WelcomeToNeighborhood : Short

It took about five minutes of persistent doorbell pushing, but finally the guy answered his door. He looked startled to see me still standing there, but the startled look slowly shifted into an annoyed look when I continued to just stand there and stare at him. "That's not how you play Ding-Dong-Ditch. You're supposed to run away," he stated.

That‘s right. I was playing Ding-Dong-Ditch with the rest of the kids in my neighborhood. Or, I was supposed to be. That’s what they had invited me to do. I felt it was kind of a stupid and sad excuse for a game, though, so I wasn’t playing properly. "That's too much trouble. This works fine for me," I replied simply.

"If you don't run away next time I come to answer the door, I'll make you regret it,” he returned. With that, he slammed the door in my face.

I turned around now, but did not get off his porch. The other neighborhood delinquents poked their heads out from behind their various hiding places of bushes, trees, and shrubbery. “He said he’ll make me regret it if I don’t run away next time,” I called out to them. They all immediately lost their worried expressions as mischievous smirks came to their faces. “What do you say?” I asked, though I already knew what they wanted me to do now.

“Duh! Do it!” one of them exclaimed. I shrugged, turning around as they all swiftly pulled back into their hiding places. I reached for the doorbell but paused just short of pushing it, wondering to myself if this was really the smartest thing in the world to do. After all, if I thought that this game was stupid, shouldn’t I just not participate, rather than make a mockery of it by not ditching after I rang the doorbell? Especially when this homeowner had threatened me to my face just now.

Before I could decide whether or not to go through with it, all of the sudden the door was jerked open. I didn’t have time to react before my hand was grabbed and I was jerked inside by the jerk inside. By the time I finally realized what was going on, the guy had slammed the door shut and then slammed me back against the door. “I didn’t ring the doorbell again,” I said stupidly, not really able to think of anything else to say in defense of my idiocy.

“You’re the brat that came over and was telling me fictitious horror stories about the residents of the past of this house when I was considering buying it, aren’t you?” he asked. Oh. So he did remember me after all. I had thought he forgot.

“Did you realize they were tall tales on your own, or did the real estate broker have to talk you out of believing the bull I told you?” I asked curiously.

“I did my own research,” he stated, arching an eyebrow at me, “It was a bit tricky, though. You provided such a detailed story. I almost wanted to believe what you told me more than what I found out for myself.”

“Why thank you. I’ve worked hard over many a campfire to perfect my horror stories,” I said.

“Uhuh. You’re my neighbor, too, aren’t you? You live in this neighborhood, right? Or do you just go to random neighborhoods, find a house for sale, and try to terrorize the prospective buyers with your tales for fun?” he asked.

“No. I’m banned from doing that anymore. I’m restricted now. I have to remain in my own neighborhood when I want to play,” I replied.

“You’re not only not ditching while playing Ding-Dong-Ditch, but you’re doing it in your own neighborhood? Damn. You must be really bored,” he said.

“This is a boring neighborhood. We’re all bored. I’m not bored enough to play a stupid game like Ding-Dong-Ditch, though. I was more making fun of the game by not ditching, than making fun of you by not running away,” I said.

“I’ll bet your buddies sure ran away real fast when I pulled you in here. I wonder if they’re running to get their parents, or just ditching you altogether?” he pondered aloud. His eyes slid towards the doorknob, probably because he was considering opening the door and calling out to see if any of the other neighborhood kids were still waiting out there for me.

“They’ll get in trouble if they tell their parents. Probably they’ll just make an anonymous call to the police or something,” I said lightly, “On that note, you should probably let me go now. It’ll look bad for you if you’re caught red-handed.”

He smirked now, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose. “I haven’t yet made you regret not ditching,” he purred darkly.

“I didn’t actually push the doorbell,” I pointed out.

“I said I’d make you regret it if you weren’t gone by the next time I came to answer the door, not the next time you pushed the doorbell,” he pointed out. Crap. He had me there.

“How about I come back tomorrow? It’s Saturday, so I’ve got no school; and this neighborhood, as I have said, is boring, so I’ve got no plans. I’ll have the whole day open for you to make tonight regrettable for me,” I suggested.

“How can I trust that you’ll come back?” he asked.

“I live in this neighborhood. You can just go door-to-door until you find me,” I said.

“That’s too much trouble if you turn out to not be trustworthy. Why don’t you just tell me where you live now?” he asked.

“If you think I’m not trustworthy, then you can’t trust me to truthfully tell you which house is mine,” I said.

