Swearing Man
It was a nice slow quiet week this week. No car bombs or drunken fistfights going on down the road. No police chases thought our park, no new car stereos tested at two in the morning. No parties down at the sandbar or by the quarry. Sometimes that kind of quiet is all about peace and tranquility, and sometimes the quiet is in a weird light like the sky before a thunderstorm.
Last night Swearing Man was back.
He only seems to come by in the summer months. I don’t know if this is because he doesn’t have a good raincoat or if he has use of a car from November to April or what. But when the nights get warmer Swearing Man takes walks down our road.
“GOD DAMM YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!” “You fucking motherfuckers!” He screams at the top of his lungs. “You fucking bastard cocksuckers! You fucking bitches can go FUCK yourselves!” He yells as he walks off down the street. This is almost always between one and three in the morning, when usually nothing short of a bottle-rocket breaking your kitchen window and exploding in the sink of dirty dishes can wake you up. It’s mostly on the weekends and he’s always on the move.
I haven’t figured out if he starts swearing right outside our bedroom window or if that’s just when it gets loud enough to wake me up. And let me just say that “wake me up” is a gentle way to say “jumping a foot into the air and having a freaking heart attack”.
For those of you who have never experienced being roused out of bed from a deep sleep by a stranger insanely shouting expletives right outside your bedroom window it feels something like this. You just had a dream where you’ve fallen from a high building and before you hit the ground, in a sweaty panic, someone starts screaming that you’re a goddamn motherfucker and then you wake up. As you lie there with your heart pounding and your adrenaline racing through your system, you try to assess what part of that last bit was a dream and what was real. You feel your pillow under your head, then the bed and just as you’re calming down a bit cause you’re not dead, but before you realize the “goddamn motherfucker” WAS real, you hear “YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU FUCKING BASTARD COCKSUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS!” And your head hits the roof of the Airstream.
I’ve never even seen Swearing Man. By the time I’ve gathered my wits about me he’s gone off down the road. You can hear his swearing getting fainter and fainter as he makes his way home, or goes to find his drinking buddies, or maybe to just finally find that person who did him so wrong all those years ago and set things right.
I have fantasies where I get my ass out of bed and chase him down and stuff a sock in his mouth, but those are always in the morning after I’ve had my cup of coffee. I’m far too sideways both physically and mentally at two in the morning to move fast enough to even get a glimpse of what he looks like, much less getting my finger bit off in some sock-stuffing escapade.
Beside, like the wind rustling though the new leaves on the birch trees or the smell of warm rain and fresh cut grass, Swearing Man is becoming, in his own way, another little sign from the universe that the days are getting longer and before we know it, summer will have arrived. I just wish it were a little easier on my heart.
Last night Swearing Man was back.
He only seems to come by in the summer months. I don’t know if this is because he doesn’t have a good raincoat or if he has use of a car from November to April or what. But when the nights get warmer Swearing Man takes walks down our road.
“GOD DAMM YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!” “You fucking motherfuckers!” He screams at the top of his lungs. “You fucking bastard cocksuckers! You fucking bitches can go FUCK yourselves!” He yells as he walks off down the street. This is almost always between one and three in the morning, when usually nothing short of a bottle-rocket breaking your kitchen window and exploding in the sink of dirty dishes can wake you up. It’s mostly on the weekends and he’s always on the move.
I haven’t figured out if he starts swearing right outside our bedroom window or if that’s just when it gets loud enough to wake me up. And let me just say that “wake me up” is a gentle way to say “jumping a foot into the air and having a freaking heart attack”.
For those of you who have never experienced being roused out of bed from a deep sleep by a stranger insanely shouting expletives right outside your bedroom window it feels something like this. You just had a dream where you’ve fallen from a high building and before you hit the ground, in a sweaty panic, someone starts screaming that you’re a goddamn motherfucker and then you wake up. As you lie there with your heart pounding and your adrenaline racing through your system, you try to assess what part of that last bit was a dream and what was real. You feel your pillow under your head, then the bed and just as you’re calming down a bit cause you’re not dead, but before you realize the “goddamn motherfucker” WAS real, you hear “YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU FUCKING BASTARD COCKSUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS!” And your head hits the roof of the Airstream.
I’ve never even seen Swearing Man. By the time I’ve gathered my wits about me he’s gone off down the road. You can hear his swearing getting fainter and fainter as he makes his way home, or goes to find his drinking buddies, or maybe to just finally find that person who did him so wrong all those years ago and set things right.
I have fantasies where I get my ass out of bed and chase him down and stuff a sock in his mouth, but those are always in the morning after I’ve had my cup of coffee. I’m far too sideways both physically and mentally at two in the morning to move fast enough to even get a glimpse of what he looks like, much less getting my finger bit off in some sock-stuffing escapade.
Beside, like the wind rustling though the new leaves on the birch trees or the smell of warm rain and fresh cut grass, Swearing Man is becoming, in his own way, another little sign from the universe that the days are getting longer and before we know it, summer will have arrived. I just wish it were a little easier on my heart.
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