The Musings of Ned Flanders.
Hypothisos.
Watering my frangipanis, I herd the tell-tale sounds of a rift breaking out between my... Somewhat obscure neighbours, Marge and Homer Simpson.
First, there's that 'calm before the storm' sound where the whole house goes eerily silent. The silence is thus broken when a soft 'Doh' emanates the surrounding area, breaking the silence. After that Marge Simpson let's loose her womanly cry of frustration, and verbally abuses her husband.
By now I usually finish up whatever I'd be doing and high-tail it into my charming cottage-house as my neighbourino will be in a foul mood, mostly at his own stupidity for causing his charming wife such a problem. Even he knows he's pushed something too far, should Dear Margery is upset. She is, after all, the most forgiving and patient woman in the world.
If Homer doesn't take his car and ram his way to Moe's tavern, then he'll be storming up the footpath, kickin' and hurting anything and everything in his path, physically or verbally; which is why I would usually scramble inside. While I know Mr. Simpson would never physically hurt me, his words cut through the stone, finding the one thing to hurt you the most.
But today I decide to stay out. Rod and Todd are at bible camp (with all the other children who go to church. Simpson children included.) In Texas for the next three weeks so I have no one to keep me company inside while Homer torments the town. Humming, I go back to my gardening, now watering the lilies my late wife had planted before her un-timely death. A few moments later a large shadow looms over my plants and I. looking up; I see a most pitiful sight.
Homer J. Simpson, with his eye brows creased together, while his eyes are half-lidded in a 'kick-puppy' look. His sombre, regretful look etched onto his face, projecting it's self onto his slumped shoulders, slouched back and overall appearance. I can rule out any verbal abuse today because he's feeling nothing but self loathing right now.
'She's called it quits, Flanders.' He whispers dejectedly, 'just like that,' he snaps his gawky fingers for emphasis, 'but this time, this time, I have no idea what I did wrong! My head is whirling, trying to find something, anything, that would make her so mad!'
His eyes had gone watery as he explains and I could hear through his woes a few small sniffles.
Gracefully, I stood, carefully placing my un-gloved hand on his back and led him inside my home. Leading him gently into the kitchen I placed him onto the seat he would usually sit on in a different circumstance before I crossed the room to brew some coffee. No words on my part have been said.
This is the first time in three years he has come to me after a fight with Marge, which generally means this one of the worse of fights. After all, only the worst of the worst does he come to me for comfort and a place to stay. In a mediocre fight, no more than a marital fight he would go to Moe's and drink himself into a stupor before either staying with Lenny or Karl.
In a fight much like the one he just had, he comes to me for the kind words I give him and a good meal, a nice, comfortable room to sleep in for the night and a warm breakfast in the morning. A sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on, an advice giver and a Marge de-fuser. Should the fight last more than a night, he can stay here for as long as he would like, and stay close to the woman he loves even if she doesn't want to see him. That's why he comes here, or so I guess.
Sometimes I wish he would come over for a friendly visit and not under these circumstances, as if he were a friend. But as he has so coldly made it clear all these years, he is not my friend, we are merely neighbours.
It wasn't like this nine years ago, just after young Bart had been born. When Mr. And Mrs. Simpson had first moved in next door, he had first been enthusiastic towards a budding friendship between us neighbours. Maud and I had only swapped vows a few months before the young Simpson family had moved in and were expecting our first child. During her pregnancy, Maud had thought it would be better if she would go to an 'expectant mothers' Christian community while with-child in hopes she would learn how to become a greater mother with the help and support of the Christian community. Or so she had told me back then.
Homer Simpson was a blue collar, terribly recent father, finalcially un-stable nuclear power plant worker. Back then, when Moe's Tavern wasn't a well known bar to Homer, he would work outside to escape his screaming child and frustrated wife and we would swap tales of our days. It was a budding friendship at first which took some dangerous turns to our relationship some two weeks after Maud's escape to Expectant Mothers camp.
Homer was constantly depressed in those early years, feeling worthless by his new family and peers. He confided in me that he didn't know how he could do it anymore and heistenly told me he had thoughts about leaving Marge and Bart one night just to get away from it all. i should have probably looked shocked at that secret, but I knew he had been having these thoughts, I even planned what to say to him all in my head since the minute I had seen the signs. Things didn't go according to plan and he invited himself over after Marge told him to just leave the house for a few hours.
He had brought beer. Lots and lots of beer. I was such a lightweight back then, I still am today, I can't handle the rough alcohol and foul taste of it all, but Homer wouldn't have me not drinking the beer he had brought over and so we sat on my wife's picked out purple couch and drank the foul smelling liquid. I don't remember that night other than hazy details but it was clear in the morning when we both woke up simutanuosly what had happned.
I had prayed to god all that night and thanked him as well that we still had the sense to wear condoms.
Not only had I commited adultry, I had lain with a man.
It was tense between us, but after we talked it out we became friends once again only to commit the same mistake over and over and over with increasingly less alcohol than we had started out with. It wasn't long before we could commit the act without any use of alcohol at all.
It went on like that for some time until Maud came back with a two month year old Rodd. Homer tried to seduce me when she had come back and settled in but I refused harshly, furiously telling him it was a mistake that was to never, ever to be repeated again. the look on his face as I could literally see his heart crush beneath my words haunts me more than a god fearing Christian would like to admit.
A month later, Mrs. Simpson was pregnant with her second child.
A month after her, Maud became pregnant with our second child.
From that moment on, Homer came to despise me. And I let him. I broke his heart and it was only fair. He sneered in my directed and muttered under his breath. It was just easier, I suppose, to go from one extreme to the other.
Later on when Maud died, Homer became an increasing person in my life. He didn't despise me as much as he did as our children were growing up and in those weaker moments of those days he came and comforted me the way I comforted him when he was a newlywed with his first born son.
We didn't declare to each other that we should stop, we just did. No words necessary. Homer set me up with a girl I came to like and admire, but never love, and that's when I knew our feud, our friendship, our sin was finished.
But tonight, as he looks at me with those eyes and tells me in sordid detail how his wife told him she wanted him to leave for good, I know he wants us to go back to what we had and what we did to help each other through those young tense time of early life.
We may not have had romance in our rocky relationship, but we do have a thin bond that snaps and heals at well place word that either brings us together or shatters us completely.
It's not much, but it's a small snippet of a love that could be achieved should we not have been put into the circumstances we've been thrust into. And that's more than I can ever know we have. By tomorrow morning, after I had thoroughly let him have use of my body I'll waltz over the Simpson home and sort this mess out. Homer deserves a happy life and I'm not the one to give it to him.
Even if it is at this late stage of my life what I want.