“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

For a guy who considers himself smart, the situation that occurred with Mitchell Mange and Patrice Pavis is cause for reassessment. There were red flags stupidly ignored; I was trying to be neighborly and not judgmental in the face of quizzical and concerning comments and behaviors. But in short order evidence became certain and overwhelming; an avalanche of crazy. I learned my lesson; run when there are warnings.  As suggested, I could write a book about what happened. Until then, here’s more about my very disturbed neighbors and their enablers.

A Pair of Odd Birds
There were of course Mange’s gun comments and nutty remarks. What did not make it into the web site narrative were other things of note. When I had them over to my house, coming in through the garage, Mange surveyed all the moving boxes stored there (most containing business inventory) and said: “You have a lot of stuff.”  Yes I know, Einstein. I moved from a house over 1,000 square feet larger, and was slowly unpacking by myself; only having been in the house for around 90 days. According to them, their house here was much larger than where they had been living in California (apparently trailer-sized). So they would not face similar constraints. His comment did not add anything; why make a remark like that? I wouldn’t. It fit the theme of Mange’s other obtuse and screwball comments. When they saw my artwork, Pavis blurted: “Will you give me art lessons?” Not my job, lady. I suggested she find a tutorial on YouTube. If it were me, I’d ask differently; if I’d ever considered giving art lessons; something less direct and anxious. I suggest instead she seek ‘how not to be crazy’ lessons. Looking back, and considering her subsequent negative comments about her husband, that may have been her way to try to get me into a room alone with her. As they looked at my framed photography, I honestly said that compared to drawing and painting, taking a photo was relatively easy; point and shoot. Mange’s response was to say “I’m a photographer too. Thanks for knocking the one hobby that I really enjoy.” Sorry boss, but lighten-up. There were so many deal-breakers that I ignored. My thumbnail assessment of this duo: uptight, immature, reactionary, and insecure.

Why Didn’t I Run?
When Pavis wandered over to my house that time and shared her revealing critique of her husband, I should have run but instead agreed to her dinner invitation. When well over a week passed with no word on dinner, I asked when I saw them both in the yard one day. Pavis admitted that she had balked because – as she said – she “…wasn’t a very good cook.” Well why invite someone to dinner then? What the hell was that? I told her not to worry. Now I think that dinner planning made her anxious because she was trying to impress me. During that late April dinner at their house, Mange monopolized conversation going on about Tibet, and his professional career. Pavis mostly just sat there other than making momentary small-talk like her Buddha statue observation. As Pavis prepared the meal (I offered as a good guest should to assist but she declined), Mange and I sat on their patio and talked. Both pointed-out bird feeders in their yard. Back to the dinner; I sensed that Pavis was still insecure about the meal she had prepared; she hovered as if awaiting my assessment. To put her at ease, I said: “You know what this meal needs? Absolutely nothing; it’s perfect.” That seemed to work.

Mulch Brains
By June, all of their yards were covered with pine wood chips. Day of their first delivery, Mange excitedly announced that they were getting “…a load of mulch.” I was working in my yard that day so went over to take a closer look at the covered load in the pick-up truck backed-up to nearly the property line. I said hi to Mange and Pavis, and asked if I could inspect the ‘mulch.’ Pulling aside the tarp, I saw wood chips. “Oh, wood chips” I said. I wondered how they thought that was mulch. By common definition, mulch is composted/decayed organic matter with nutritive value, not inert wood chips the equivalent of gravel. To my dismay, they proceeded to have their hired help cover all their yards – front, back and both sides – with truckload after truckload of the stuff. Contrary to Pavis’ testimony of how afraid she was and avoided me, when they were both standing there day of their wood chip delivery, I was just feet away from them and the delivery truck while speaking briefly with Mange; Pavis was relaxed and cordial; there was no indication of a problem. She surely didn’t duck and run. Her crazy fictions of stalking and the like were of course selectively fabricated later.

