The Millers lived a few miles outside of town, at the foot of a local mountain. I say mountain. Some people would call it a large hill. Depends on your frame of reference. Lisa Miller was a secretary at the local high school, so I was distantly acquainted with her because of my kids, and she seemed like a very friendly and positive person. One day I was stuck in the school office waiting for one of my kids, and she seemed to have the time so we fell into conversation. Lisa seemed especially keen to tell me about her neighbor Doug, who, she said, lived on the other side of the mountain–or hill. On the one hand, I was very interested in that name. On the other hand, I was surprised to hear that anyone lived out there at all. It was a remote area and not accessible by any roads or trails. I supposed that it was possible someone lived out there, but if they did, surely they were camping out and living without any modern conveniences. But Lisa talked about this Doug person as though he lived like the rest of us, in luxury, even. According to her, Doug was also a very generous person. She confided in a lowered voice that every month, he gave them $1000.00 dollars. I confessed that this was very odd–and fortuitous do be sure! “Why does he give you this money, if you don’t mind my asking?” I queried. “I don’t know, ” said Lisa. “I think he just likes us.” “Do you think I could get in on this deal too?” I jested. “I guess you could ask him,” responded Lisa, not seeming to get that I was joking. I wasn’t about to ask a stranger to give me money and it was just a joke, so I changed the subject. “I’m trying to think of where Doug might live,” I said. “I’ve been all around that area and I’ve never seen a house or any sign of people.” “I wouldn’t know exactly where he lives,” said Lisa. “But I do know for sure that he lives on the other side of the mountain from us.” This really piqued my interest. It just sounded so odd. She has neighbor who is a good friend, and gives her money every month, but she’s never been to his house and she doesn’t even know exactly where he lives? I felt that my questions were getting a little too personal, but I couldn’t stop myself form exploring this little mystery. “I guess I thought since you are so close you would know where he lives.” “Oh no,” she said. “We don’t ever go to his place. Doug likes his privacy. We just stay away from that area. We don’t want to disturb him.” “Well, what does he look like? Maybe I’ve seen him around town.” I continued. She chuckled, as if I was operating under a silly premise. “We don’t ever see Doug, so I wouldn’t know him from Adam. Privacy! But he does come around and inspect our property at night sometimes, so we make sure everything is in order.” Thus the money, I thought. This guy pays them to keep their property looking nice so that his own property value is maximized. But still. This is too weird. I pressed on. “You must see him when he gives you the money though. Or does he just leave on the porch at night?” “No of course not. Doug gives us the money indirectly, through special circumstance that he arranges. That way he stays hidden and no one knows about him.” “You mean that random people come up to you, inspired by Doug, and give you wads of cash?” At this point my voice might have betrayed some skepticism. And Lisa looked little exasperated too. “Doug helps us to work hard and he also arranges things so that we can get jobs to make the money! Doug has lots of connections around town, and no one notices him that much.” At this point the phone ran and the conversation ended. This was good because I was starting to get irritable about this Doug thing. And there was the name too. I don’t think Lisa knew my name. It sounded to me like Lisa, and the rest of her family apparently, were seriously deluded. An incognito neighbor who’s always keeping tabs on you, but you have never seen? WTF! After that encounter, I didn’t give the Millers or Doug another thought. My youngest kid was graduating that year and I was done with managing my kid’s education. Freedom was mine! About five years later, I stumbled once again on the topic of Doug and the Millers. My son, who was living in my basement, asked me if his friend Ted could stay with him in the basement for a few weeks while he found a new place to live. I said, “Ted who?” He answered “Ted Miller.” I perked up, “His mom is the secretary at the high school?” It all came back to me. Of course I said yes, no problem. But being the curious person that I am and my habit of sniffing out oddities, I immediately raised the topic of this Doug character with Ted, before introducing myself, when I met him. “I had a conversation a few years back with your mother about one of your neighbors. I think it was Doug?” I just pretended to not remember so as to seem only vaguely interested. Ted looked pained and said, “Doug is the