With friends like this

“HEY, pare! How are things?” It was my neighbor, Gerry.

“I’m OK,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“Did you hear what Lee did?”

Lee, the billionaire who lived a block away from us, had the swankiest house in the village. It wasn’t the biggest, but it was by far the most impressive. Lee was loaded — and obsessed with order and cleanliness. In the 1990s, he caused a stir by using a cane to beat a teenage vandal he had caught on his property, much to the horror of his neighbors.

In all his dealings, Lee abhorred being on the losing end or being outdone by others. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he spent a pretty penny to make sure his household was the first to get a US-branded vaccine. The rest of us were stuck with the cheap Chinese shots, at least for a while. “So, what did he do this time?” I asked, taking the bait. “For the fiesta, he hired the Swift Tailors marching band to perform on his street — and made sure they would do so only on his street! Now everyone who wants to see the show has to go to his house, where his food stalls and food carts will make a killing selling drinks, fish balls, dirty ice cream and other snacks.”

“Well, that’s not very neighborly of him,” I said. “Especially since he’s such an active member of the village homeowners’ association.”

Some of the wealthy residents on our street didn’t care, though, and dressed up for the party at Lee’s place — and even took videos of themselves to share on social media.

“Some people,” I muttered. “Good luck with the overpriced street food!”

“Yeah, but as big of a jerk Lee is, he’s got nothing on Xi,” Gerry continued. “There’s a piece of work!”

Xi was the village president of the subdivision next to ours. Years before, his village was locked in a legal battle with ours over the main street we both shared. It was “he said, we said” for decades, so we took him to court and won in 2016, but Xi refused to recognize the decision. Instead, the bully hired goons to patrol the disputed street and refuses to let us use it unless we seek his permission.

In the latest incident, he tried to block one of our villagers from passing through and almost ran him off the road. Then, when our guy got out of the car to complain, Xi’s goons who work in a car wash hosed him down.

Xi said his guys took “control measures” against our “illegal intrusion” into our own property.

“Can you imagine? Being water-cannoned in your own backyard?” Gerry said. “But our village police are no match for him, and we don’t even have a car wash, so what can we do?”

I clucked disapprovingly, and pointed out that some of our village residents were actually defending Xi and calling us delusional for standing up to him. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, they say. What good is your court victory if it cannot be enforced?

“Well, that’s the thing,” Gerry said. “Xi’s got a big propaganda machine that curries favor with the more gullible among us. He brings food to our fiestas and contributes prizes at our Christmas parties. Last year, he even handed out hundreds of Winnie the Pooh stuffed toys to the kids. All this allows him to say with a straight face that we are friends, even as he robs us of the use of our own property.”

“I know,” I said, as I got ready to go to Lee’s party. “With friends and neighbors like these, who needs enemies?”