He hummed thoughtfully, looking around as though in search of an answer, “…Hmmm… Well, alright. Be here tomorrow sometime in the vicinity of noon. I’ll warn you now, if I have to track your ass down, I’m going to make you regret both tonight and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow too,” he said finally as he moved his eyes back to me.

“I’ll be here no later than noon. Scout’s honor,” I said, holding up my hand in pledge.

“You were a boy scout?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

“Well, no. But my sister was a girl scout, and I had to help her hawk her cookies one summer after I stole and ate eight boxes,” I said.

He sighed and rolled his eyes even as he fought off a smile, pulling me away from the door and then pulling the door open. “Alright. Get gone. Don’t forget,” he said as he pushed me lovingly out onto the porch.



It took about ten minutes of persistent doorbell pushing, but finally the guy answered his door. He looked startled to see me still standing there, but the startled look slowly shifted into an annoyed look when I continued to just stand there and stare at him. “It’s five in the fucking morning. What the Hell are you doing? Got your buddies together so you can play Ding-Dong-Don‘t-Ditch again?” he all but growled.

“You’re wearing different glasses now. They were only reading glasses last night,” I said in not-quite-a-reply.

“My vision is blurrier in the morning,” he grunted.

“How blurry?” I asked curiously.

“Enough that I need those damn two hundred dollar prescription glasses, rather than my usual twenty buck reading glasses,” he answered.

“How well can you see with these glasses?” I asked. Before he could blink, I’d snatched the glasses in question right off his face. I turned away from him so that he couldn’t snatch them back, then holding them up to my face to see if they really had corrective lenses. “How well can you see without these glasses?” I asked.

“With those glasses, I can see things just as well in the morning when my eyes aren’t working as I can later in the day when my eyes are awake. Without those glasses, I can’t see worth shit. Now hand ‘em over before you break ‘em, you brat,” he said flatly, holding his hand out expectantly.

I halted my inspection of his glasses as I threw him a glance over my shoulder, but I didn’t hand the temporarily confiscated item back to him. “How well can you see without these glasses?” I asked again, wanting more detail.

“Well enough to distinguish things,” he stated flatly.

“Oh? Would that be things that are far or things that are near?” I asked, returning my gaze to the glasses I held in my hands.

“Near. If it’s in the morning, I’m without my glasses, and the thing is more than ten feet away, I wouldn’t be able to tell if it was a person, a piece of furniture, or part of the wall,” he answered with an annoyed sigh.

“What if it’s smaller than a small person—smaller than, say, a child—would you be able to see it at all?” I asked curiously.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe?” I asked.

“Mostly,” he said.

“Mostly?” I asked.

“Mostly, maybe,” he said, sounding quite irritated now.

“Give me an example,” I said, since he wasn’t getting the hint.

“Well, for example, I can’t distinguish what it says on your shirt, but I can distinguish your big, fat mouth on your big, fat head from the rest of your ugly face,” he snapped.

A grin now broke out on my face I as I finally finished inspecting his glasses and faced him again. I did not, however, hand him his glasses back just yet. “You don’t like me very much,” I stated more than asked.

“I don’t like you at all. Now give me my goddamn glasses back, you brat,” he snapped, now thrusting at me the hand he had been holding out this entire time. Wordlessly I did as he demanded, placing his glasses in his outstretched hand. I still said nothing as he swiftly pulled his hand back and put his glasses, using his middle finger to push his glasses up his nose to subtly flip me off. “What’s that grin about?” he asked as he adjusted his glasses on his face a bit more properly.

I had been waiting for him to ask me that. “If you didn’t like me at all, you wouldn’t have let me go last night,” I told him all too happily.

“There’s a difference between trusting someone and liking them,” he stated, giving me a flat look now.

“There is a difference between trust and like, but they are linked together regardless. If you don’t like a person, you wouldn’t trust them. The more you dislike a person, the less you trust them. I can therefore conclude that you must like me at least a little to have trusted me enough to come back here today,” I said matter-of-factly.

He stared at me in deep thought for a minute, trying very hard to think up an argument. I knew he had none, though, when he let out an exasperated sigh and turned his eyes away from me. “Fuck. It’s too early in the morning for this shit,” he grunted, now turning away from me entirely as he retreated inside.

“Aren’t you worried that your swearing and flipping me off might negatively affect me?” I asked as I followed him into his house, closing the door behind myself.

“Aren’t you worried that you waking me up to play Twenty Questions might negatively affect me?” he asked in lieu of reply, shooting me a glare over his shoulder.

“Well, you’re already going to punish me for playing Ding-Dong-Ditch without doing the ditching, so what more should I be worried about?” I asked in reply.

