War over the Roses

Jack was a bit of a blowhard and his wife Leese seemed to really like her booze.

I also saw the way she was dressed, she had on slacks and a thin blouse, her nipples made two huge bumps level with her belly button.

+++

Saturday is our day to sleep in, Debs goes in for the afternoon shift, just 4 hours which usually means 5 or 6. If somebody dies she might be stuck there even later, paperwork and all of that crap.

I woke up about 7 AM to a roar. Looking out, there sat Jack on a huge bright red riding lawnmower. That house has a back yard that is pretty good size, maybe 100 feet by 150 or so, roughly the same lot size as ours all told.

The fucking mower was almost as big as my Dodge truck, it had dual blades, a 60" sweep.

Our yard faces the front towards the street, my mower does a 30" cut and it takes me just 10 minutes.

With the at least 60" cut that thing Jack was riding would do, he wasn't going to be at it very long. As I watched, he hooked one of the small plum trees Rachel had so carefully planted, managed to damn near knock it over. I heard him cuss a bit, then the mower shut off so I went right back to bed.

Next a chainsaw started up. I looked out the window, Jack had cut down every single Plum tree, both of the Apple trees and the decorative oriental Pear tree I had given them as a gift maybe two years back.

Then he went over and started in on the Monkey tree the folks that had the place before planted.

The one I sneaked out and tied some blossoms to one morning, then went and got Rachel to show her the Monkey tree was blooming. She came rushing out in her bathrobe, all excited. Lord that was funny, it was April first.

That beautiful tree was maybe 15 feet tall, down it came.

My God!

I didn't bawl but I came damn close to it.

I had a vision of holding Jack by his hair, giving him some uppercuts. Cutting down those trees pissed me off.

The plums trees had set blossoms, wich meant maybe some fruit? You know, those purple Italian kind, sweet as candy? The ones a person always eats too many of and gets a belly ache?

"What's the matter?" Debs asked me, she was awake but still in bed.

"That stupid mother fucker cut down all of the damned trees!" I told her, none too quietly.

"Oh, no." She said. Debs liked those tree too.

That was also it for sleeping in. Debs left at 11:30, I looked out the window about an hour later to see the two of them out there on lawnchairs.

It hit me that Leese had no top on, her fat pair of tits were out in plain sight! She had bigger boobs than my Debra has, except Debra's stand up high and firm for a woman 58 years old. Leese's pair were seriously losing the battle with gravity.

Take a balloon, fill it half full of water and pin it to a wall, you got the picture.

Then Jack stood up and went inside, his hairy ass was bare! He came back with a bottle, yep.

Naked as a Jaybird! His dick looked to be maybe 4" long and he had a mass of jet black pubic hair.

By the time I found our camera and got back, he was sitting down, so I took some pics of the back of his head, getting Lisa's tits in the background shot.

Good lord that woman had huge nipples on her!

I used the telephoto lens.

That was so I could show Debs when she got home.

It was now clear to me that our new neighbors were going to be interesting.

I wasn't real sure about how things were in California but around our neck of the woods these two just might end up in the local paper.

I mean, some guy ordered a pizza down at "Anthony's pizza and brew haus", took off without paying.

Front page news.

Later on, I looked out and they were still there, hell, they must be half Eskimo because it was maybe 50° outside at the very best!

Then I saw the extension cords, they had heaters set up blowing on them, now that was funny.

I couldn't help myself, I went out back and walked up to the low fence, pretending to be fiddling with my Rose bushes.

"Hi, you two!" I called out.

"Hey, Dan! Come on over, have a glass of wine with us!" Leese looked up, she just smiled.

I had expected her to jump up, grab a towel, run inside the house, something.

She didn't budge.

I hopped the fence, went over there.

There she sat, nude. One leg on each side of the lawn chair, nothing hidden at all and she made no move to cover up.

I looked, hell, I am male. There is no way in hell to not look at a bare pussy barely 10 feet away. I didn't even need my glasses for that one, her outer lips were big, one side hanging down further than the other.

I swear to God, if the wind was up, those things would flap!

I sat down, took the glass of wine. It was that deep dark kind, rich and not sweet at all which I don't like much.

"Great wine, isn't it?" Jack said.

"Uh huh." I answered, managing to not make a face.

