The Linda Letters by Gabriel O'Sullivan: The wife contemplates murder

15 May 2011

400

R. Linda:

We have a new neighbour, well not so new, I've mentioned him. He's the one who had the Christmas tree trimming party where everyone was to bring an ornament and food to the party. He's a French Canuck and seems a nice guy but he has a drinking problem. He'll even tell you he's an alcoholic and you can say what you will about him, but it's a fact and he seems proud of it he does. Well, you would think living in the UK I be used to people like this, this is not to say the UK be filled to the brim with drinkers, but over the centuries we have learned to drink and drink well. Well, most of us but there always be exceptions.

Here you can spot an intoxicated person straight away with ease, whereas back home, not so much as it be an art form to drink yourself under the table and look not the worst for wear. So back to me neighbour. We had some old rickety steps in the loft I used to get up to me office from and we needed to replace them. Tonya thought to save some space and to make the downstairs look "pretty", we should put in a spiral staircase. Well, these things are pricey and so we have put off doing this until we had the money. We passed up on a holiday and finally bought the stairs, the only problem I had to put them up. Yup.

Anyway, while I was demolishing the stairs, the new neighbour stopped by because he heard all the "banging going on I thought you were bludgeoning the wife or something." I didn't find that funny, but he did. When he saw the stairs, he took a sledgehammer and helped me finish them off. He carted most of the old wood out and thus, we became introduced. Come to find he's out of work and any odd job he can pick up he's all for doing it. So I hired him to help me fix the floor where the stairs had been.

He came extremely early, earlier than I be used to getting up except on work days, and so we got the floor pretty much in shape, but what a price I paid. He drove me crazy and I was half awake. I be a stickler for exact, methodical measurements and he be nervous energy, rush, rush, rush and just eyeball it and that's it. So there was a mental tug of war between us on getting the floor done. Before I had attempted the floor, I had asked him if he'd help me with the stairs when they came (since I have never installed a set of stairs in me life) and of course, yes he said. I couldn't well go back on that once I got to know him, and I have to say I dreaded the arrival of those stairs because I knew, yes I knew, I'd be driven crazy the entire operation and probably be certifiable if I didn't become a murderer first, and me stairs would be a crooked mess. The man be an incessant talker he be, and he never stays still. Makes me a wreck he does with hardly any coffee in me.

But I bucked meself up and gritted me teeth and yesterday, he came over bright and early with me feeling poorly as you know, but we started the stairs. I'd get the level and he'd say "Let me put this rail up a little," and I'd say, "No, it's level, let me drill the hole, just hold it here." And he'd say, "No, it looks too low like that," and I'd say, "But it's level there and it isn't low, if I bring it up it will be off-centre when we go to put that next rail in." At one point, he had gone to get a beer out of me fridge and I had Tonya holding the rail for me as I drilled the hole. He stood there shouting in a merry voice, "Too high, bring it lower," over and over and over again. I told Tonya she was fine not to move or listen to him. She did, but it didn't stop him, he thought he was funny.

Oi, oi, oi! It went like that most of the day and so we didn't get much done. SIGH. So today, he rang me to tell me he'd be a little late and I was happy. He asked me if I'd do him a favour and let his dogs out at 9:30. I did, and later I found out he wasn't at church, he wasn't at an odd job, he was at the bar. He found one opened early on a Sunday no less, I don't know where, I don't want to know, but he had me running down to do doggy duty while he drank! Who does that?

Tonya said she'd help me and we were going great guns when the neighbour arrived three sheets to the wind. The smell of the drink was like a nasty cloud around him. Red Bull and vodka was his drink of choice, and he thought nothing of continuing the liquid binge by visiting me fridge for a beer or two, or three or four until the wife put some coffee on in the hopes of sobering him up, BUT he got the coffee and filled it with Baileys so, so much for that.

