Feud

Since moving here, I've done more or less all of the Texan things which establish oneself as part of the San Antonio landscape. I've eaten chicken fried steak. I've experienced the music of both Selena and George Strait. I've been to a Spurs game, even though I found it massively underwhelming. The only thing left seemed to be feudin' with hornery types, and now I've ticked that one off the list as well.

It was a routinely horrible morning at the beginning of 2020, routinely horrible because the year didn't really get off to a great start with three deaths amongst friends and family, one relative sent into something of a tailspin by the same, the demolition of the house in which my wife used to live - apparently because the new owner just wanted something in a different colour - a traffic citation, and the aforementioned wife suddenly finding herself obliged to work from home because the company decided it could make great savings by giving the office space to someone else. Then, as I take out the trash I happen to notice Squidward out in his yard.

'Good morning,' I call.

I won't remember the reply but it's something testy about how he's engaged in the activity of gathering turds produced by our cats which have been deposited upon his property, or at least his landlord's property.

Okaaay, I think, and get back inside.

Squidward has lived here since before we moved in. He used to star in a popular children's cartoon series and I believe he worked in seafood retail but is now retired.

Ten minutes later he rings our door bell.

'Sorry about the snide comment,' he says, 'but you've got to understand my problem. I'm asking nicely, so what are you doing about all the cats?'

We have a number of cats, although not all of them belong to us. Most of them are feral or stray cats which we feed because someone has to. The population is fluid, more than ten, but not too much more. Some of them roam into Squidward's garden from time to time because they're cats and it's cruel to keep them cooped up inside.

We work with people from the San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition, which is recognised by the Animal Control Services of the city council, to make sure all of our ferals and strays are spayed or neutered, which usually reduces the nuisance factor unless you just plain hate cats. I've told him this before, suggesting I'm fine with him hosing any that wander into his yard so as to deter repeat appearances. I bought him a bag of something called Silent Roar, which is also supposed to deter feline incursions.

I've heard his objections before and I still don't know what he wants me to say. Maybe he wants me to concede and get rid of them or have them all put down in accordance with what is presumably his idea of a good neighbour.

'I mean I wouldn't mind if it was just one or two,' he says, and I immediately recall that he clearly did mind when it was just one or two. He's been at us since we moved here, not often but just enough to form a pattern built up from just about every conversation I've ever had with the man.

Our first encounter was him welcoming his new neighbours across the chain link fence which divides our respective yards. The welcome was a detailed account of how terrible the previous tenants had been, three young guys who partied hard all of the time. This one always puzzled me because the mail we still get for the previous tenant is all addressed to Maria Ramos, a young single mother who lived on her own with just her kid. This is how everyone else in our street remembers her. No-one remembers the three party dudes. Not even the landlord was able to remember the three party dudes, because we asked when we bought the house from him.

Then Squidward wanted to know whether we were leaving food out for vermin - raccoons and opossums. We weren't, but he established the theme of the great interest he takes in what happens in our yard, the one we now own. I find this odd because generally I've never given a shit what other people do in their own yards, so I find it difficult to imagine that sort of mindset.

Yet here he is again.

He tells me that he's just sold one of his three cars - which I presume would have been the one with the personalised licence plate. The buyer complained about the paintwork having been scratched by cats. Online research suggests that this is actually impossible. Cat claws lack the necessary density to make a mark on automotive paintwork just as I'm unable to scratch the paint of a car with my fingernail, excepting obviously shitty paint jobs where some hillbilly has brought a can of emulsion back from the hardware store in hope of recreating the vehicle from The Dukes of Hazzard. Casual scratch marks left upon vehicles almost always turn out to be from trees, so it is generally believed.

As we have our conversation, such as it is, he takes a call from the disgruntled buyer so I have to stand and listen, wondering if he actually does want me to promise to have them all rounded up and euthanised. He clearly believes it's an option.

The city of San Antonio has a no kill policy regarding feral or stray cats, instead having opted for TNR - trap, neuter, vaccinate, and then return them to wherever they were found. The policy was adopted on the basis of it being better to manage stable cat populations which aren't going to produce a ton of kittens, for without stable cat populations, unstable cat populations tend to move in, bringing with them all the fucking, fighting, disease, and territorial marking you get with un-vaccinated, un-neutered cats.

Squidward gave me a heads up as I was heading out on my bike about a year ago. 'Hey, just a heads up,' he said. 'There's been an Animal Control truck seen in the area. They've been picking up any cat they find and euthanising them on the spot, so you might want to keep your guys inside. I'm telling you this as a friend.'

Even at the time it sounded a little like the five-year old who has definitely just seen a real dinosaur.

More recently he suddenly had a daughter who was going to get rid of her two beautiful cats after ten years, and did we know anyone seeing as how we're obviously cat people and all?

