Prose: Tupac is My Neighbour

Tupac is my neighbour, yes that Tupac

Tupac is my Neighbour. Not my next-door neighbour, he lives across the road. But he’s not really my across-the-road Neighbour either. I cannot see his house from my front room window, it’s too far to the left. Tupac is my across-the-road Neighbour’s next door Neighbour or my diagonal across Neighbour.

I don’t know him well. Although I know him about as well as anyone that lives on Standard Hill Lane does or, furthermore anyone who lives in the Standard Hill residential district for that matter.

But Tupac is my Neighbour. Sometimes I wonder if my other neighbours realize who their neighbour is. My parents don’t, certainly. And neither does Sandy or Ray or Dalton or Kristy. The McGinnis brothers are too young I think. Old Mr Leong has never shown interest in any of us, much less what we were up to in 1996.

My two-doors down neighbour Greg, with the long jean shorts and the West Coast Choppers tattoo, is definitely aware of the existence of Tupac. This fact proven by his Tupac t-shirt and the flag in his garage depicting Tupac praying in front of the star spangled banner. However he doesn’t act with quite as much starstruck giddiness as I would expect from a person who has just come across the real life version of the bobble head they display on their dashboard.

Tupac is my neighbour and like many of my other neighbours, he has painted his name onto his mailbox. ‘Toby Y. Borrison’ in bright red paint. But that is about as much his real name as ‘No Junk Mail’ is.

There is no question in my mind that Tupac is my neighbour or at least the man across the road from me used to be Tupac. I’ve read extensively on Tupac’s life after death. He faked the shooting, then went to Cuba, then New Orleans, then New Mexico.

If I was Tupac and I wanted to reset and restart it all, I’d relocate in a house next to mine. I’d start a job at coles if I was Tupac. I’d own a Border-Collie, Australian Shepherd mix named Lucy. I’d smile politely and contribute to friendly conversations about weather and road works.

Tupac is my Neighbour, he is living well. Living under the radar and out of the spotlight. There are no radars or spotlights on Standard Hill Lane.

Tupac is my neighbour and every so often he’ll look at me like he knows that I know.