Sputterpub's Blog

I ran into my neighbor Anne yesterday. We hadn’t seen one another in a few days. I was out two evenings ago and she wasn’t around last night. So I hadn’t yet heard the latest.

About Bertilda. The latest is always about our crazy neighbor. The woman is rapidly devolving into a creature.

Bertilda has always been a troubled individual. Quick to anger, comfortable with indignation, a rigid follower of all statutes and no customs. In the last decade, dementia and memory loss have been added to what’s at least a borderline personality disorder and possibly sociopathology.

As far as we neighbors can tell, she no longer bathes or launders and she rarely eats. Now that the county has taken her car, she never leaves the property where she lives. Most of every day she hunkers down in her overcrowded apartment. She has a forest of potted orchids there and at least five years’ worth of junk mail and catalogs.

She also has a cat. Kind of. It’s an outside animal, so it’s away from her more than it’s with her. We don’t know what she feeds her pet; Bertilda is a vehement recycler but we never see cat food containers in the blue bin. We suspect she doesn’t give the animal much food now. We hear her hourly calling “Kitty kitty kitty” (in a much sweeter tone than she ever uses to people), and she makes the circuit of our doorways at least every other day, asking any of us who answer if we have eaten her cat. Many of us now try to be aware of her approach and pretend we’re not home.

Eaten her cat? Whatever would put the notion in her head? Has she eaten cats before? Or been around people who eat cats?

I’ve seen her cat shitting in my yard. Right in the middle, unshielded by any shrubs. And the bowel movements I’ve witnessed don’t look cat-normal. Small wonder if the animal is looking elsewhere for sustenance.

“You know we had the police here the other day?” is how Anne opened the conversation. She showed me a warm smile. She recently celebrated her retirement by shearing off her pony tail and having her hair cut; now it curls around her face and makes her look younger.

“No. I didn’t. I don’t. Do tell.”

“Well Jen was parking her car in Bertilda’s old space…”

“Yeah. Like we all told her to.”

“Right. And she noticed some material had landed on her car. ‘Landed’ as in ‘having been dropped on the car from an upper window.’ The material was excrement-like, in color and texture.”

“Get out! No shit?” I laughed. You have to laugh at Bertilda or you’ll cry.

“Uh huh. Jen called the police. I wasn’t there when the officer arrived but Jen had a law school friend with her and they both told me about it.

“They managed to get Bertilda downstairs. The cop tried to talk to her. She was firing off as usual within seconds: ‘You bastard!’ I hear she said. And ‘I don’t have to listen to you.’”

“I can imagine it. Wow, I can hear her vile tone of voice as you say it.”

“Well, the cop got mad. He told Bertilda if she was going to shout, he’d outshout her. And he did. He yelled at her that she DOES have to listen to him.”

“But he didn’t take her away,” I said.

“Noooo. And Jen was pretty upset even after he yelled at Bertilda. I told her she could use my space until the hearing next week. I’m parking on the street now.”

“So Bertilda prevailed again.” Of course I shook my head as I said that. It astounds me how the woman keeps getting away with aggressive uncivilized lawless behavior.

“The cop says they’ve ‘flagged’ the house at the station. He told Jen that Bertilda calls almost daily, asserting that her car has been stolen and insisting that the police act on the theft. He said they’ve gotten regular complaints from neighbors for over a year now. He told Jen she should always interview residents before moving into a place. He also said it was just a matter of time before Bertilda is dragged, kicking and screaming, from her home. He added that it wouldn’t be him doing the dragging; that’s a county job.”

“So to review the current situation,” I said, “we have reason to suspect that Bertilda is eating cats and flinging excrement? Like a monkey? Like one of Gulliver’s Yahoos?”

Anne got it. She’s a retired teacher and an educated person.

Bertilda’s supposed to show up in court next week. The judge will decide whether to make the conservatorship permanent. We all expect that decision. We only wonder how long it will then be, before she’s dragged out of our lives.

We have a new neighbor and we hope we’re about to lose the old one.

Jerry’s friend Jennifer moved in. We didn’t know Jerry had a significant other. We don’t know that now. He described her as a cousin when she visited last year. She was nice, attractive enough, and about a decade younger than Jerry (we guess that he’s in his mid 40s).

She came back this month. She’s enrolled in law school and she’s going to share Jerry’s place. He’s now told us that she’s not really his cousin, but they’re old friends. We think they’re a couple but maybe not. The way his place is laid out, he uses the big undeveloped storage area as a sleeping room. The bedroom was like an office until Jen arrived and we think she’s sleeping there now.

Unlike Jerry, Jen has a car. She asked if there was a place to park it and was told (by Anne and Jerry), sure. Their little condo arrangement has no reserved spaces. The inhabitants share the wide driveway on a first-come basis. The crazy old woman resident has parked her white sedan there so long she considers it her private spot, but she lost her car and we don’t expect to see it return. Bertilda is over 80, losing her mind and memory. She hadn’t registered her car for at least three years. She was driving it to the market with an expired license. She’s in a temporary conservatorship with the county and everyone except Bertilda knows it will become permanent soon. The first act the county took was to have her car towed away.

