senile pyromania
The other day I just happened to look out the front door and saw flames coming from the sidewalk. My first thought was that the Kids Who Say Motherfucker had done something naughty again. I went out to investigate and saw what looked like a bundle of leaves in a bag on fire. Sage to drive away evil spirits? The elderly Portuguese man whom I often see shuffling aimlessly around the neighborhood was standing nearby, and I asked if he had seen what happened. He replied something I couldn't quite understand (which I think is what happened the last time I tried to communicate with him) and then looked puzzled and disappointed when I put it out with the garden hose. A few minutes later, he had gone back into his basement apartment, and his son had come out and was apologetic and worried, confirming that the man was his father. The other neighbors had seen him set fire to the bag of yard waste we had left at the curb waiting to be picked up. The son said he often had to stop his father from doing weird and dangerous things inside the house, but this was the first time he had seen him cause problems somewhere else. But lolaraincoat recognized him as the same man she found in our backyard peeling the bark off of the grapevines a couple of years ago.