December 29 - The Neighbor

When I opened the door it was the FBI. They wanted to talk to me about my neighbor, who was being sought as a person of interest in connection with a case of art theft. Namely, the original A Bold Bluff from C.M. Coolidge's Dogs Playing Poker series had been stolen.
I laughed, and asked them if they were serious.
They were. And then they answered my next question before I could ask it. It was worth just less than $600,000.
I asked them again if they were serious, and rather than answering me they asked me what I knew about my neighbor.
I shrugged and said, "Not much" in a way I hoped suggested that I wasn't just answering their question, but also making an observation or even a judgement about the state of the world. Like, We barely know our own neighbors these days. What happened to us, you know, as a society?
The younger one swallowed a yawn, and the older one asked me if I thought art theft might be something he might be mixed up in.
I pretended to think.
My neighbor? An art thief? What could I tell him?
He was by far the quirkiest neighbor I'd ever had.
One time he answered the door dressed in a fur tunic and a helmet with ram horns on the side of it. And then, handing me a flagon of grog, he wished me a Happy Viking Week.
He only ever dated plus-sized models, but not the sassy ones.
He had a rotary dial cell phone and a record player for his car.
I had no idea what he did for a living, but every time I went to his place he was engrossed in a different hobby: building a ship in a bottle, talking on a ham radio to Korea, glass blowing, repairing Sony Walkmans, tracing, translating ancient Greek into Latin, breeding hamsters, plumbing.
He regularly played poker with a group of guys that included Anthony Edwards.
When I heard he was licensed as a minister, I assumed it was one of those deals where you could sign up online, but actually he was Lutheran. But not practicing.
He volunteered for Meals on Wheels, but it was mostly so he could do recon work for antiques dealers; he always knew which estate sales to hit.
He'd gotten a scuba license in Latvia.
One time the local police contacted him because they needed someone who was familiar with an elephant's urinary tract in order to solve a case.
When we were watching Wind Talkers, he kept rolling his eyes at how ridiculous everyone's Cherokee accents were.
He claimed that he did voice talent work in the 70s. Remember the commercial for Operation!? That was him. Or so he says.
A couple summers ago I went to China on vacation, and while I was tooling around near the Great Wall, I saw his likeness on four different caricature artists' sample pictures, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga, and Barack Obama.
He'd once contributed a chapter's worth of kelp recipes to an Asian fusion cookbook.
And now he was wanted by the FBI for questioning about the theft of the world's most ridiculous painting. They wanted to know if I thought it was something he might be mixed up in.
I shook my head slowly and shrugged.
"Beats me," I told them. And after a few more questions they left.