I looked directly at him and said, “Rick, I’m done asking.”
He laughed like he always did. “Then what?”
I pulled out my phone and said, “Then I’m calling a tow truck.”
That got another laugh out of him, but I made the call anyway. I gave them my address while he sat there shaking his head. The funny part was that nobody came to his rescue this time. One of the neighbors walking her dog stopped and said, “Rick, he’s told you over and over.” Another guy across the street added, “Honestly, I’d have done it a year ago.”
You could actually see Rick realize the audience wasn’t with him anymore.
He tried to joke his way out of it. Nobody laughed. He complained that I was overreacting. Nobody backed him up. Finally he muttered something under his breath, started the truck, and moved it. I thanked the dispatcher, canceled the tow, got in my car, and went to work.
That should have been the end of it, but word travels fast on a street where everyone has watched the same argument for two years. By the time I got home, three different neighbors had already heard about it. Not one of them thought I was the problem. Turns out most of them were tired of Rick’s driveway habits too; I was just the only one he’d been inconveniencing directly.
The real payoff came afterward. Rick never blocked my driveway again. Not during football parties. Not while unloading tools. Not for “just five minutes.” A few weeks later I saw him stop one of his guests from parking across the entrance and point them somewhere else.
For two years I’d been “the angry guy on the block.”
After that morning, I was just the guy whose driveway Rick finally stopped using.