When I first purchased my house I paid no attention to the people who lived next door, across the street or in any part of the local area. I have always shunned neighbours; perhaps living in public housing growing up caused me to be scarred for my life when it comes to “knowing your neighbours”. This is partly due to the fact they were more often than not the local drug lord or just out on bail for a serious crime so it paid to stay within the confines of ones own home. So therefore after forking out a large wad of cash for my home I had no intention of it becoming my own personal prison because I was forced to never leave in case one of the neighbours spotted me and wanted “a chat”. Or as was the case in public housing a fist fight over some money they insisted you owed or perhaps didn’t owe, but hey they were bored so why not cause blood to piss from your head, they had no teeth so why should you. So it came as a shock when the neighbour across the road not long after we moved in stopped and had a "friendly chat" with me, you know all, "how are you" and "how are you settling in", blah, blah, blah. I of course nodded attentively and tried not to look like I wanted to run off and enter the sanctury of my front door.
Then he asked me if I had noticed my neighbour who lived directly opposite, I said I hadn’t and he assured me I would be intrigued by this man. Why I uttered to him. “Well he is a bit odd, he replied” I thought that was a big thing for him to say given the fact I am far from normal, oh god he has worked me out and will soon burn crosses in front of my house. So I just said I would keep a keen eye out for him and that was the end of that. So over the course of the next say three years I kept a keen eye out for my neighbour across the road and I never set eyes upon him. Of course it became quite the obsession in the end. So I eventually ended up naming my mysterious neighbour, Boo Radley. Of course though I had not yet eye balled him I most certainly had done some detective work trying to find out as much as I could about him.
My first Boo intrigue came when my flat mate Peter told me about how at 4:30am after his alarm had gone off every weekday morning he heard the distinct sound of footsteps walking or somewhat clomping past his window which faced the street. Every morning like clockwork the footsteps went by, and he believed they belonged to Boo as he had seen the top of his head drift past his window. I might point out at this stage that Peter and every one else had already seen Boo, everyone expect for me. So he had a positive id of Boo and I wanted to see him. So over the course of a few months, when I could be bothered to wake up at 4:30am I would get up and wait for Boo to leave his home.
The first night I saw Boo emerge from the shadows of pre dawn dusk I almost screamed with excitement. There he was, as real as real and in the dark he scampered up the street somewhat like a hermit. His look was extraordinary. He was an elderly man, probably in his late 60’s, standing at a mere 5”1 tall with a very slight frame, so much so that in subsequent blogs on this subject I will tell of the day he nearly was blown away because he is so slim but his dress sense was the thing I was most intrigued by. He always wore a red/claret coloured short bobbed wig with purple polyester flared pants and a purple flowery polyester shirt with large lapels and the buttons undone to show off a large amount of gold chains which hung down around his open bared chest strangely the chains were weighed down with large gold dollar signs.
Without doubt though the best part of his ensemble was the terribly high purple platform shoes which were definitely circa issue 1969. He looked like he may be heading home from a night at Studio 54 but had missed the bus home and was arriving 25 years too late. So I watched this curious creature of the night travel up the street as often as my body allowed me to get up at 4:30am, but I was desperate to know more and most importantly see him in broad daylight…
Stay tuned boppers, Stay tuned….
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