The first time, I assumed he had guests.
It was a Saturday. There were a few extra cars in his circular driveway, and I could hear music coming from his backyard. I figured somebody had run out of room and pulled onto my grass by mistake. I didn’t even recognize it as his car at first.
I let it go.
On Sunday morning, it was still there.
When I walked out to get my newspaper, I saw two deep tire ruts in the grass where the Mercedes had pulled in. The turf was torn up in long dark strips. It had rained Friday night, and the ground was soft.
I stood there in my slippers, looking at those ruts. I felt something in my chest tighten up.
The second time, I politely asked him to move it.
It was a Wednesday evening, two weeks later. The Mercedes was parked in the same spot, right in the middle of my lawn, about ten feet from my front steps. Richard was standing in his driveway talking on his phone.
I walked over and waited for him to finish.
“Richard,” I said, “sorry to bother you. Is that your Mercedes on my lawn?”
He looked over at it like he’d forgotten it was there.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Could you move it? The ground’s soft, and it’s leaving ruts.”
“Sure thing,” he said.
He moved it twenty minutes later.
The next Saturday, it was back.
By the fifth time, deep tire tracks had appeared all across the lawn I’d spent years maintaining.
There were two long ruts from the street, another set where he’d backed out at an angle, and a big oval of flattened, yellowing grass where the car sat for days at a time.
I went out on a Sunday afternoon and found him washing the Porsche in his driveway. He had his music playing out of a speaker on the hood. He was wearing sunglasses and a polo shirt.
“Richard,” I said. “Could you please move your car? You’re destroying my grass.”
He looked up at me. Then he looked over at the Mercedes on my lawn.
And he laughed.
“Relax, old man,” he said. “It’s just grass.” He sprayed the Porsche’s hubcap with the hose. “You should be grateful there’s an expensive car decorating your yard. Probably raises your property value.”
I stood there and stared at him.
I waited for a sign that he was joking. A grin. A wink. Anything.
There wasn’t one.
He just went back to washing the Porsche.
I want to explain something, because people who hear this story always ask me the same question.
Why didn’t he just park in his own driveway?
I asked myself that a hundred times. He had a three-car garage. He had a circular driveway that could fit six cars easily. The Porsche lived in the garage. The Range Rover lived in the garage. That left one whole bay empty, plus the entire driveway.
There was no reason for the Mercedes to be on my lawn. None.
Once, early on, he gave me an excuse.
“The driveway’s on a slope,” he said. “I don’t like the Mercedes sitting on an angle. It’s bad for the suspension.”
My lawn is flat. I leveled it myself. So I guess that was the reason. But even then, he didn’t say it like it was a real reason. He said it like he was making it up as he went along, and he didn’t much care whether I believed it.
Over the following months, I complained dozens of times.
Sometimes he moved the Mercedes, only to bring it back the next day.
Other times, he ignored me completely.
I tried speaking calmly. I tried being friendly about it. I brought over a six-pack of beer one evening as a peace offering and asked, nicely, man to man, if we could work something out.
He took the beer.
“Thanks, Robert. You’re a good neighbor.”
The Mercedes stayed on my lawn for another four days.
I left notes on his windshield.
Richard, please don’t park on my lawn. The grass is damaged. Thanks. — Robert, next door.
The first note, he took off and dropped on my grass.
The second note, he took off and stuck in my mailbox, with a smiley face drawn on the back.
The third note, I found blowing down the street the next morning.
I even offered to help him rearrange his driveway.
I went over one Saturday morning with a tape measure and a pad of paper. I showed him how, if he moved the decorative planters by the garage and angled the Range Rover differently, he’d have room for all three cars plus two guest spots.
He looked at my drawing for about four seconds.
“Robert,” he said, “I appreciate the effort. I really do. But I’m not moving my planters. My decorator picked those.”
Then he handed the paper back to me and went inside.
I called the police once, in July.
The officer who came out was a young guy named Officer Tran. He looked at the Mercedes on my lawn. He looked at the ruts. Then he walked over and knocked on Richard’s door.
Richard came out smiling. He shook Officer Tran’s hand. He apologized for the misunderstanding. He said he’d had a busy week and must have parked there absentmindedly. He moved the car while Officer Tran watched.
Officer Tran came back over to me.
“He moved it,” he said.
“He’ll be back tomorrow.”
Officer Tran sighed.
“Then you can call again tomorrow,” he said. “But honestly, Mr. Holcomb, this is mostly a civil matter. We can ask him to move it. If you want damages for your lawn, you’d have to take him to small claims court.”
“And how long does that take?”
“A few months, usually.”
“And what if he keeps doing it in the meantime?”
Officer Tran looked sympathetic, but he also looked like a man who had six more calls waiting.
“You could try towing,” he said. “Private property. You’re within your rights.”
I tried towing.
In early August, I called a towing company. They came out, and the driver looked at the Mercedes and at me. He started hooking it up.
He’d gotten one chain on when Richard came out of his house.
Richard didn’t yell. He just walked over, smiled at the tow truck driver, and showed him something on his phone.
The driver unhooked the chain.
“Sorry, man,” he said to me. “He says he’s moving it right now. And he’s got a contract with our company for his trucks. My boss would kill me.”
Richard got into the Mercedes and backed it off my lawn, right through my flower bed, and into his driveway.
He waved at me through the windshield.
The next morning, it was back.
Eventually, I realized Richard wasn’t parking there because he needed the space.
He enjoyed it.
He enjoyed knowing I couldn’t make him stop.
I’d see him sometimes, standing at his front window with a coffee cup, looking out at my lawn. At his car. At me, standing on my porch with my hands on my hips. He’d lift his coffee cup an inch, like a toast.
I started dreaming about it. That Mercedes. I’d wake up at three in the morning with my jaw clenched so tight it ached.
Emma noticed on the phone.
“Dad, you sound weird,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is this about the car guy again?”
“He’s not the car guy. His name’s Richard.”
“Dad. You’ve mentioned him every single time we’ve talked since May.” She paused. “Maybe you should just let it go. It’s grass. It’ll grow back.”
“It’s not about the grass,” I said.
“Then what’s it about?”
I didn’t have an answer.
