The Fuckins

    Watching river traffic on the Willamette was soothing. Tugboats leading mighty cargo ships. Fireboats with their high-reaching water plumes. Bedecked sailboats with flickering lights during the Christmas season. My favorite boat had a timed sequence of Santa skiing down a hill.  All of this was right outside my window or viewed leisurely from my balcony. True, the complex was just starting to go to seed, remodeled some years later as pricey waterfront condos.
 
 It was one of the best places I've ever lived. Close to downtown Portland, across the street from Union Station. From my bedroom window I could see three flashes: GO * BY * TRAIN *. I never tired of seeing those red neon repeating words.  Life was good. Then the Fuckins moved in next door.
 
The Fuckins were three adjective impaired guys in their twenties. Surely, they must have had some recollection of simple descriptors such as big, blue, crazy, or bad, but they seemed to prefer the economy of just one word to precede any noun: fuckin. This is what living next door to the Fuckins sounded like:
 
Fuckin #1: "My fuckin girlfriend said she wants to break up. We've been together two fuckin years! I couldn't fuckin believe it." 
 
Fuckin #2: "Women are fuckin crazy. I'm fuckin sick of their fuckin bullshit. I'm fuckin sick of my fuckin boss too."
 
Fuckin #3: "Come clean up the fuckin kitchen. You assholes made a fuckin mess."
 
All three Fuckins smoked, and all three liked to balance their cigarettes on the old wooden railing of their balcony. The Fuckins are going to burn down the building, I said to my boyfriend. He told me I worried too much.
 
When the Fuckins burned down the building two weeks later, I wasn't home. I arrived just as the firefighters were leaving. Actually, the Fuckins didn't succeed in burning down the entire building, but they did succeed in completely severing their balcony. The charred remains lay on the ground below, like the victim of a gruesome murder. There was also damage to their side of the building's exterior.
 
The fire captain told me they had arrived quickly. He was sympathetic to my freak out over my beagle, assuring me they would have gotten her out had the fire spread. But what if they hadn't been so quick to arrive? For days, I replayed the what if scenario. The thought of losing Brandy made me absolutely sick. I loved her so much. Having her die due to the carelessness of idiots would have been more than I could stand.
 
I try to use the word fuck sparingly, fucking even less frequently. But I can't lie. I was really fucking happy when the Fuckins moved out.