Leese was lying back with a smirk on her face, one hand idly flicking her oversize wad of flesh between her legs, like it had grass on it or something.

Jack saw me looking and trying not to, he just grinned.

"Doesn't Leese have one hell of a pussy on her?" He asked me, just like that.

"Uh...yea, I...uhh." I went all red faced.

"Relax, Dan. We ain't bashful at all. We both like to lay out and sun bathe, you guys are welcome to join us any time."

I was thinking I could hardly wait until Debs got home.

"Hey, Debs! Wanna go over and lay out naked with our new neighbors? Drink lousy wine and freeze our asses off?" I could see how that was going to go over.

Uh huh.

I did manage to escape, I even got most of that horrid wine down.

"$200.00 a bottle!" Jack stuck that in there.

Back inside our house I drew the curtains, went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

+++

"Really?" Debs snorted when I told her about Jack and Leese laying out all stark naked like that.

I showed her the pictures I took to prove it.

"Yea. Now what in the hell are we going to do about that?" I asked her.

"I don't see how we can do anything about it, it is their back yard." She grinned at me.

"Yea, well, it's sort of our back yard, too." I mumbled.

Debs just shrugged.

"He cut down all the trees! All of them!" I complained.

"Yes, that's a shame." Debs went into the bedroom to change.

Hell, my Rose bushes are right there on our side of the fence, I couldn't go putting up a 10 foot tall fence because it would cut off the light.

Sunday morning dawned nice and bright again, it looked like we were going to have nearly a week without rain.

Usually I headed for the jetty to catch a few fish, so I went out to my garage and was laying out some spiffy new watermelon and white rubber jigging worms. Those had long split tails, I got them off that auction site I sell stuff on. Only $0.90 each, downtown in the fishing tackle shop they are $2.99.

Still, it cost me $11.95 to get them shipped to me, but there was 20 of them in the box. Then they showed up in a small parcel flat rate box which I happen to know is just $5.80?

Thieving bastards.

I gave the jerk a positive anyway, but tagged him a "2" on the shipping charges. That is anonymous so he wouldn't know.

Mean of me, isn't it? The jerk had it coming.

Those lures are for lead headed rigs so the prong on the hook always points up, and they have a tiny little wire that lets the hook usually slide through weeds, but when a fish clamps down on it, it bends back and I got them.

That's what it said in the ad, anyway, weedless. I was going to find out if they were rockless.

The hot setup, no more hangups. I bet I have over two grand worth of lures still on the bottom of the bay out there by now. Lots of rocks out there, plus those big Kelp beds.

"Hi, Dan." Came from behind me, I dang near jumped out of my skin.

It was Jack, of course.

He had his pants on, thank God.

"Going fishing?" He asked me.

"Yea."

"Mind if I tag along?" He asked.

What was I supposed to say? When I go fishing, the last thing I want is company. The whole idea is to get away from other people, that is nearly as important as the fishing.

"Sure, if you want to." I told him. He went over to his place and came back with a rod and reel that had to have cost $500.00.

So out onto the jetty we went, me climbing carefully over the huge boulders, Jack hopping over them like a damn kid. His pot belly didn't seem to faze his agility much.

I took him to a spot where I almost never caught anything, mean of me I guess but no way in hell was I going to show him my secret spot.

Not very secret except to look at my favorite spot nothing really shows. There is a huge boulder under the water on each side, the current comes around them and formed this deep hole. The big ones like that deep hole, it has places to hide where they can ambush little fish. Plus they can hide from the Seals down in there.

I know exactly where to toss my lure so it goes down into the hole, three feet either way and it hits the rocks. I can lead the current and hit that spot 9 times out of 10. If I miss, I just reel as fast as I can, trying to get the lure in before it sinks, because if it does, it's gone.

I like that one spot so much that I won't even cast in there if anyone is around. No way in hell was I going to let Jack find out which is why I took him to the unproductive area.

Jack stepped up on a fairly flat boulder, cast out with his $500 spinning outfit, using one of my new plastic worms. He hooked a 24" Lingcod on the very first god damned cast!

That one went into the bag, he cast again and caught the thing's little brother.

I never got a bite.

"Man, you sure do know this river!" Jack patted me on the back as he stuffed the 2nd one into his bag.

