Several days passed without further incident.  Though put off by the anti-social behavior of their new neighbor, they weren’t yet willing to give up on him.  Many discussions were held over the phone by the wives.  The men stood in their garages, visiting over a beer and an open hood, contemplating the implications of what had transpired that day.  All agreed that maybe it was just nerves.  Maybe he was unused to his new surroundings and needed some time to adjust.

This seemed to prove true when, less than a week later they got their first good look at him.

He was short and somewhat on the thin side, some might even say scrawny, at what looked to be only five and a half feet with his weight barely into the triple digits.  When he first appeared on his front porch, it was without flair, and had there not been at least one of the wives gossiping about him that morning, he would have gone unnoticed.

He stooped slightly as he walked and from a distance he might have been mistaken for a much more advanced age than he actually possessed.  His steps were deliberate, one might even say methodical, and he seemed to be weighing the pale faces that watched him from their homes below.  He could have been anybody’s teenage son, for his boyish features betrayed the appearance that distance had told.

His features were unremarkable.  While he wasn’t pleasant to look upon, nor was he the opposite to behold as well.  If it wasn’t for the newness of his presence, or for the fact that he was filling some pretty big shoes by moving into this particular house, they might have quickly forgotten all about him.

He stood with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his black slacks, occasionally rocking from heel to toe where he stood, seemingly enjoying the fresh cool breeze coming in from the north.  Hanging from the upper body of his gangling frame, untucked and blowing lightly in the wind, was a white, and very wrinkled, dress shirt.

His hair hung limply over his face, obscuring most of his features but for a slice of the right side, and what did show was smiling ever so slightly.  He knew they were watching.  He had seen the moon-shaped face of the woman who had approached him with her husband.  Even now, she attempted to hide behind the curtains of her kitchen window, her mouth excitedly jabbering into the receiver of her phone. There were two others as well, one watching from where she knelt as she picked weeds from her around her flower bed, and the other from where she sat on her front porch swing.

His teeth appeared from behind his lips and the latter curved upward, revealing a toothy grin that could easily put a wolf to shame, which in of itself wasn’t very far from the truth at all.  Making no effort to hide himself, he formed an ‘O’ with his lips and tonelessly pushed out the notes to ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ as he tucked his shirt into his slacks.

One by one, the faces turned away from their windows, back toward the flowers they should have been focused upon, or into a magazine that just happened to be sitting close by, all suddenly uncomfortable as they realized they were the ones being watched.   When he came to the part of the verse that required a pop, instead of acknowledging the sound, he tightened his lips together and sucked in noisily as he blew a lewd kiss in their direction.  It was all he could do but contain his laughter as those remaining in his line of sight squirmed uncomfortably, and it took every ounce of control to finish the last few notes as he turned to walk back into his new home.