A Good Neighbour?

It was strange the thoughts that came to you when you when working, thought Gary, as he threw the dirty water down the drain in the back yard.

He had been mopping the staircase in the tenement where he lived, and the place now reeked of bleach, which was a nice change because for the last year and a half, it had gathered dust, fluff, and pine needles left over from Christmas, it smelled fresh, which was good.

It brought him in mind of the first tenement building he had lived in, as a kid, back in the ‘60s, the smell of Vim permeating the air as you entered the place.

A well-kept building, with stained glass windows on each landing which reminded him of being in church, though these did not depict God, angels, or any scriptural passage, they just had diamond shaped patterns, which gave an amazing rainbow effect when the sun shone in. Everyone did their bit in those days, neighbours were folk who looked out for one another, they were nice people, people you knew. ‘Nice’ that was a word he remembered being said a lot when he was a kid, by his grandma, and in turn, by his mum.

He had fond memories of being a kid, there was an old family photograph where he and his brother were dressed up in cowboy hats, gun belts and holsters, pointing their die-cast metal pistols like real Western heroes, maybe someone from ‘The Virginian’ or ‘The High Chaparral’, as the camera snapped and captured the moment, happy times, nice times, a Christmas years ago, maybe 1968 or so, several lifetimes ago.

Gary locked up his cleaning gear in the stair cupboard and went up to his flat.

He had been living here for years and had seen some characters come and go in his 25 years in the place, some more memorable than others.

He thought about the old country song’ If these walls could speak’, he recalled hearing that one years ago on an old pub jukebox, Willie Nelson, with his almost spoken style of singing.

If these walls could speak, this place would have a whole series of radio documentaries, or podcasts based on the different folk of bygone days. 

Neighbours were not always folk who were in the same place for years these days, they were a sort of transient population, possibly going where the work was, and his home city had once been a bustling metropolis where folk were drawn by the prospect of oil related work, back in the days of the ‘black gold’.

Different times, as friends and family often said.

Gary ticked off the stair cleaning from his ‘to do’ list.

Next he would tackle the lawn at the back of the building which was needing attention, he had time this week.

Maybe he was the good neighbour?