“Well, maybe it didn’t occur to you before now, but me waking up on the wrong side of the bed might just make me make your punishment worse. Especially if the reason I happened to wake up on the wrong side of the bed was because you wanted to piss me off even more than before,” he grunted.

By now, we had retreated to the kitchen, so my attention was naturally taken away from the conversation at hand. “Oh boy! Are you going to cook us breakfast? We haven’t had it at my house yet,” I said. I was now hovering just behind his back as I waited for him to pull something out so that I could guess at what he was going to make. However, he made no move to pull anything out, now turning around to give me an annoyed look.

Since it was obvious that he was going to tell me he was only making breakfast for himself rather than ask me why my family hadn‘t yet eaten, I decided to elaborate on my own before he could speak. “Of course, the reason we haven’t had breakfast at my house yet today is because we haven’t had breakfast at my house in years. That’s not to say that nobody in that house eats breakfast, but that we haven’t eaten any meals together as a family in just that long. And I don’t mean just breakfast. As a matter of fact, I haven’t eaten together with anyone since I was ten,” I informed him all too happily.

He gave me that annoyed look for a moment more, then turned around and began getting out all the fixings of traditional, complete, and nutritious breakfast, much like those that once were often featured on the backs of cereal boxes. “I hate you,” he informed me as he began preparing breakfast.

“That means you’re feeding me too, yes?” I asked, hugging him around and then hanging off of his waist.

“Yes,” he answered none too happily, “And, before you say anything, it’s not because I like you. It’s because I pity you.”

“If you pity me, you must like me at least a little. Pity, much like trust, is linked to like, although they are separate feelings,” I informed him, hugging him all the more as I continued to hang off of his waist.

“Shut up and get off of me. I can’t cook with you hanging all over me. Or, rather, if I do I’ll burn myself, at which point I will then have to kill you, regardless of how I feel about you,” he stated flatly as he moved for the stove. I released him as he moved away, straightening up and prancing over to the table to wait for breakfast to be served, smiling to myself all the while.



“Okay, so…” he said as he set down both of our plates on the table and then sat down across from me at the table, “…You said you haven’t eaten with anyone since you were ten. You also did mention that you have not eaten together with your family in years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you haven’t eaten together with anyone at all in that long.”

“Are you saying you think I’m still somewhere around ten?” I asked.

“I’m saying you haven’t said your age yet,” he stated.

“Why don’t you guess my age?” I asked now.

“Why don’t you just tell me your age?” he asked.

“I like guessing games,” I replied.

“I hate guessing games. I hate all games, actually,” he stated flatly.

“Sucks to be you,” I said simply, shrugging. I now grabbed up a fork and dug in to the food.

“How about I tell you my age, then you tell me yours?” he asked.

“How about you guess my age, then I guess yours?” I asked through a mouthful of food.

“That’s the best I’m going to get out of you, isn’t it?” he asked. I said nothing, merely stuffing my face as I stared across the table at him. He let out a little sigh, only now picking up his fork and beginning to eat. “…Eighteen?” he guessed, speaking only after chewing and swallowing everything in his mouth. It appeared that, unlike me, he had actual manners.

“You’re way cold,” I said even as I shoveled another forkful of food into my mouth.

“Sixteen?” he guessed as he stabbed at a sausage.

“Getting warmer,” I said as I took a swig of orange juice.

“Fifteen?” he guessed as he now nibbled the impaled sausage thoughtfully.

“Way warm,” I replied as I chomped away at my toast.

“Thirteen?” he guessed, swapping his sausage for a piece of pancake.

“You jumped right over the fire,” I sighed sadly as I paused to wipe my mouth on the back of my arm.

“You’re fourteen?” he asked, prodding his eggs about his plate.

“You’re totally hot,” I said as simultaneously I nodded my head and shoveled a fresh forkful of food into my mouth.

“You’re fourteen,” he stated flatly, now setting his fork down. He seemed almost upset by this information. Probably it was just because he had been so far off target when he had begun guessing.

“And you’re twenty-fi—make that twenty-six,” I said, not even halting my feasting to give my guess.

“You sunk my battleship,” he said.

“Wrong game, but I get the gist of it,” I said, chuckling to myself.

“How did you know?” he asked, frowning softly now.

“I’m a good guesser because, unlike a certain other person in the room, I like guessing games,” I said, smirking as I took another swig of my drink.

He just rolled his eyes at me before dropping his gaze to his food, picking his fork back up so that he could stab at his sausage again. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was pretending that sausage was me. Actually, he probably was doing just that. After brutally attacking his sausage for a bit, he turned his eyes back up to me. “So, am I going to have to guess your name, too?” he asked, then roughly taking a bite of the sausage he was pretending was me. Probably he was now pretending he’d just bitten my head off.

