Like a good neighbor

        When I first moved to Downers back in the 90s, my neighbor across the street and I were on a first name basis. He called me Warren. That would’ve been a fine, neighborly, warm and fuzzy global village kind of thing except, of course, my name is Walter.

        This went on for the first four and half years. In all that time he called me Warren. I’m pretty sure we met face to face at some point, early on, at a block party maybe, and I introduced myself as Walter. He’s one of those firm handshake, name to a face, business mnemonic trick type of guys so I figured he got it. I assumed it was efficiently filed away in the smart phone in his head.

        But then he pulled up into his driveway one day, got out of his car with his briefcase. I was in my front yard watering plants. He raised his other hand high, palm out and flat, tilting his chin up, with that waving across a long distance kind of wave and said something like, “Ya wanna come over here and get mine while yer at it, Warren? They sure could use it!”

         At first I just thought I didn’t hear him correctly. He was a hundred and fifty, two hundred feet away. There was water running. No. Walter. He said Walter, didn’t he? Yeah, that’s what he said. Get mine while yer at it, Walll-terrr, right?

        A week or two later he was taking his garbage out to the curb. I was getting the mail. “Hey, where’s it all come from,” he said with a chuckle, “eh, Warren?” Nope. That was definitely Warren. He called me Warren. I guess I should’ve corrected him right then but I didn’t. He was halfway up his driveway. We were separated by all that asphalt.

        It could’ve gone like this: I’d yell, “MY NAME IS WALTER!”

        “HUH?” he’d respond, turning around. The neighborly exchange is going on longer than he anticipated at this point.

        “WALTER! YOU CALLED ME WARREN!”

        “YEAH?” he’d say, thinking his mind trick couldn’t possibly have failed him.

        “MY NAME IS WALTER!”

        “AND WHAT DID I SAY?”

        “WARREN!”

        “OH… SORRY!”

        “THAT’S OKAY! NO PROBLEM!

        That’s how it could’ve gone. I could’ve fixed it right there. Or maybe not. Maybe there was nothing a mere mortal could’ve done.

        You know how some people just don’t look like their name? “Boy, you don’t look like an Esmeralda?” Whatever life experience you’ve had with that name comes out in your expectations of the new person attached to it. It’s why rappers with birth certificates that read Marshall, Duane, or Brian go by names with a little more marquee value. MC-something or Ice-whatever. To my neighbor, I must not have looked like a Walter.

        The weird thing is, I’ve been called Warren by mistake before. Once or twice when someone guesses, takes a stab at what to call me, they call me Warren. It’s like my default name setting. Maybe I look like a Warren. I don’t think I look like a Warren. What does a Warren look like anyway? Warren G. Harding. Fine man, presidential, stern. Warren Sapp, the defensive tackle? Warren Zevon! Ah— Warren Beatty. Hey, maybe my across the street friend and his mind game meant it as a complement. Like somehow, subconsciously, I look Warren Beatty-ish. I don’t, but maybe he thinks I do. Maybe from a hundred and fifty feet away in dim evening light after a full day at the office I have a rakish air about me. If you squint. Shouldn’t that be enough for me?

        In reality, there was no actual reason he needed to call me by the right name. He lives across the street. He’s not at Next Door Neighbor (NDN) level. Spare key to my house level. Feed the cat while we’re away for the weekend level. See into their kitchen when they’re eating dinner if they don’t pull their shades down level. I have a connection with my NDN. There’s a bond there. When you share a property line with someone your relationship clicks up a notch. No, we’re nowhere near NDN status.

        And he’s not actually at Across the Street Neighbor (ASN) level either because he’s technically next door to my actual ASN. So he’s really our Kitty Corner Across the Street Neighbor (KCASN). While ASNs are at sign for a FedEx package level, KCASNs are way below that— suspicious man in the bushes call 911 level and wave across the street level. So maybe I’d be tampering with the primal forces of nature if I tried to change things. Maybe things were as they should be.

        He was just so convinced my name was Warren for such a long time. He said it with such conviction peppered in with the “don’t work too hards” and the “hot enough for ya's.” He was so totally and completely positive of exactly the wrong thing that I was embarrassed for him. I avoided contact with him over the years to save him one more Act of Warren. I zipped through the front yard when I knew he’d be out in his. I did the waiter glance-away— finding something really important to look at all of a sudden right when he was about to make eye contact.

        I pictured him talking to his wife about Warren’s Christmas decorations. Or years later when we moved, he’d tell the new owners all the work Warren put on the old place. He’d be eighty-five, I imagined, looking at a photo album with his grandkids in the assisted living home pointing at pictures.

        “Yep, I remember when you’d come over to visit yer ol’ gran’pa, back in the ol’ hous’. That one across the street from Warren and his wife? Remember?”

        It all came screeching to a halt one winter after a big snow. The whole street was outside digging out. My NDN, ASN, Down the Street Neighbors (DSN), everyone, and him. We were slogging away and at some point he looks up from his shovel and yells to me, “careful of the ol’ back, Warren!”

        I could see my ASN stop him, say something. They both looked over at me. He looked back at her, then back at me. Then he turned and slunk away. He called me Walter after that. I felt sorry for him. But sometimes yanking the Band Aid off all at once is best. I know it was my fault, really, but now all is right with the neighborhood. With my Kitty Corner Across the Street Neighbor and me. With Dave and me.

        At least I think his name is Dave.