how are you enjoying the demolition?

The noise of the deconstruction crew tearing down the Westheimer Square apartments has been going since 6a.m. I hear this crashing, slamming, splintering, dragging, motor gunning, and "I'm in reverse" beeping every morning but, usually, by the time I am showered and out the door, I forget all about it. To be home on a day off and have it as a constant sound track is nerve-jangling. Believe it.

Yesterday, when the streets of Montrose were eerily and beautifully deserted, I surveyed the damage. Almost half of the complex is gone, and the other half torn open, waiting for a giant claw to smash it to pieces. Rooms ripped in half. A bathroom with the floor torn out, but the toilet, looking a bit embarrassed, still standing. The wood, metal, plastic, and tile remains of what people called their homes have been neatly pushed into giant piles.

A couple of days ago, as I was walking back from the grocery store, I bumped into our next door neighbor (to the west of us). This is the neighbor who lives right next to the fence that divides the old complex from our dead end street. He and his partner live upstairs in a 1920-era brick duplex, and they run some kind of interior design business downstairs. They also have a gross little ratty-looking grey dog that shits all over our front yard (and they never pick it up) and yelps at the demolition noise. Their house is lovely, I think, but I also think all the 1920s-era buildings on this block are lovely, including the white brick one across the street that resembles a sad face with a black eye.

But I'm getting away from the point, which is this: When I saw the neighbor I asked, "How are you enjoying the demolition?", thinking we'd share some common annoyance about the noise, dirt, and loss of local architecture and community. But his reply was, "I cannot begin to tell you how happy that noise makes me. I'll take it any day over the cha cha music!" Cha cha music? O, of course, you racist white homo, the tejano music that residents of the complex played out of their station wagons in the evening. The music I enjoyed listening to because it went well with the sound of the church bells in the evening, and the smell of coffee that wafted over from Deidrich's coffee shop (now closed). That music.

This guy bothers me for many reasons. Last week, when Hank and I were outside thinking about doing something to cover the cement grates that lead to the crawl space under the apartment, he came over and chatted with us about the building. When we said we wished the landlord would do something about the crawl space, he said something like, "It would be even better if he just tore the whole thing down and built something new," and then he laughed and touched his moustache, nodding as if we were we all in agreement about that.

But I was stunned by this ugly comment. It made me feel bad.

It wasn't until later that night that I mustered up the courage to even tell Hank that the neighbor's words hurt me, and Hank agreed that it was a nasty thing to say. Why? Because it means that he doesn't like what he lives next to. And Hank and I do like living here, even though there are many, many problems that come with the place. It's a class thing: He's a property owner who couldn't be happier that they are about to put up what he called "very high end" condos -- four stories that will tower over our duplex, blocking out some sky. I dread this intrusion because it means that more suburbanites will move into the city, thinking it both "cool" and, now that they have four floors separating themselves from the horrible, horrible street, "safe" to live in Montrose. This guy has dollar signs in his eyes because it means, for him, lots of new business.

(I do enjoy the fussy design queens that work for our neighbor. They come in the morning, dressed in khakis and crisply ironed shirts, and smoke cigarettes out back while gossiping about their friends. They are very sweet to me, waving hello and mugging, as if caught doing something wicked, and then laughing, asking me how everything is going. A couple of them hold their hands limp at the wrist as they move about up and down the driveway. I always appreciate a queer who embodies a stereotype.)

In any case, have you realized that it has been a full year since I helped Cosmo come forth from his mother's womb? It's true. Cosmo is one year old, and Hank and I are about to walk up Hazard for the open house birthday party. Watching him spiral out of his mother and into the hands of the midwife was, perhaps, the most astonishing thing I have ever seen.