“My name is Sear Lonnien,” I said, deciding to cut him some slack.

He perked up noticeably at how easily I gave up my name. “My name i—” he started to share with me, but I cut him short.

“No, wait! Don’t tell me! I want to guess!” I exclaimed, almost knocking my drink over as I threw my hands up and arms out to halt his speaking.

“….You can’t be serious,” he said, now giving me a look that all but reiterated his words just now. I responded to his look by giving him a look that said I had been speaking with the utmost seriousness just before. “Do you have any idea how many trillions of billions of possible names and name combinations there are in this world?” he asked me now, still giving me the same look.

“Well, I know your last name is “Fuutone” from your mailbox, so I’m halfway there already,” I sniffed, now pouting out my bottom lip stubbornly.

He once more set his fork down, now putting his elbow on the table, his arm erect so that he could rest his chin on the top of his hand. “Okay. I’ll give you ten guesses. If you can’t get my name in ten guesses when you’re such a good guesser, you’re never going to get it even if I give you a million guesses,” he said, the smallest yet smuggest smirk settling on his face as he spoke.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to put your elbows on the table during meals?” I asked, not liking how smug he seemed.

“Make that five guesses,” he said flatly. It’s noteworthy that he even as he said this he pulled his head off his hand and his elbow off the table—he even went so far as to sit up straight in his seat, too.

“James?” I guessed.

“Not even close,” he said, his smirk making a reappearance.

“Brian?” I guessed.

“It does start with a B,” he informed me, obviously deciding it was alright to give me a hint.

“Benjamin?” I guessed.

“Second letter is an E,” he said, obviously deciding we were playing Hangman.

“Bert?” I guessed.

“There is an R, but not there,” he said, his smirk turning into something of a smile as he tried not to laugh.

“Bear?” I guessed.

“Bingo,” he said, now giving in to the urge as he let out a bark of laughter.

“Your name is Bear?” I asked, giving him an odd look. It wasn’t that I thought that was a bad name, but it didn’t quite seem suiting of him. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that his parents had named him Bear. He didn’t seem like a bear.

“Technically,” he said, shrugging to himself as he now resumed his meal.

“Wait a minute now! I want to know your real name!” I exclaimed. Just to be sure he had to acknowledge my not-quite-request, I slammed my hands down on the table, causing his plate to jump up about an inch or so off the table and his gaze to jump up to my face.

“Bear Fuutone is my real name,” he said, “Well, most of it.”

“Most of it? What, is “Bear” only a middle name? I want to know all of your name!” I exclaimed, now giving him a bit of a glare.

He sighed, again setting his fork down and sitting back in his chair. “I’ll tell you my full name, but you aren’t allowed to tell anyone else. Not your friends, not your family, not anyone. As far as they ever need know, my full name is Bear Fuutone,” he said.

“I won‘t tell a soul. Scout’s honor,” I said, holding up my hand in pledge.

He gave me a flat look for a moment, then sighed again as he rolled his eyes. “Alright. My full name is Pookybear Fuutone,” he said.

“Pooky Bear Fuutone or Pookybear Fuutone?” I asked.

“Pookybear Fuutone,” he answered. I stared at him silently now. He stared back at me with equal silence. I continued to stare at him silently. He continued to stare back at me, waiting for my reaction. I burst into laughter so abruptly that I fell right off my chair. “You had better not fucking tell anybody, you brat,” he snapped only now that I had given him the reaction he had been waiting on and that he had probably been expecting I would give.

“Why, may I ask, did you parents see fit to name their child Pookybear?” I asked as I rolled around on the floor in laughter, clutching at my aching sides.

“My dad’s nickname was Bear. He was determined to have a son and name him Bear. My mother thought it would be confusing for us both to be Bear, though, so she talked him into naming me Pookybear at the last possible moment. He and I have both regretted that decision my entire life,” he informed me flatly.

I now composed myself enough to stop rolling around on the floor and sit up, though I was still clutching at my sides and snickering very much. “Oh my Lord. I’ll bet all the kids made fun of you when you were young. Probably that’s why you hate games—every time you went to play with the other kids, they’d just make fun of you until you went away,” I said, smiling like crazy as I snickered to myself over the thought.

“You really are a good guesser,” he grunted, abruptly standing and stalking off out of the kitchen.

My laughter stopped as suddenly as it began. I stared after him in shock for a second, then I swiftly scrambled to my feet and went after him. “Hey! Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! It’s not really all that funny! Bear, wait!” I exclaimed as I chased after him.

