Tom

He frightens me. He has questionable boundaries. His Sunday-best is a powder-blue polyester suit hemmed too short and every other day, without fail, it’s a white t-shirt, untucked, and navy blue trousers. He only has one eye. I don’t mean he’s blind in one eye, I mean he only has ONE eye. The other is just a gaping socket with a back wall of blueish, transparent flesh. I wish he’d wear a patch. Then he could be Pirate Tom instead of Tom: The One-Eyed Man (With Questionable Boundaries). He’s nosy and presumptuous and smells like Campbells soup. He means well. I know this and I also know that the gaping hole in his face wishes me no harm (so weird, somehow, that it still blinks) but he seems to have decided that my business is his business and he is my personal body guard in some bizarro world scenario he’s created in his head and that freaks me out a little. He is to Batman what I am to Angelina. Right. Not even close. He times his walks so our paths cross. He stands at the end of my driveway watching me pushing the lawnmower, waiting until I’m done just to ask me if I think it might rain before nightfall. He’s always asking if I’ve heard about this kidnapping in Connecticut or that bludgening in Toronto. He says things like, “Daddy working this week?” Daddy being my husband. He has knocked on my kitchen window at 10 pm to ask if his son could move into our studio. “No, Tom, I don’t think that would be a good idea.” He’s old. He’s bored. He’s harmless. I’m petty. I’ll try to grow up.