Five minutes later he dragged out a Greenling that was at least 18" long.

I wanted to go home.

+++

I was still pouting in our living room watching the news on TV when the phone rang.

It was Leese, she wanted Debra and I to come over. She said that Jack was out in the back yard barbecuing the fish.

"Sure, why not?" Debs said when I asked her.

We went over there, I half expected the two of them to be naked but they weren't. Jack was tending a huge gas grill, the thing gleamed.

The fish was good though, and Leese made a noodle salad that was wonderful. I almost asked her what she put in it, but I didn't.

Wine again, white this time. After about two hours it was clear that Leese was getting well into the bag, she must have put away one bottle of that stuff by herself.

The conversation drifted to them sunbathing nude, that was Debra's fault.

"We both prefer it but damn it's cold out here." He said.

"Well, it is the coast, it gets down to 40° nearly every night, often it freezes. Wait until Summer, it's usually over 50° at night, nice and warm." I stuck that in there.

Jack got a funny look on his face.

"That's all?" He finally asked.

"Well, yes. This is the Oregon coast, if it gets above 60° here we all break out in a sweat, if we get dry we get crabby and our skin flakes off. If it's above 40° at night we can't sleep!"

I gave him a great big grin.

Standard local joke about Oregon, Jack didn't find that very funny.

"You do get nice warm Summer days here, don't you?" Jack had an almost hopeful tone in his voice.

"Well, the ocean is right there." I pointed for emphasis.

"But yea, sometimes we get all the way up to 70°." I added.

It's the headline in the paper when that happens.

I enjoyed the look on his face.

From sunny California, huh?

Heehee.

+++

"So what do you think of Jack and Leese?" I asked Debs after we got home.

"I guess they are OK, Lisa drinks way too much and some work down at the gym would do Jack a lot of good."

That's my Debra, always the Doctor.

We didn't see much of Jack or Lisa over the next few weeks, except for a wave at each other coming and going.

Then one Saturday morning once again we were woken up by a roar outside. I squinted at the clock, it was barely 7 in the morning. The one day we sleep in.

Now what in the hell?

Looking out the window, I saw a backhoe. Not one of those ditch digging machines, this thing was orange and monstrous.

Already there was a huge pile of dirt up against my fence. I started to turn to grab my clothes when I heard a crack. Looking back, the 4" x 4" pressure treated posts I had so carefully set to hold up the line fence let go, two of them.

The fence was lying on some of my prize Rose bushes.

I was out the door in a shot, still in my T-shirt and briefs.

"Hey, hey, HEY!" I yelled at the backhoe operator.

"What in the fuck are you DOING?" A mexican looking guy brought the machine to a stop, opened the door of the cab and looked at me.

"Que?" He said, then he looked and realized.

"Oh, sorry mister. Don't worry, we will fix that." He told me.

"Fix that? FIX THAT?" It took me five god damned YEARS to get them to this point!" I sputtered at the guy.

Just then Jack came out, big shit eating grin on his face.

"What in the hell? This guy just smashed my fence, took out my Rose bushes!"

I wasn't quiet.

"Sorry, accident. They will fix it. We are putting in a covered pool." He grinned.

"A pool? In Oregon? You have to be kidding me." By then I was on my knees, looking at my reddest Rose bush. The stalk was broken, it was done for. I knew it would take me a couple of years at least to get it back to the way it was.

"Sorry about that, I will have a garden company come in and replace it." He told me with a grin like nothing had happened.

Managing to control myself, I stood up and asked him what they were building. He handed me the plans, the building would be five feet from the fence line, it would block off all of the sunlight to that area of our back yard from about one PM on.

I knew damn good and well there would be no Roses growing in that spot ever again.

I handed the plans back to him, turned and went inside.

"Hey, it will be great! You guys can come over and use it any time you want to!" He called after me.

I didn't look back, I had visions of that .45 Italian made pistol I kept in a drawer in my house.

"What's going on?" Debra was dressed when I came inside, she looked me up and down with a snicker. That was when I realized I was in my underwear. My knees were dirty from kneeling down over my babies that mother fucker just killed.

What the hell, it was MY back yard. Or it used to be.

Our house was mostly front yard facing the street, the other house was mostly back yard facing us.

