Lester Burnham lives across the street.

Before the dojo-warming party, Jables and I went around to the close neighbors to forewarn them about the number of people and the subsequent noise that would surely annoy them on the Saturday evening of the party. One of these such neighbors included a guy named Matt, who claimed that he had a wife and kids but spent most of his time in his "party pad" in the garage. We could tell he was a family man right away.

When ten o'clock rolled around, and none of our neighbors had shown, we thought we were in the clear. Then neighbor Matt arrived, drunk as a skunk.

Now, the rest of this story is rather hazy for me. I remember Vanessa trying to befriend him. I also remember neighbor Matt persuading some of our party guests to walk across the street to check out his "party pad." (They came back disappointed, after they learned it was only a couple of couches and a TV). The most important detail that I remember about neighbor Matt was his inclination to pick a word and then scream it at the top of his lungs...for what seemed like minutes at a time...much like a pig caller.

"Little Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudddddddddddddddddddddddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"

The first time I heard this was in the living room. Staring in disbelief, shaking my head "no," with my mouth agape, I remembered our efforts to cozy up to the neighbors to avoid pissing them off with our party. It was at that time that I decided it was all for naught.