There Must Be Something in the Water
My accusers hired an attorney out of Durango. Let’s call her Ms. Small. She tried so hard to pin horns and a tail on me. But she relied on her nitwit client’s fantasy allegations. In initial testimony to the court, my neighbors didn’t even get the month right of our dinner at their house. Once my accurate timeline was submitted as evidence, they adopted the date I provided. I have kept a yearly day-runner for decades and jot down just a line or two of what I did that day. Ms. Small probably recognized that the bulk of her client’s claims were evaporating. Perhaps that made her desperate. When quizzing me in court, I indicated that I knew a date of something or other because I kept a record. In an alarmed voice she said: “Now you’re journaling them!” Um, no I’m not. Jesus, there has to be something in the water.

I found Ms. Small’s examination increasingly shrill, desperate and abusive. When I mentioned that delay of their dinner invite suggested they were flakes, she pounced – but to what end I have no idea; I’m entitled to an opinion. She pounced again when I said I’d deleted contact information for my neighbors from my phone and blocked them. She asked why, and didn’t I want to hear from them. For what possible reason? Not even if it entitled me to an honorary degree in psychiatry. No thank you! When I disputed my accuser’s testimony that I was repeatedly voicing concern about jealous husband vengeance, and pointed-out yet again that I had in-fact made the joke in context only once in conversation about health (see the chapter, My Accusers for details) she took that up in her cross (read: twisted) examination. Their attorney pointed-out that I in-fact made a ‘jealous husband’ comment more than once – twice to be exact – once in a conversation with the addled Mange as I had maintained all along, and then again when I cited the context of the joke in my written statement to the sheriff (to illustrate his gun response) – as if those two instances were even similar or could prove my consistent account suspect or add credibility to her client’s assertions. It was just another example of an attorney desperate for a win at any cost; at the cost of dignity and truth.

Twilight Zone
One must wonder what possessed my neighbors to not only concoct strange fictions about me but then engage an attorney to try to enforce their fantasy narrative. That alone suggests they are crazy. More blunt here, I wonder how they managed to wriggle out of their straightjackets, go off their meds and escape a psych ward in California. Surely there must be an unbecoming history; I can’t be the first person in their crazy-talk crosshairs. Maybe they were the ones run out of town. What would a forensic psychiatrist make of Pavis’ rambling testimony especially, and a senile dementia specialist of Mange’s strange talk? Perhaps those tests will come.

That they failed in court must bother them. I even told their attorney my fear that they could go vigilante. I worry daily what they might do next for they are obviously not constrained or controlled by sanity. Nearly as worrisome is that the county has an idiot judge waving his magic wand making faulty pronouncements. You already know his name. Someday I just might reveal name, rank and serial number of my accusers. It all depends.

Hardly Thinking
Yes, this is about Judge Fay and how on earth he even approved the flimsy TPO’s (temporary protection orders). I suppose that the whole TPO process is seen as urgent at the expense of intelligent review. That sounds about right for mindless bureaucracy. There should be no wonder why our government screws things up as often as it does. If I were a judge, I’d analyze, ask questions, and ignore all the stray stuff – and maybe even tell the petitioners to come back when their request contained only actionable items. At risk of repetition, what of my accuser’s narrative should have actually been grounds for their TPO’s?

• Suspected harm to wildlife? No – that concern should be directed to law enforcement or fish and game.
• “Jealous husband” fear and the rest of their phony character assassination claims? No – just stop seeing your neighbor.
• Holes in the ground. Are you kidding? No. Such fluff.
• Criticism of a landscape? No. How would that possibly qualify?
• “Hates his ex-wife” and a bunch more filler garbage that has nothing to do with them? No.
• “Afraid” of me? No. Self-induced agitation and groundless fear concerns are better directed to a psychiatrist.
• Stalking – OK, sure. But when soundly disproven, the judge should have but did not admonish my accusers for that and a lot more of their fantastical fiction.

