The Creepy Little Pyromaniac and His Mother

When we moved into this house, we were visited by our neighbor down the street, who proceeded to grill us on whether or not we were in the market for a church(no), or if I was interested in joining one of those "Suburban Women Get Hammered On Sugary Drinks and Gamble" deals (no), whose car was whose, etc. etc.

I was, at the time, hung over and tired and grimy as shit because I was moving. This was not exactly the most desirable experience for introductions to the neighbors. Especially being that we're creepy on the first hand since we're younger than everyone else and don't have any kids.

She's got this kid, right? And this kid, for lack of a better word, is a total weirdo. Awkward, strange, trick or treats alone and dressed as weird, adult-Halloween-Party-topical-esoteric costumes, when he is probably around 11. Nice kid, weird kid. Weird family.

She doesn't stop talking, ever. Ever. Evasion is fruitless - whenever we're outside, smoking or drinking or whatnot, we're always aware. Like partying meerkats, one ear/eye is pricked to the horizon as an avoidance technique.

We have, however, become lax over the recent weeks, combined with a relapse of cigarette smoking - this causes us to be outside more, and since we do not have church or children, we often hang out outside late at night, drinking and smoking on our back porch. We do not get raucous or wild, but we will talk quietly and laugh and other earmarks of "conversation."

So she's started getting weird and passive-aggressive about it. She mentions all the time how she was up at some ungodly hour of the morning and saw that we were awake, and makes comments about "how nice it must be to stay up until past 3 in the morning." We nod enthusiastically, hating her, and then try to extricate ourselves from the conversation.

Finally, we have ammo.

The other night, it was a Saturday at around 10 PM (which in my mind, is just when Saturday nights start getting good), and we were outside, drinking and smoking (so we're not obsessed with variety but what we do we do well). Suddenly, there was this big, deep *FOOM* coming from behind the houses across the street (one of which is said neighbor's house). Now, to clarify, there is a greenbelt behind their houses with an old abandoned house that hasn't been lived in since the 80s - the land was sold, the greenbelt is thick and undeveloped (as of now), and in my mind, the combo of "abandoned house" and "we live 5 blocks from the high school" = naturally, extreme mischief. So whatever, some psycho kid is blowing shit up in the abandoned house. Obviously, we're not completely blasé, since we don't want the greenbelt to go up in flames, but it's been relatively moist, and so, whatever. Nothing to get all het up about.

It was a pretty fucking big explosion, though. We didn't see anything, but we could feel the vibration, and it was loud.

And then we heard something else. The neighbor's voice, keening and high-pitched, screaming at what we can only assume was her weird freako kid. We couldn't make out words so much as tone, but the lady sounded pissed. We thus inferred that no, the explosion didn't come from the abandoned mine shaft, but instead from the back of her house, where Creepy was I don't know, blowing up hairspray cans or something. Later conversations resulted in her claiming not to know there was an abandoned house behind her fence (it's plausible, there's no way to see for the trees), which makes us even more certain that her kid is the perp.

So the next time I get a "oh blah blah blah stop talking in your own yard at 3 AM on a Saturday" I will mention "oh, you know what I heard the other night" and see if that shuts her up.