Even though our windows are closed at night, now it is September, we can hear the lady across the street laughing like she is taking hits of nitrous oxide between hits of rye and coke on her front porch. Neighbour lady and her husband like to get loaded on the porch on Friday nights when they are not getting loaded in a lawn chair out front of their trailer in the woods someplace.
I was brought up to do my outdoor drinking at home out back on the sundeck or even on a blanket out on the grass. My dad always said, "If you want to look like a motherfucking hillbilly, drink on your front porch and that's what you'll look like - a motherfucking hillbilly."
Or as my granny used to say, "You never see the fucking Queen drinking on the front balcony of Buck House."
Not being a hillbilly is what the Hockey family has been trying to avoid being for centuries. I am sure the rest of the Hockey nation had given us up for having gone hillbilly in the worst possible way when we lived (for long enough to know) and multiplied in Alberta.
"The fucking neighbours are really giving her tonight, eh Beer?" Sonja asked me as I lay on the floor having huggy times with the Hammer.
"They're camping people," I explained. "You know what camping people are like." My big dog's belly was warm and soft as Elvis in 1975.
"Do you think they drink as much as us?"
"I doubt it. But they are probably taking pills too. Ecstacy"
"I never see them smoking dope."
"Probably E."
"It is like they are camping all the time. They come home but they keep camping."
"They are younger than us."
"I guess we used to camp all the time too?"
"Yup."
I poured us a couple more.
"What do you say we light a fire in the fireplace, have a few more and pretend we are having tent sex."
"You can pretend alright."
1 comment:
From the Southern Midwest through the Gulf States it is customary to sit on your front porch. This gives the neighbors a chance to check you out. You get to check them out too. This keeps things orderly and respectful. If all of the neighbors are keeping to themselves indoors the few front porch drinkers will get carried away with themselves. I have a high regard for front porches. I used to like to sit on my front porch, do acid, drink beer, listen to reggae and wave to my neighbors. They were variously, drinking beer and listening to sports, drinking gin and listening to classical music or drinking lemonade and playing cards. They waved back. It was nice. Sometimes the neighbors would feed walnuts to a tame squirrel. I enjoyed that. Especially when I was tripping. The bad neighbors were college kids who stayed indoors, smoked pot and listened to The Doors.
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