Sarah Circles the Blo(g)ck

In the space that will eventually be my guest bedroom, Kosha lies stretched out in the sun, his snout barely visible behind the weeds. He looks like a lion hiding in wait on the Serengeti, except without the motivating killer instinct. The most he's done all afternoon is circulate the lot to sniff desiccated piles of dog shit and lick aggressively at the spot where his balls used to be. I know a little about how that feels--the sense that something should be where it isn't. Unlike Kosha, however, I can remedy the situation. It's what I'm doing right now.

It's Saturday at 11 a.m. and I've donned my junkiest jeans--Levis blotched with "Dylan's Grove," the paint I used in the guest room at my previous house--a BE Tiger t-shirt, and new pigskin work gloves. The Vanbulance is parked on 17th Street, top popped, I've cranked the Johnny Cash, chilled the beer, and greeted the nine-year-old neighbor, Sarah, who’s riding her bike up and down the alley. Today begins Phase One of Belben Builds a House: emptying and tearing down the decrepit, Boo Radley-esque wooden shack on the northeast corner of my empty lot on 17th and Donovan.

I open the doors timidly--the shed is dark and filled with a creepy assortment of damp mysteries that suggest a certain CSI excitement--a head in a bucket, maybe, or a partial skeleton or at the very least, an abandoned diary that hints at some long-forgotten misdeed. But what I find fails to deliver on the promise of my morbid imaginings: rotting window frames, mismatched sawhorses, rat crap, and a warped U2 Achtung Baby cassette tape. Even the creepy-crawlies fail to appear, the wasps' nest long abandoned, the spiders dry and curly, the ants and millipedes seeking sustenance outside. A dozen rusty tools sink into the husks of a thousand horse chestnuts littering the floor, all of it suggesting the shed was never the site of anything more interesting than discarded home improvement projects and an abandoned appreciation for Bono.

I spend the day dragging the contents of the shed to the corner, creating an impressive pile of rotten lumber and making myself available for neighborhood viewing. Apparently action on this long-empty lot qualifies as drama for Marvin, who registers his friendly annoyance that my new house will block his view (I invite him to come over once the place is built to join me for a drink on my veranda, where he can enjoy my view); Arlene, the independent retiree next door who welcomes me warmly, and the very aged, bathrobe-clad Lucille—who comes out of her house infrequently enough to have earned the name “Reclucy”—who wants to know which trees will be spared and which sawed down. Most importantly, my friends Noah, Dana, Laural, and Tom offer water, their bathroom, a wheelbarrow, and much companionship as I begin establishing my life just yards away from their home.

Despite my disappointment at the shed’s content, the purging is satisfactory—the hauling, piling, and pounding is cathartic; I’m not just sitting around waiting for the house to be built anymore. But besides that, besides making progress on the physical preparation of the property, I feel like it’s become more than just a vacant lot adjacent to other people’s homes, it’s becoming a part of the neighborhood. And me? I’m becoming a neighbor.