Living It Up in the HUD

Life in the HUD is a dream come true. Ask our new neighbors. We waved to them the other day as they stepped onto their porch and they had that look on their faces of “I can’t believe I’m actually here.” I figure they just never thought they’d luck out like they did, getting to live in a place like this.

As for Warren and me, there are only pros to being a member of the HUD. We are in the midst of the old cemetery, the train tracks, and the trailer park, so we have the protection of everyone thinking there is nothing worth stealing.

Also on the upside (because that is my assertion, there is nowhere else but up), there is free cable. Not the upgraded kind, mind you, but any show you’d have time to watch in a day is on. And we have the diversity of the Spanish, religious, and animal channels, which makes me feel I am a part of an accepting community.

Unlike other places, we don’t have a mouse problem. That is because we have a cat problem.

We may have too many kids darting in front of the cars on the HUD’s communal driveway, but if I had that many kids and needed something desperate that would keep them in check, I know I would let them play in the road too.

I also don’t feel judged that my curtains are pieces of discounted fabric I purchased at Walmart and of which are only tacked to my window frames. I did not choose tin foil because I don’t like how it crinkles.

Speaking of meth houses, there aren’t any basements around here, so we gather the HUD is clean. When the cops patrol the area around four times a day, it’s mostly for the reclamation of lost bicycles. I saw one lying on the road once and no one picked it up in a whole day. That’s comforting, knowing the cops have been effective.

But living in the HUD is not for everyone. Too many people are purchasing town homes instead. Granted it’s because they can afford that kind of thing, and no offense to anyone who has one, but I’ve never understood the logic behind them. They don’t have all of their walls, nor do they have a yard like a slightly older, regular home at the same price. That’s what we’re waiting for, once our dividends increase.

In the meantime, all I know is that this place is a dream come true. And in my dreams here there is an occasional cat fight, but more often a train whistle blowing around 3:30 a.m., and sometimes a country tune carries from the radio of an old hick driving home to his trailer in his rusted and exhaust-shooting Chevy, and I find myself dreaming of old westerns where I’m out on the range shooting squirrels—which is really from childhood, and the shooters were really my brothers, but it’s a dream so I can say pretty much anything and you’d have to believe me.

And once, late at night and not a dream, Warren and I went walking in the nearby graveyard and found a skull. It was plastic, of course, but what if.



(This post dedicated to Ginny Hill.)