“Education is not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think.“  – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

From my bookshelf:

People of the Lie – by M. Scott Peck
Ethics – by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The True Believer – by Eric Hoffer
Ethics For the New Millennium – by His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding our Darker Selves – by James Hollis
Moral Intelligence – by Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel
The Age of Empathy:  Nature’s Lessons For A Kinder Society – by Frans De Waal
Power and Innocence – by Rolo May
The Sane Society – by Eric Fromm
A Preface to Morals – by Walter Lippmann
Seeds of Contemplation – by Thomas Merton
Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha – by Jack Kerouac
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ – by Daniel Goleman
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – by Steven Covey
A Theory of Justice – by John Rawls
Integrity – by Stephen Carter
Anarchy, State, and Utopia – by Robert Nozick
Ideology – by David Hawkes
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil – by Philip Zimbardo
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior – by Ori and Rom Brafman
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead – by David Callahan
The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America – by Philip K. Howard
Lying and Deception in Everyday Life – Lewis and Saarni (Eds.)

“I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.” – Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)

It’s not hard to wonder about what my perplexing neighbors did. The idiotic comments, the prowling by Pavis (that’s what I call it when a married woman makes suggestive negative comments about her husband to a single man, a stranger, really), their snooping and spying on me, their bird killer and stalking accusations, and of course their so stupid contention that I was repeatedly stating something about being afraid of a jealous husband. The big question is why they lied so and/or thought they could get away with that. Maybe their attorney told them Judge Fay wasn’t very swift. Here I am trying to live a good and clean life but get thrust onto the crazy train by wacko neighbors – with Judge Justin P. Fay the engineer. When I think about it, I have a hard time not throwing-up in my mouth. Other than what you have already read, there was nothing else to their allegations. I never threatened to harm them, or anything like that.  Let’s look at each main allegation in brief and then my summation:

Bird Killing and a Gullible Judge
Their most distressing accusation by far was about birds. So let’s talk about magpies, hypothetically. And no, this discussion is not some sort of veiled admission; I did not harm any birds or wildlife. I don’t hunt or fish, am a vegetarian and Buddhist. Let’s assume that I was clearing the skies of pesky birds as my accusers contend. Did my neighbors claim they owned the birds? No. So by what mechanism did their claim of bird killing become an actionable part of TPO’s?  What would the harm be for my accusers? Sleepless nights tormented by delusional, irrational thought? Not my fault. Indeed, harming certain birds and other wildlife is illegal. Obviously, if you have knowledge of poaching/killing wildlife, you should make a call to fish and game and/or law enforcement. In their pleading to the court, my accusers said that they were not even sure that bird killing was against the law. You know what is against the law, lying in court.

As premised by my neighbors, bird population was decimated by killing.  Again, and hypothetically, if one shot a magpie and it fell over dead, what would other birds do? Sit around and watch like in a demented Gary Larson cartoon? To wit: ‘Hey look guys, Larry’s taking a nap.’ Then you just keep downing birds? But magpies are smart birds. Would not at the least retort of the air rifle scatter the birds?  How many birds would fall prey, and just how long would it take to reduce the local bird population to nil seemingly overnight as basically suggested by my nutso neighbors? It would certainly take more than and day, right? In reality, probably weeks if at all and only then if that’s all one made time for. So where is the evidence? Not necessary if you are my accusers or even Judge Fay. I mean, really. Such insanity. It sickens me.

One more thing; remember their cover story about the day they spied on me? They claimed there was a massive swarm of 30-50 magpies in my back yard (which would be a remarkable ornithological first). So how does one even instantly spot a sole plastic bird amidst the purported “bird commotion” (as they called it)? Seems impossible, right? So it goes that their story was completely made-up. Lucky for them they recited their inanities before a senseless judge. Let’s examine this fiction yet more closely. 30-50 birds in my yard you say?  All there to inspect a plastic dummy? I did not have bird feeders and was not putting food out for any kind of creature. My lying neighbors had multiple bird feeders in their yard and never did I see more than a couple of birds (mostly magpies and the occasional blue jay) fly their way to get fed. They are giving-away bird feed and they don’t get a flock but I do? To any reader who has hanging bird feeders – have you ever seen a flock of any kind of larger bird in your yard that compares to the fictional one my lame-brain neighbors pretended? But their buddy Judge Fay was apparently mesmerized by this and other parts of their insane account (read: endless perjury under oath). There should be no wonder why I felt anxious in court having to explain that crazy talk is crazy talk (to the crazy and embarrassingly mentally challenged). It’s still stunning to recall the experience; unwillingly forced into a government-run nut house where we can spend hours and gobs of money to yack back and forth about bizarre claims made against me. What a nightmare! They are nuts, but what about the judge? Well, if he came to me looking for work, I’d give him a task in keeping with his aptitude – issue him a mop with a reminder to not to hurt himself.

