So to give some context to this story and the characters you’re dealing with here, permit me to detail my first encounter with the two neighbors this thing focuses on.

I worked as a part-time holiday delivery person for a little while last winter, and was tasked with bringing people’s packages to their front door. I walked up to this guy’s house (we’ll call him Kevin because that’s the default name for weirdos who fuck up alot). He was just bringing his two huskies back from a walk as I approached.

Kevin, eyeballing me suspiciously: “Who the fuck are you?”

Me, holding a massive package: “I’m the delivery person. Got a package for you.” (I’d dealt with plenty of weirdos before.)

Kevin: “The fuck you are. Where’s Jeff?”

Me, nodding down the road: “Delivering to someone else.”

Kevin, laughing: “Oh that lazy fucker. Letting the young shits do his dirty work, eh?”

Me: “Nope…I signed up for this.”

Kevin: “Bullshit. That bastard’s blackmailing you. What’s he got on you, huh? Porn? Nudie mags?”

Me: “Nope…just delivering packages and getting paid.” I set the thing down, but Kevin decided it was his civic duty to escort me back to the truck.

As we went, I had to deliver another package to the house standing adjacent to Kevin’s. For whatever reason, this house was absolutely RIDDLED with “Keep Out” and “Private Property” signs. All for a front yard perhaps twenty yards long and ten wide. Nothing special. Just a couple of trees and dead grass. But you would think it housed a nuclear fucking missile silo with all the warnings.

To make matters weirder, I saw the home’s resident – a willowy, old lady – peek through the curtains the entire time I walked up, delivered the thing, and returned to the street. Kevin kept me company the all the way and I could almost swear he glared daggers at this old lady. For me, relief came when Jeff, the truck driver for XYZ delivery company, finally came up to us.

The first thing Kevin said was: “Caught another one of your little cocksuckers on my property. Don’t you train them?”

Jeff must’ve realized I had no clue what was going on, because he just laughed good-naturedly with Kevin and told me to sort packages in the truck. I did so thankfully while he shot the shit with Kevin.

When Jeff finally got back into the truck, I immediately said, “What the fuck was that about?”

Jeff had the decency to look embarrassed as he scanned a couple packages. “He’s a character, right?”

“No shit.”

He pointed back up the street to the house with all the warning signs. “See those signs? Those are because of Kevin, too.”

I wasn’t surprised, so I just waited for him to continue. Jeff delivered in spades.

Apparently these two neighbors, Kevin and ummm…Jizzabelle had been living next to one another since before Jeff had started working the route. (More than 2 decades.) Their houses were situated on a corner, with their yards pressing up against one another and separated by a wood and wire fence. The two absolutely despised one another, but mostly kept to themselves if they could help it.

A few years back however, when fall was in full swing, sweet lonely Jizzabelle’s paranoia began acting up. She regularly thought up of ways in which the world was trying to invade her personal life. Mostly in the form of the packages Jeff delivered that she seemed to have forgotten ordering. Anytime he rang the bell, she’d peek through her blinds and stare at him like he was an alien from a hostile world.

One could only wonder what might happen if someone like Kevin caught her out in the open.

So one gusty, October day, Jizzabelle decides the leaves falling from the trees in Kevin’s yard are being blown into her yard ON PURPOSE. It’s a full-on grievance orchestrated by the combined efforts of a foul-mouthed lunatic and the forces of nature. This could not stand!

So Jizzabelle toddles on over to Kevin’s house and promptly chews him out for his devious schemes. She’s clutching a handful of dead leaves for good measure, and tosses them in his yard as she accuses him of spreading his organic filth all over her precious property. At the end of it, she snidely tells him she better not find a single leaf of his in her yard or else she’ll call the police.

Kevin, to his credit, only nods and says he’ll make sure their respective leaf falls stay completely segregated.

A week later, Jeff tells me, grinning wide, he’s delivering a package to the street corner and stumbles upon a peculiar sight. A positively MASSIVE pile of leaves is clumped up in the corner of Jizzabelle’s backyard, almost buckling in the fence from the weight. Then he sees Kevin riding at the helm of heavy-duty lawn mower with a bulldozer-like attachment on the front end. It’s filled to the brim with leaves, which he is promptly lifting above the dividing fence to Jizzabelle’s property and dumping into the pile.

When Jeff asked what the hell he was doing, Kevin only beamed with pride.

“The crazy old bat wants us to keep our leaves ourselves.” He gestured to the pile that had amassed in her backyard. “Well I’ve been keeping very strict tabs and all of these came from her fuckin’ yard. So I’m giving them back.”

Jeff is floored by this notion (and rather impressed.) “What does she think about it?” he asked.

Kevin laughed and pointed over Jeff’s head at Jizzabelle’s house, where two beady grey eyes glared at them through the blinds. “She’s flipping the fuck out. But it’s her rule, I’m just following orders.”

Unable to do much else, Jeff just gave Kevin the package and told him to expect a visit from the police at some point. Kevin just smirked. “Can’t fuckin’ wait.”

Jizzabelle did end up calling the police, but just as Jeff suspected there was little they could do. Kevin did get a warning for being a public nuisance, but he hadn’t been doing anything illegal and Jizzabelle did have to explain why he was doing it in the first place. And that didn’t stop her from going out and buying a fuckton of “Keep Out” and “Private Property” signs. If anything her paranoia’s just increased.

And Kevin…well Kevin was all too happy to let any and all of the world’s leaves fall into his yard. He didn’t really care. He just wanted to show Jizzabelle he’d heard her loud and clear. Leaving no room for error.

After hearing the story, I began to understand why Kevin had been so abrasive with me at the beginning. He didn’t really have a filter, and I didn’t mind the cursing.

In fact, for Jeff, it was often a rite of passage. He loved seeing how his assistants handled meeting Kevin, how they responded to a good “Who the fuck are you?” And I guess I did alright, because I haven’t come home to any monstrous piles of leaves in my yard as of yet.

Edit: There\’s a sort of precursor to this story Here

Jeff was the delivery driver I worked with over the winter. He had a bunch of awesome stories like this.

And another Tale

Final Part