This left the other house with just under 100 feet of lawn back there, our strip was just 20 feet. No way in hell could I move the Roses over enough, and the building was going to be right there, with a 30' x 50' inside pool? The fucking building was going to be huge!

I decided to put up a fight about that, but it was Saturday and of course everything to do with government was closed.

My weekend was not good. The roar outside kept on, they did stop at 8 O'clock each night, I sat there looking at my wristwatch because at 8:01 I was going to call the police.

My sort of son in law is the County Sheriff, I was going to have him come out and arrest EVERYBODY for disturbing the peace.

No such luck.

Monday morning I was in the County offices the moment Jennifer opened the door. Debs and I knew Jennifer fairly well, she was a client of hers and also served as secretary for the local Elk's club we belong to.

Plus she is the County clerk, I even voted for her.

Jack had filled out all of the permits, paid all of the fees. Things were going extremely fast, too.

The letter the government was supposed to send me as notice of the permit was there on her desk, she handed it to me.

I growled.

Jennifer shrugged. No point in yelling at her, she is just a clerk.

The hole was done, I could see they were preparing to pour the concrete, probably by the time I got home.

The specifications had to be "five feet from the adjacent property line." The plans showed they were.

Then it hit me.

That house was vacant when I bought my place, no fence. I built the fence myself, 3 feet high to city specifications.

But I built it 12" back from the property line to make sure I didn't get onto someone else's property. That was because the county surveyor wanted $150.00 to come out and find the exact fence line.

OK, sometimes I am a little bit cheap.

Way back a neighbor bought an acre next to my small ranch, I didn't want that built on so I had my place surveyed. Where they had to put their marker rod was six feet onto my property, the line fence someone had built years before was not exactly straight.

I used that to stop them for nearly a year, of course they rezoned me and taxed me out of there but it worked for awhile.

And I learned things.

I filed a complaint, they call that "encroachment". Jack's building was not five feet from the property line, it was four feet.

There was a red tag on the project by 3 PM that same afternoon. They never got the concrete poured, and the truck was loaded.

It sat out there with the engine running, the big tumbler going round and round. Finally I saw it drive away.

What they did with it I don't know, I sat inside my living room snickering about that.

Having a son in law that is the County Sheriff is an asset.

Well, sort of our son in law, Hal Jordan married Sandi, the girl I found underneath the bottom shelf in our bathroom closet.

The one that became our sort of adopted daughter.

Different story, I wrote and posted that here.

+++

Anyway.

Jack was beating on my door by 5 PM. I answered it but stood in the way, I didn't want to let him in.

I was wishing it was raining but no such luck, there is no roof on our porch.

"What in the hell is this? I measured the fucking distance myself!" He yelled, waving some paperwork.

"You went from the fence, not the property lines." I told him, my arms folded across my chest.

He glared at me, turned and left.

The next day a survey crew was out.

I was right.

Next came an adverse possession claim, that one even got before Judge Norman Jackson, a guy I know who also happens to be one of Debra's clients.

Still, he was fair.

"The law is seven years, open and notorious use. Three months does not meet the law. It also is not transferable, the previous owners were there just five years. The project must be resubmitted to comply with the law." He banged his gavel and left.

Jack shot me some looks that if they could kill......? I was happy all the way home, permit applications are not refundable.

Fuck up MY Roses, by God!

The red tag stayed up, my fence stayed down with a pile of dirt on it. I had already taken some clippings from my prize Roses and got some starts going.

Finally the new plans were approved, nothing I could do about it.

+++

Another Saturday morning, another roar. I looked out and front end loaders were moving the dirt into dump trucks. Later a crew showed up and rebuilt my fence, it looked just like it did before so I couldn't complain about that.

Except they built a concrete block fence just inside of mine, right on the line.

Exactly three feet high, I went out and measured it.

Which I could see through the slats on mine.

They even showed up with some new Roses, I have no idea where they came up with those plants but I couldn't complain, not really.

One of them was a type I had always wanted and could not find. It was supposed to have the buttercup yellow with reddish trimmed blossoms.

So I calmed down some.

But by now we didn't wave at each other when we saw them coming and going, and I didn't give a shit.

Jack was an arrogant rich bastard, his wife was a slutty looking drunk.

+++

The pool went in, then they started on the building. As soon as I saw them start framing it, I knew that they had changed the plans.