by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

My new house is not new, not even for me. In the Manantial neighborhood of colonia Allende, my friend Veronica lived here until a few weeks ago. In addition to visiting her, over the years I've cared for her pets, for weeks at a time, for Canela, the noble dog, now gone, and for Wuichol, the distinguished, grandfatherly, half-blind, but still feisty cat, now sleeping on his chair by the window which serves as his way in and out of the house.

So, before moving in at the start of July, I already knew first-hand that the neighbor, F., who lives across the street, is noisey, regularly playing his music much too loudly. I like ranchero, but over amplified for four to six hours at a time, it's like being trapped in the Los Locos parade. The worst of it is at night when he drunkenly falls asleep and leaves it on past midnight. The strange thing is that when my stays here were temporary it didn't bother me a fraction as much as it does now.

Other neighbors have called Ecología. These city officials come and tell F. to turn this music down. He complies, but only for a few days. A year ago they fined him enough so that he behaved himself for a good long while. My housemate (Y. on the second floor) suspects that he bribes the officials who come to not fine him, paying a little to avoid the larger penalty.

Two weeks ago, someone from Ecología showed up again. They came at 10:00pm while he was sitting outside on his side patio with his music blaring. I heard the music, and heard it stop, but he filled me in on the details the next day and asked me if it were I who had complained, telling me, quite falsely, "No one complained until you moved in." Then he told me that if I had a problem, I should talk to him instead of calling the authorities.

I don't know if he believed me, but the truth is that it wasn't me. However, I will admit that more than once, driven to distraction, I have been on the verge of calling. Each time however, my accent has restrained me. I am afraid lest the authorities tell my neighbor, perhaps in consideration of another bribe, "Some gringo called complaining." And I am the only foreigner in range. Explaining this reservation to my landlord (who comes by regularly to check on the third-floor apartment being constructed for me, while I live on the first), he very helpfully told me to let him know when it happens and that he would call Ecología for me.

Also, I have a connection to a high-ranking police officer in town, who with his connections could put a stop to the noise once and for all. But I don't want to get anyone hurt, and in my experience, it's almost always a mistake to call the cops. And, here also, it's not unlikely that I would run the risk of being identified.

Last week I grabbed the bull by the horns and delicately suggested to my noisey neighbor that he might turn down his music. I (and others) have directly spoken with him about the problem before. Following Ecología's visit two weeks ago, I suggested he might use wireless headphones when he's working outside and close his front door when he's not. He was open to the idea of headphones. This time I had a different strategy.

F. is an alcoholic, drunk to one degree or another every day. He is a friendly drunk, a friendly guy drunk or sober, too friendly in fact. He reminds me of people I've known who suffered Traumatic Brain Injury. The syndrome as I am aware of it, involves goofy, boisterous extroversion, silly outgoingness. More than once I've asked F. (we chat regularly) if he got hit in the head. He just laughs off the question, one time telling me, "Yes, they implanted a chip in my head. Sometimes, when I forget where I am, I have to turn it on to get home."

Given half a chance F. will chat with anyone walking by his house. Exuberantly calling out from inside the shoulder-high, wire-lattice fence that fronts his property, he says hello to virtually every passerby. He really does have a good heart, including giving out cold bottles of water to police and city garbage collectors. Last week one of the latter stopped mid stride to chug down a glass of beer while the garbage truck he was running behind continued rolling slowly along.

My exchanges with F. are always brief, lasting at most five minutes. Perhaps dependent on blood alcohol content, they are either full of jest or defensiveness, complaining about the rudeness of others, "You treat me good, and I'll treat you good."  Our chats are always centered around him, so much so that I feel like I'm being talked at, not with. He is intelligent, philosophical in a silly, aphoristic, Traumatic Brain Injury way. Having lived and worked in the States for "50 years" (although the math doesn't quite add up), he only speaks to me in English, fluently and with very little accent.

My housemate (Y. of the second floor, a childhood friend of my friend Veronica, who has moved back to Chile), in addition to being annoyed by his music, feels sorry for F., "He lives all alone with no friends." A little goofy myself, with poor boundaries as well, and knowing how it feels to be alone (solitary confinement is a punishment), I get along very well with F. Just like him, sometimes I need someone to talk with. I also hold space for the craziness, playing silly so that he can act normal.

Still, as I said, last week, up to my ears with it, feeling I could no longer silently suffer the music, at the risk of our neighborly harmony, I had to say something. Early one afternoon, when music had already been blasting out his open front door for hours while he leisurely worked on his patio with an electric saw cutting tiles, I went over and told him, "I can't live here. I can't listen to your music so loudly."

As I expected, he took it badly. If not angry, he became oppositional, verbally hostile. Despite my abject passivity, he protested, threatening consequences, that he was going to do something. When I asked him what he was going to do he retreated, saying, "I'm not going to do nothing." But, I thought that this was a sly strategic denial, covering his intentions so as to take me unaware if need be. Still, I continued, deferentially conceding, "You were here first," (he was born in that house and has relatives in at least two other houses within a stone's throw), "I will just go live somewhere else. You told me to talk to you if I had a problem, so I'm talking to you."

He was already drunk. The conversation went on for a while. Moments after it finished, when I was setting off on my daily bicycle ride, he called after me, "You are going to move away? I'm going to get a chain and tie you up so that you stay." It was very sweet in an inebriated, male way. He likes me, likes having our casual conversations, likes using his English.

While we were having that conversation/confrontation, so that we could better hear each other, he turned the music down. He didn't turn it back up for six days. In fact, most days (and nights) he didn't even turn it on, not even over the weekend. The truth is, when he did turn it on, playing it quietly, I enjoyed it. It adds atmosphere to the neighborhood.

Two days ago, after they were done working upstairs for the day, F. hired the three young men to finish tiling his bathroom walls, cranking his music up for that occasion. Greatly disappointed, I went over and asked him if he could rotate his speaker so that it wasn't pointing out the front door, which he did. He invited me to come over and share the pizzas he had ordered to feed the crew. I left on my daily bicycle ride, came back and worked for a while through his loud ranchero. I could shut the window in the room where I work, but that would inconvenience the cat.

An hour later while the boys (now five persons with the addition of the young man from an adjacent house) were postprandially sitting in front of the house drinking beer, I was on my way up the outside stairway, invited for dinner on the second floor. It was a colorful scene that I would have found charming, if I wasn't already irritated by the noise.

Noticing me ascending, they waved for me to come over, saying something which I couldn't understand because the music was too loud. Enjoying a warm relationship with the workers and F., despite my irritation, I might have, but better fare and company awaited me one flight up.

There is a story about a Zen master walking with his student down a wide jungle path. Suddenly and dangerously close ahead, a tiger saunters across the trail. The disciple softly exclaims, "It is a tiger!" His master calmly retorts, "It is a tiger for you." The music didn't bother me when I was only visiting. I have let the music bother me now.

As I told Y. over dinner two nights ago, I know that I am nervous, and that F. is correct when he tells me, over his front wire-lattice fence, that I need to relax and enjoy life more. I am happy that F. got his bathroom finished and that he had guests with whom to celebrate the occasion. But still, I am going to make F. a present of a set of wireless headphones. (Earbuds are too complicated to use and too easy to lose.) He liked the photo of the headphones that I showed him, enthusiastically suggesting, "I can wear them when I am working outside!" Thank God.

Right now, as I am finishing this article, I become aware that F.'s ranchero has been playing, at a reasonable level, I don't know for how long. It's a tiger for me.