He wasn't much help, pretty much stood around watching us as he weaved in place, and when we would get something aligned, I'd tell Tonya to hold it steady and he'd be telling her she moved and it was too high or too low when she wasn't moving at all. She was being nice but I knew she was losing patience with him. Finally, I had to get a drill bit and she sat down at me desk to rest and he squatted next to her and was telling her dirty jokes. Me wife isn't a dirty joke kinda girl, then he was asking her why women's underwear cost more than men's and look at his he said and he pulled his jeans down to show her the Armor waistband and told her his cost $20 to his wife's $30. Then he said his wife was away and he had nothing to do so he'd thought he'd come down and "annoy" Tonya. She in turn reminded him we had "hired" his arse for the day, so get working, which he did. He started vacuuming up metal shavings with her good house vac, not the shop vac that stood plugged in and unused in the corner. She was having a fit and went over and turned on the shop vac to give to him, but he saw this as an opportunity for duelling vacuum cleaners. You might chuckle at that, but it wasn't pretty. She was trying to suck his face off with the suction bar and was near to wrapping the electrical cord around his neck before I stopped her.

OH BOY. Finally, I could tell she was at the end of her rope and suddenly she said to me, "I need a couple of Ibuprofen." And I knew it was an excuse she'd take off and not come back, but that didn't go according to her plan, instead, he followed her to the kitchen, where she got the pills, took them, and then into the living room where she sat down and so did he! I knew this wasn't good, but he was still going at it asking her if Guido was the postman's child because while O'Hare looked like me, Guido didn't and I wanted to not be anywhere in the vicinity of the to-be crime scene.

I don't know what went down, but I, coward that I am, left the house for a stroll outside for some FRESH AIR.

"Hey Gabe, I'm intoxicated, not drunk," he yelled lurching towards me as if we had been having a conversation the whole neighbourhood had to hear.

"Tell a policeman that next time," I said wishing for a cigarette for the first time since I was a kid wanting so bad to try one.

"Hey, you got somethin' to eat?" He said suddenly.

"Eggs? I have eggs. Here let me go heat up the pan." I said walking back inside.

"It's heating up in Japan?" He asked me, right on me heels.

I was perplexed, WHAT? Japan? What were we talking about? So I fried him up some eggs in a pan not from Japan. While he was chowing down the Japanese eggs (I know I'm a prat) I asked Tonya to get me the duct tape so I could wrap all the cardboard boxing up.

"Duck egg? Hey Gabe you got a duck egg in here?"

Again, WHAT? OI!

Tonya wanted to get a small bench for the loft where you can store things. She didn't like the tower I had holding all my disks. So we were discussing this when the drunk pipes up "You can get a bench with a leather look top where you can sit at Home Goods for cheap. Oh, and they had this British waste basket I almost bought for Gabe, hahaha it would look good in his office you should get that too." And he tells her the store is off 101 towards Amherst. That's a trek but she gets in the car and goes, and I be surprised he didn't climb in to go too, because he was looking from her to me like a dog trying to decide who he wanted to be with. I, unfortunately, won. I think it was more of an escape for Tonya. About an hour later I got this phone call from her asking me to ask the drunk where in the store he saw this storage bench and waste bin.

"Tell her all the way at the back, they're near each other."

I did, she told me she's been in the back and even asked the store clerk and they think she's lost her mind or had them mixed up with another store. So I tell him this.

"What store is she at?" Asks he.

"The one in Nashua," she shouts over the phone.

"Nashua? No, Bedford, what is she doing in Nashua?" He is all befuddled with Tonya.

"BECAUSE HE TOLD ME OFF 101 TOWARDS AMHERST!" She shouts.

"I did? Must be the drugs, I meant the OTHER side of Amherst towards Bedford. Tell her there is one in Bedford."

So she went to Bedford, and if she wasn't so pissed off she'd not have bought the storage bench but she bought it to show me what the "Drunk" took for a seating arrangement with storage. Well, R. Linda, it was this thing looked like a giant elongated suitcase. YUP, I have inserted a picture. You sit on it and for sure you'd destroy it. It be flimsy stuff but there is storage. If it ever got wet anything inside would also be destroyed. SIGH. And the waste bin? Oh my God, I have a picture of THAT too. It's a foot tall if that and not appropriate for throwing away even post-a-notes! We might use it to hold ice cubes, I dunno.

Finally, the stairs are in (see photos at end of story). They were a mess. We sheared bolts, lost stuff, improvised and one day I knew I was going to be coming down those stairs and they were going to collapse with me on them. Death by staircase, yup.

So how was your day Mrs. Kennedy, enjoy the parade?