“That’s “Mr. Fuutone” to you,” he growled over his shoulder, obviously not stopping. It occurred to me then that he was not, in fact, storming to the front door so that he could kick me out. As a matter of fact, if I had to guess, I’d say he was going towards his bedroom. I would also guess that he probably had a lock on his bedroom door, and that he intended to lock me out and go back to bed. Probably he figured that route would be easier than actually trying to get me out of his house altogether.

I stopped halfway down the hallway I had been following him down, bracing myself for what I was about to blurt out. “All the kids used to tell me my parents named me “Sear” because they bought me at Sears!” I shouted. As I had hoped, this stopped him dead in his tracks. “Er, at school they actually still say that. Since I go to a school a bit away from here where none of the other neighborhood kids go, that joke isn’t yet too old to say three or four times a day. By the time it is too old to say, I’ll probably graduate and go into high school, at which point it’ll be a fresh joke and I’ll be a freshman, so I’ll probably hear it over and over, again and again, day in and day out,” I added now, just in case the reason he hadn’t yet turned around was because he felt I didn’t quite understand how he felt.

As I had hoped, he turned around to face me now. Rather unexpectedly, he was wearing that smirk of his again. “Well now, is that so? I guess I’d be something of a hypocrite if I were to laugh at you,” he said.

“I’d be even more of a hypocrite than I already am if I got mad at you for laughing at me, so I can’t really say anything,” I said weakly.

“I guess you like me, huh?” he asked, still smirking.

“What makes you say that?” I asked curiously, not actually answering his question.

“Going by your own theory, you seem to trust me, therefore you must like me at least as much as you trust me,” he said smartly, “And, since I myself know the feeling of being taunted throughout my life about what my parents chose to name me, I know how much you must trust me to tell me about that.”

“I guess you like me, huh?” I asked in lieu of reply, smirking myself now.

“I’m more mature, so it means less to me to tell you about something like that,” he said lightly, not actually answering my question.

“But the fact is that you do still trust me and thusly do still like me. It doesn’t matter how much. It just matters that you do,” I replied, still smirking.

He hummed thoughtfully, losing his smirk only now as he looked around as though in search of an answer. “…Hmmm… Well, alright. I‘ll admit that I like you on some level and to some extent. I’ll warn you now, if you even think of making fun of me for it or telling anyone about it, I‘ll make you regret it for the rest of your life,” he said finally as he moved his eyes back to me.

“And I’ll warn you now, if you put it that way, I can almost guarantee you that I’m going to tell the whole damn neighborhood,” I said, not losing my smirk.

“I said I’d make you regret it, not make you satisfied with it,” he stated flatly.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Mr. Fuutone! I’m only fourteen!” I declared, giving him a shocked look before prancing off in the direction of the front door.

“I didn’t mean satisfied like that! Just like I didn’t mean that like that! You’re the one who has your mind in the gutter!” he exclaimed as he followed me swiftly to and out the front door, “You had better not tell anybody anything, you brat! What goes on in this house, stays in this house! It’s private property, and what goes on within is private as well!” By the end of his shouting he was standing on his stoop and I was already halfway home.

I paused only once on my porch, turning and shouting back to him. “Don’t worry, Mr. Fuutone, your secrets are safe with me! I wont tell anybody that I was rolling around on your kitchen floor with you right there!” I shouted back to him at the top of my lungs. Which, really, I hadn’t needed to do, since I lived right next door to him. I really hadn’t needed to be even half that loud for him to hear me. I also hadn't needed to phrase what I said in such a perverse way. I did it just for the helluvit, though.

“What the Hell?! You’re my next door neighbor?! You’re dumber than I thought, playing Ding-Dong-Ditch not only in your own neighborhood, but on the house next door!” he shouted, having chosen to ignore what I shouted. Perhaps he was just hoping that I wouldn’t say anything else incriminating if he ignored it.

“Oh, yeah! That reminds me: welcome to the neighborhood!” I shouted, still speaking at the top of my lungs.

“By the way, that reminds me, you better damn well not dare to come back over here come noon! I will make you sorely regret it if you do!” he shouted back at me, now also speaking at the top of his lungs.

“For fuck’s sake, shut up! It’s six in the goddamn morning on a Saturday! People are trying to sleep, you noisy bastards!” came a scream from a neighbor across the street. There was silence now as Bear and I both stared across the street, waiting for our neighbor to retreat inside. Only after he slammed his door did Bear and I look back at each other—and, of course, we both burst into loud laughter now. However, we were wise enough to retreat inside our respective residences before our neighbor returned to scream at us some more.