Stalking
No evidence; no ‘spy camera,’ no prowling, no stalking, no ‘stalking’ messages, nothing.

Jealous Husband
Kind of pointless to revisit that except to say they lied and I did not. I will add that I have not dated in years, am celibate, and have done nothing to rouse husband animosity. The last and only married woman I was intimate with was my wife. Their contention is beyond nuts.

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Judge Not
What you have read mirrors information presented in court. So how did Judge Fay get so lost? Absolutely boggles the mind. I’m majorly disappointed about judicial stupidity. Crazy is crazy, but stupid is just plain annoying. Those so afflicted serve a life sentence – which inevitably makes life harder for everyone. Just in case I haven’t been absolutely clear, I of course resent an unsophisticated, gullible amateur making decisions on my behalf, and questioning my honesty and integrity. For shame.

Remember how Judge Fay idiotically cautioned me to not again engage in activities/behaviors that brought us to court in the first place? What, not stalking, not threatening, not killing birds?  It is incomprehensible how Fay got utterly fooled by my accusers, but then I’m assuming he’s got even average intelligence. None of the allegations even make sense when tested. To be absolutely clear, my accusers offered not a single shred of evidence that actually confirmed their many allegations yet Judge Fay doubted, chastised me, called ma a liar. I’m afraid for anyone else who goes into his courtroom trusting in and expecting objectivity, cogent reasoning and intelligence. I can’t imagine what got this guy as far as this. Assuming he had smarts at one time, maybe he’s become dulled by something.

New to Judge Fay’s court, I innocently assumed he was being attentive and had reasonable smarts. If my attorney knew better, she failed me. Part of the reason Judge Fay remained hooked on my accusers lies is because my attorney (read: the hired help) did not do enough to convincingly illustrate or even challenge the judge. She told me that in her twenty years in practice she had never seen such an egregious abuse of the process. Don’t tell me the obvious, tell the judge! But that would mean criticizing his handiwork so she failed to tackle the situation with the sort of scrutiny I would have preferred. How difficult it was to sit silent listening while my accusers lied through their teeth. What made that worse was an attorney who did not do enough to dig deep to clearly and repeatedly expose their charade; she let way too much pass without notice. Regardless, whether or not she realized Judge Fay was a slow-learner, she was partly to blame for the way he formulated errant assumptions. Legal counsel must diligently fill-in inevitable blanks – especially when a judge fails to ask a single question. If the judge is not thinking, then do their thinking for them. Besides, when an attorney represents you, chances are they just don’t know the facts as well as you; they are juggling your case with others. So errors and omission are likely, and amplified if the judge isn’t engaged. I equate that scenario to the mute speaking to the deaf.

Still More to Tell
I thought it evident that my neighbors were pretty clearly burdened by mental quirks and instability. Although one of them more than once oddly talked about using guns, I did not run out and seek a protection order. Instead I asked them to basically leave me alone; that’s how it’s done. When they pestered me, I still did not file for protection orders. That reminds me of a conversation with my attorney. I asked her if could file for protection orders too based on the actions and behaviors of my neighbors. She said no; there was no reasonable basis. I knew that. So I asked her how come my neighbors had success in doing so, and got a shrug. The idiocy and hypocrisy underscores how ludicrous and unreliable the process is – especially in the hands of an arguably inept judge. Is there a way to obtain a blanket protection order to shield one from not only crazy and bullies, but incompetent and lazy people as well? I wish!

Addendum
I wish that all this could be solved with handshakes and apologies but that seems quite unlikely. I’m facing evil and stupidity the likes of which I never have, so it’s new territory for me and accounts somewhat for my critical assessment of the players in this toxic drama.