. Crouse and new third or fourth or fifth wife and son.

They had a dog named Jack that sort of attacked everyone
He looked like Lassie morphing into a wolf, half of both, odd.

(Incidentally that dear dog and I became close friends
But he still attacked everybody else that went onto Roosevelt Street)

The son had a BB gun and some serious "issues" like being mean,
Including a dad that resembled Newt Gingrich, yeah, ugh.

But new "Mom" was really out of place, Cher like looks
Long, Dark hair rather like a model, seemed detached, lonely, in a sun chair.

So what..well in time the son set the house on fire, we remember that day
And shot at people and there were fights, he was really strange, struggling, alone too much.

Kind of interesting to watch sometimes, I spotted that fire and helped,
From my bedroom when I was stuck doing some hiding in there, I looked over.

They got a Siamese, who liked people, I was constantly getting my ladder
Rescuing him when Jack treed it, they gave it to me when they moved.

After Bootsie, my own dear baby Persian died of leukemia,
And at the same moment the Siamese was up that darn tree, (I was destroyed by that loss)

My brother called the Siamese Dowd which was a dumb name I thought
So called it Puddin or just dumbo but I meant well, so unlike a Siamese, a follower.

When I was 16 or so the young mrs left for good,
Mr. Crouse was always gone in Pittsburgh an hour away, training.

She wasn't enjoying the BB antics of a seriously disturbed
Kid and she decided to go find another life, bye.

One day she was gone and I was out getting the mail, wondering about her new life.
You got our mail in a box on the dusty street.

As I pulled it out looking for letters from Peter or maybe cousin Bobby
Mr. Crouse began asking me out "for a drink," I was like...what...coke?

Something about a good drinking place by the wood cutting place, the lumberyard
Maybe I was getting wood to make my canvases, or one of my "art projects" and he saw that?

He knew about it, my building and art, which of course was leading to
"Conversation," I'd say he was 45 and that's just a guess. Blathering on. Enamored.

The absurdity of being asked "for a drink" made me spit laughing
Usual inappropriate laughter. I remember thinking " Jesus" how will I deal with this?

So I politely declined due to pending surgery on my entire body, fled actually,
And ran inside a few times more as he started a campaign, going in to watch out for him from the window and think "Oh no"

Imagine a drink with Newt Gingrich, well he was a Dale Carnegie "trainer," Yes he was.
And worked for IBM. And was raising a kid about 4 years younger than me.

So I told Mom about this and she got really upset, I thought she'd laugh
She had her own huge issues at the time. She was furious and got "worked up".

She got a guy who became my boss a few years later at a bar to go
And "talk to him" which I also watched out my window rather shocked.

So the next time I got the mail it had this death threat in it
A letter telling me that I was "going to die." Really. Scared me profoundly.

It also had a great many details about places I went the week before and said
"I'm always watching where you are." I did not tell my Mom this. Not the contents anyway.

I think fearing her reacting all over, her trauma, or I was so freaked out or who knows
I thought it was Crouse but I don't know maybe not, it might be the kid, or???

Or some other pathological nut in our full of them neighborhood
But it was kind of ruining getting the mail. I think I got a few more letters like it.

Somehow Dale Carnegie and those notes got blended in my mind as one
And so I always have simply detested the Carnegie life outlook stuff.

Well not long after this they moved out, yeah, and another more hilarious
Couple moved in with more to watch out my glass house window.

I missed that dog something terrible, really, I should have gone for that drink
And asked for the dog too, but I was afraid I'd end up wife six having sex, or used.

I really do have trouble turning stuff down, and I had no idea how to cope then.
And figuring out ways to extricate myself never worked out.

The next couple of neighbors were faculty of the university
From India, when it snowed the husband ordered the wife to shovel, we saw it.

He sat in the car the driveway went up a kind of incline it was huge and she was tiny.
And he sat in the car revving the engine like a raja. Well Dad said that actually.

A job my dad did for us even after divorce actually, oddly, was shovel our snow.
He certainly never expected a woman to do it. He was awful but a little gallant truth be told.

The father drove out the garage, without shoveling done, and drove the car into a 15 inch snowfall one day.
Grinding the car so much he burned out the motor, dead.

My Dad shoveled him out the next snowfall, this right before he split
My parents divorced, and Dad called that guy a lazy SOB

I peeked at this happening all through my teens between the boughs
Of a beautiful dogwood and mulberry outside my window. Hoping for a way out.

I still think of Dale Carnegie as this insistent guy, Crouse on a mission, making me embarrassed and like a battery operated bunny running.
Determined to get this kid out "for a drink," by appealing to everything.

And in the process of using the "win them over" techniques he had,
Getting his jollies, it's an indelible stain for me, oh yuck, yuck, yuck.