It was explained to her at the time, of course. And before and after the event. But Bertilda claims “they” took it with no warning, no reason, no excuse. She refers to “them” variously as Communists, Nazis, and fucking Americans. We’re only surprised she hasn’t played racial cards. She makes the circuit of neighbor doors at least every other day, asking anyone who opens if they know who took her car and then declaring that, as far as she’s concerned, it’s theft.

The way their habitat is organized, my friend Anne has the ground floor apartment and Bertilda’s is directly above. Jerry and now Jen inhabit a one-bedroom-plus space that was originally the garage. Bertilda’s living room windows look out over the driveway, and she never misses action there.

So she confronted Jen as soon as she saw the red Cherokee. She pushed her window up and snarled “You can’t park there!”

Jerry and Anne had both advised Jen not to attempt conversation with Bertilda. But Jen is a decent human being. Jen is a law student. She’s programmed to respond.

“I’m sorry. I was told it was okay for me to use this spot.”

“Who told you?”

` “Um, Anne?”

“Who’s Anne?” Jen had been warned about this too. Bertilda seemed to have strong memories of her youth and prime, but nothing reliable about the last ten years.

“I didn’t know it was your spot.”

“Well it is! Get that car out of here!”

“I understand your car isn’t here right now…”

“That doesn’t matter! It’s still my space. Get the fuck away!”

Jen left her car and went inside. She called Anne but got voicemail. She called the conservator and reported the interchange. The conservator sent an email to Anne about it. Anne assured her the condo rules provided for no reserved spaces. Bertilda had become accustomed to parking there and now claimed it as her own. Just as she considers the front yard her private garden. It’s condo common area, but she’s made a hobby of “working” there, which is why the yard looks so bad. Only Bertilda could love rampant juniper and ivy. Only she could defend its existence with vehemence, wail and scream and prevent any removal, insist that the plants are providing necessary protection against yard-crossing vandals.

I ran into Jen a few hours later and she was still rattled from her Bertilda encounter. That’s not surprising to any of us who have experienced one. Our crazy old neighbor is a mere slip of a person, an inch or two over five feet and maybe 100 pounds, but she creates a storm of toxicity around herself and cuts a thermonuclear swath where she stomps. Time and again we’ve seen strong individuals, experienced at dealing with all sorts of marginal personalities, talk confidently about what they think will be their ability to deal with Bertilda, and then quake afterward, stunned at their own despair over the encounter and their extreme aversion to another.

That was one of the things that struck me about Bertilda’s conservator, who I met when she was opening the file as a caseworker. Leah spoke with such calm assurance about her likelihood to work the case. She mentioned baby steps and patience and assured Anne and me that she’d heard everything already; Bertilda wasn’t going to get to her.

Jen was visibly worried. She asked me if I knew of any written evidence that the parking spot wasn’t Bertilda’s. I said I didn’t think she needed any.

“But she said she’d have my car towed!”

I restrained a chuckle. “That’s not likely,” I said. “I don’t think she uses a phone. I’m sure no one she might call would act on her word alone. And she probably forgot about your car as soon as she shut her window. You’re best off just not engaging with her.”

“It’s hard not to respond when someone makes a statement or asks a question.”

“I know. I know. But it’s probably a useful skill.”

Jen cocked her head toward her right shoulder. “Maybe if I just assure her we’ll give her the space back when her car returns?”

“The problem with that is it’s reasonable! No, seriously, nothing will work. If you say that, she’ll come right back insisting that the car will return tonight. If you look dubious, she’ll raise her voice and tell you something like it comes back every night but her enemies steal it while she sleeps. Really. Even if you worked out a deal with her today, she’d forget it tomorrow. It’s like Groundhog Day everyday here.”

“It is weird,” Jen said. She was smiling now. She appeared to feel better. “When I first moved in, she’d come knocking on the door every day or so and ask Jerry and me if we saw her cat. Lately the question has changed to did we eat her cat.”

“That’s our girl,” I said. “Only Bertilda. You gotta wonder where she even gets these ideas. I mean, do you think she’s had experience eating cats? Or seeing others eat cats? Yech.”

Jen grimaced with me. She straightened her neck and tossed her hair a little. Jen’s hair looks dark blonde but has about a dozen shades of gold-to-white highlights. It caught the afternoon light and my attention. I think she’s much more attractive than Jerry is. And so much younger. I wonder what their deal is.

But our interaction was over, for then.

Bertilda has repeated her window challenge and threats every time Jen pulls her Jeep into the driveway. Jen appears to be getting hardened. I’m hearing “You better move that fucking car now!” answered with “Have a nice evening, Bertilda.” Progress.

On other fronts, not so much. An hour ago Anne and I received the following email from Leah:

I want to thank the both of you for all of your help with this case and providing information. I will now be transferring Bertilda’s case to my co-worker, Edward Carlson (510) 777-8934.

It looks like Bertilda has won another skirmish. We neighbors are progressively more eager for her to lose the war.