Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

Thanksgiving With the Skanks

Time for another one of the absurd stories from the ongoing sitcom that is my life. How I spent my Thanksgiving.

The first thing you need to understand is that we are what some folks call "urban pioneers." Others call it "gentrification," usually said with a disapproving tone. What that means is, we're trying to restore a great house in a crappy area. A few other people in the neighborhood are doing the same thing, which means we're also turning a slum into a nice neighborhood, but some people don't like that idea. They say we're eliminating affordable housing in the area, pushing people out of their neighborhood, destroying the cultural heritage, yada yada yada. Yeah, sure, whatever.

Our house was built in 1907. For at least forty years, it was a rental property, and for at least 25 of those years, it was an illegal apartment building, housing up to 27 people. The dining room still has #2 on the door. We had to tear out a second kitchen that was added upstairs without a permit. The back yard was paved over and a six-space carport was added, accessible from the alley that runs from the apartment building at one end to the liquor store at the other.

The day we moved in, I got propositioned by one of the ugliest hookers I've ever seen. My daughter was standing beside me when this skank walked up and asked if I had fifty cents. When I told her no, she replied "wanna f***?" I guess my reply was firm enough to get through her crack-addled brain, because she went away quickly.

A friend called it a "teachable moment." We've had a lot of those in the last two years. People walk right in without knocking and ask (in spanish) if there is a room for rent. Winos loiter in the alley and urinate (and worse) beside our back door. There's been a dramatic improvement since we moved in, but there is still a long way to go. Thanksgiving morning is an example of what I mean.

Thanksgiving morning. I'm sitting right here in this very chair, working away merrily at putting together the new Monkey Spit Emporium (go shop now, I'll wait), with my bride puttering about, when suddenly she says "what's that?" and heads for the back door. I listen for a second, and I too hear voices outside the window.

I run out the back door with the missus, and we find the second-ugliest hooker I've ever seen sitting on our basement steps. Standing beside her is a short guy about 30 years old. As soon as he sees us, he turns and walks quickly away. My bride yells at the whore, "what are you doing?"

"I'm fixin' to suck this guy's..."

"Not HERE you're not! Get off my property!"

The skank wants to argue. She's also calling out to her customer to come back and not pay us any mind. I run into the house to grab my phone and call the police (yes, they're on speed-dial) while my wife continues to scream at Miss Dirtbag 2002, who replies "You are messing with the wrong ho!" Terri, who has at this point transformed into Rant-Ma'am, is amused to discover that people actually talk like the characters in bad movies.

I'm on the phone describing the situation to the police, and the crack-whore is yelling "you tell 'em it's Olivia! I'm gonna stay right here and wait for them!" The dispatcher promises to send somebody right out.

Back outside again, Olivia is still in the carport exchanging words with Terri. When she says something about doing her business wherever she wants, I reply that if she does it on my property, I'll shoot her ass. That sends her into a fit. it also ticks off my wife. She tells me that I can't make threats like that. I'm trying to remember where the crossbow bolts are, so I can tell her it's not a threat.

A little while later, Olivia is sitting on the curb on the other side of the alley, talking to herself about us, announcing her constitutional right to make a living in my carport, telling Terri to "get back in the house and baste that bird, if you even know how to cook," and complaining about how I'm going to shoot her. Finally the police arrive.

An officer stands there very patiently listening to Olivia tell the story of how she has just been released from the mental ward after being held for observation, and was going about her business turning a trick when "Peg Bundy over there came out screaming at me, and then Al Bundy came out after her and said he was gonna shoot my ass." She goes on like that for a while, later telling the police that I was an unhappy customer of hers. She turns to me and shouts "I dated you. That's right, I dated you! Don't deny it. That's how I knew about those stairs."

When I start laughing at this idiot, Terri suggests that I'm not helping and pushes me toward the door. For the next half-hour, I take occasional peeks out the window to see if anything's going on. A second police car has arrived, and now there are two officers listening to Olivia, who at this point has taken off the wig and admitted that "her" name is really Marvin. Marvin/Olivia continues to yell and carry on about how I pulled a gun on her/him, and one of the cops looks like he's about a minute away from taking out this nightstick and beating him like a pinata. He's got a lot more self-control than I do at this point, and the baton stay on his belt.

Finally they take Marvin and his beer away, and all is quiet again.

About an hour later, we again hear noises from the area near the basement stairs. We again run outside, and this time we find a guy sitting there drunk, struggling with his boots. Again the obvious question, "what are you doing?"

"Just putting on my boots," he replies. We tell him to get off our property. He spends a few minutes fumbling unsteadily, almost falling over a couple of times, and finally staggers away.

After a few minutes, Terri looks at me and asks why that guy would come all the way onto our property to put on his boots. There's something weird here. I go out to investigate, a regular Sherock Holmes. Yep, there's something weird here.

There's a pair of men's shorts lying at the bottom of the stairs. Dark blue, looks like maybe a bathign suit or something. I go down the stairs and pick them up. I put them back down. Inside the shorts is a pair of underwear. Somebody has had a massive bowel movement in them, then taken them off and dropped them here.

A little while later, we get into our car to go to Thanksgiving dinner at our pastor's house, and as we turn the corner I see the little creep in among the mob of drunks loitering outside the liquor store. I suppress the urge to steer the car into the thick of them.

At dinner, it's my turn to say what I'm thankful for. "I'm thankful for my family, and for the police, and for the people who build fences like the one I'm putting in just as soon as I can."

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