What’s in a Name?

In September of 1994, Brian bought a townhouse on Montclaire Street in Austin. After a month of living with Aunt Ronnie and Ben, I moved in with him. A bright-eyed, eighteen-year-old freshman at the University of Texas, newly out and fresh from a small town in Arkansas, I hadn’t been exposed to much. I had enough trouble adapting to Brian’s lifestyle of debauchery, so imagine my shock when I discovered that our neighbors were witches—bisexual witches, who were planning to paint an astrological chart on the wall behind their unit and had crazy, headboard-banging sex that would wake me up at three in the morning.

The first time I met the witches, two women and one man, I was standing in the fenced-in area behind our unit. Neighboret, as we called her, approached me. Brian gave her the name, a combination of her given name, Margaret, and neighbor. Anyway, Neighboret wanted to warn me that she and her roommates were putting together a little ceremony for the weekend. I was warned that a drum would be beating and that, if it became too loud for me to tolerate, I was more than welcome to request that they knock it off. There was only one stipulation: I was only to talk to those wearing black robes.

I made plans to return to Arkansas for the weekend.

Over the next several months, Neighboret, her roommates and I became rather close. Because the truck the three shared had broken down, they relied on me to take them to the grocery store. The four of us would load up into my Grand Am and head to the HEB on Oltorf. When we returned home, Neighboret would make me dinner and send me home with a baggie full of gingerbread men.

On the weekends, Neighboret and her coven would get together and take Ecstasy. They would knock on our front door, drag me next door and make me hug and rub on them. They told me that I was the best neighbor in the world and that they liked me a lot more than they liked Brian.

It was during one of these hug fests that my phone rang. Even though there was a brick wall dividing our units, the phone—an Epson that took more abuse than any phone should ever have to, including being submerged in the bathtub—was so loud it might as well have been ringing inside their unit. As soon as it began to ring, the entire coven began chanting, “Fruit phone. Fruit phone.” Neighboret then revealed to me that they could always hear our phone ring and that they had begun calling it the fruit phone, a reference, of course, to the fags who owned it.

I am not too sure how long Neighboret and her roommates lived next to us. The astrological chart was never completed. I remember Sara Hickman, a singer who moved into a unit on the other side of Neighboret, reporting their truck as a nuisance to the city and it disappearing one day. I think the male witch (or is it warlock?) had a son in Florida, and he wanted to move closer to him. All I know is that one day they were all gone and two heterosexual guys moved in and ruined it all.

It’s sad, you know. It has been eight years since I left Austin. I have a great job, a great boyfriend, and a great life in Little Rock, but I know it will never be as good as it was in Austin, getting stoned all day, making fun of Brian’s boyfriends and waiting for Neighboret to call me on the fruit phone and ask me to drive her to the HEB.

Gingerbread hasn’t tasted as sweet since.