It was a weird question. The daughter was living hundreds of miles away, and it seemed odd that someone in San Antonio had been picked as the potential solver of this apparently knotty problem. It seemed odd that she somehow lacked the ability to seek adoption in her part of the country; and the description of beautiful cats sounded very much like the words of a man trying too hard to impersonate someone who has no problem with cats. It felt as though the answer he was rooting around for was, hey - we'll take them, we love cats, we need as many cats as we can possibly get our hands on.

The thing is, we actually don't want that many cats but here they are, and there were at least five already hanging around when we moved to this street. When it's practical we find homes for them, as we have done over and over. We didn't bring the raccoons or opossums with us either.

Back in the here and now, he ends the call and says the same stuff all over again. I still don't know what to tell him. We can't do anything we're not already doing.

'That guy who lives next to Donna shot someone in the head a few years ago, right inside their house,' I tell him. 'You remember that? I mean with all due respect, while I'm sure we're not the most amazing neighbours in the world, I don't really see how we can be the worst.'

'I think very highly of you.' He seems slightly stunned and is pulling back, trying to be the nice guy again. 'We're very fond of the both of you,' he adds to no obvious purpose, then leaves.

A few days later we get a letter from Animal Control Services. Someone in our neighbourhood has registered a complaint about property damage and nuisance animals, but it's a form letter naming no names, adding that we should ignore it if it doesn't apply to us.

We talk to Susan from the Feral Cat Coalition. She works with Animal Control and warns us that we should expect a visit, and also that Squidward has filed a claim against us with the small claims court for property damage, a claim which didn't go anywhere due to lack of evidence seeing as he'd already sold the car, despite it having apparently been reduced to scrap by cats.

We spend a couple of days shitting ourselves. We've all seen Animal Cops Houston.

Animal Control turns out to be one young woman who turns up in the truck. She's a cop and actually very helpful. The city is mainly concerned that strays are subjected to the TNR process, which all of ours have been, and that we're demonstrably making efforts to reduce potential nuisance - for example leaving sandboxes around the yard to draw the production of cat poo from adjacent properties, which we do. Having been satisfied that we're not the sort of people who end up on episodes of Animal Cops Houston, she leaves and puts in the necessary good word by which we are able to apply for a cat colony license. This means that providing we TNR and otherwise stick to the established rules, we can have as many cats as we fucking well want.

I never had a strong opinion regarding Squidward, beyond thinking there was something a bit unpleasant about him. Now, however, he's pretty much revealed himself for who he is behind the unconvincing nice guy persona. Donna has told us he once called the cops on her son who was playing his radio too loud, so loud that the walls of Chez Squidward were apparently quite literally shaking. Everything about him seems fussy, suggestive of a privileged upbringing which failed to segue into the riches and status he probably believes to be his due, which is why he's reduced to living around here. He'd clearly rather live in Terrell Hills surrounded by doctors and dentists, prissy older women with face lifts, a better standard of person, people who touch base or give you a heads up, somewhere with a neighbourhood association to prevent scumbags such as ourselves moving in.

I've seen our cats in his garden, but they mostly stay away, and I find it difficult to believe in the hundreds of steaming turds with which they supposedly bespoil his beloved driveway on a daily basis. I suspect it's more likely that he simply hates cats and is too finely attuned to how others may impact upon his existence. Anyone living in a town or a city will probably have neighbours, and one has to make allowances for the same or else fuck off and live on a private estate with a high wall around it.

Our cats are all neutered, excepting the Wombat whom we have as yet been unable to catch. There's not much fighting, not even much bird destruction going on - contrary to the received wisdom - and not much, I would argue, to get all snitchy about. It's not like we have a fucking meth lab in the garage.

The next day, a tiny grey cat turns up on our door, a living skeleton who has been seen up and down the street for weeks, getting  more and more emaciated by the day. We haven't been able to get near her, but hunger has evidently overridden her fear, and here she is. We get her to eat, although she can't handle much at first, and over the next couple of days she gets stronger and begins to fill out a little. Once she's up to it, we'll get her neutered and take it from there, maybe see if we can't find a good owner as we've done with previously rescued kittens. Once inside our home, she's friendly, and too friendly to have been just a stray. Most likely she was dumped by some arsehole.

I've never been the sort of person who can simply walk on thinking fuck it - someone else's problem, and I don't understand anyone who is, at least where animals are concerned. I don't understand anyone who sees a cat, raccoon, opossum, stray dog, or any form of wildlife, domesticated or otherwise, and whose first thought is that had better not shit in my yard. On days such as today I tend to think such persons lack empathy and are as such incomplete human beings who probably shouldn't be allowed to raise children.

I am resident in America thanks to a green card and my whole life is here. I'm reliably informed that criminal convictions of any kind don't look great when reapplying for a green card, or even seeking citizenship, and I live next door to a man who calls the cops because he can't get along with others.

I don't think I'll be having much to do with him for a long time.