entire reason I got kicked out by my parents!” Do tell! Ted went on to recount how, growing up in the Miller home, Doug was almost like a member of the family. “My dad sometimes started meals saying something about Doug, and how if it wasn’t for him we might not even have any food to eat. In the afternoons, my mother would often remind us that Doug might come by that night, so we better clean up around the yard. Because what if Doug stops sending us money! The inside of the house, though was fair game. And it was always a mess. At first, I really wanted to meet Doug and I kept asking my parents when this would happen. But they would always put me off and eventually I realized that they had never met him themselves. When I was twelve years old I was faced with a really weird situation: I was starting to question whether Doug was even real, which led me to wonder if there might be something wrong with my own parents. At around this time, I started to wander into the woods around my house a lot. I wasn’t trying to get away or anything, I just really like being out there exploring. I felt really special once I figured out that other kids didn’t have a huge, unfenced, mountain forest in their back yards. Almost every time I went out, my mom would warn me not to go over to the other side of the mountain because we all know that Doug doesn’t like intruders. Well I was a twelve year old, and yeah, I was going to go there. At first I would go really slow and look a head carefully because I wanted to see, but not be seen, by Doug–if he was even there. But obviously, there was no Doug! No property, no nothing on the other side of the mountain. And I mean for a long way. I know that area now like the back of my hand, and I can tell you without a doubt: there ain’t no Doug out there. My Grandma came to live with us at some point. She had grown up in the same house and she was also a huge Doug fan. She really didn’t like me going out and exploring on my own. She said a young boy could get in trouble out there, and it wasn’t worth the risk of disrespecting Doug. It was better to just stay at home and work on keeping the lawn mowed and keeping the property properly maintained. But in all this time, I never complained about Doug or voiced any of my skepticism, and what were they going to do anyway? Tie my down? I think they adjusted to the idea of me being out there and they chose to assume that I was dutifully steering clear of the other side of the mountain. But I was most definitely not doing that. Oh, and I should also mention that for several years I was also in the habit of staying up late into the night and looking out the windows to see if I could catch Doug wandering around. I had to be sneaky about this, because there were thick blinds over all the windows. We all knew that we weren’t supposed to look out the windows at night. But I did it anyway. So yeah, by the time I was in high school, I knew Doug was complete BS. But I didn’t say anything about it. When the topic came up, I would just keep my mouth shut and let them go on about it. But I gotta think that they had their suspicions. Because I never joined in when they talked about him. I always wondered if they were nervous about asking me, since they suspected I had been to the other side of the mountain, and maybe they themselves weren’t really sure if Doug was real, but they didn’t want to open that door, you know? What if they asked me about it and I was like, yeah there is no one, not even a Doug on the other side of the mountain? So anyway, I went to college and came back last year, and I had pretty much forgotten about Doug, and when I came back I realized, just from being away, how insane all this Doug talk was. I’ve been living here for the last year, working at the hardware store, but every day was irritating. I just wanted go, come on you guys! Are you serious? This is complete bullshit? Who even cares? Who even came up with the idea of Doug in the first place? So the other night, I just lost it and I did say all the stuff that was in my head. And it was his huge cataclysm. I told them that there was no Doug, that I had been all over the mountain–and I still go out there–and no one lives there. That I’ve known this since I was 12, and how could they, being adults, live in this fantasy world? My sister told me that Doug was going be really angry with me about this, and he might even stop giving us money because of all the evil things I was saying. My Dad said, how I dare I talk like that? Who did I think had paid for my education? And obviously me going to school had been a terrible idea, since I now seemed to think I was smarter than Doug! My mother told me that Millers are friends of Doug, and if you can’t be a friend of Doug’s you can’t live in this house. My grandma is a bit senile for now, so I’m pretty sure she didn’t understand what was going on, and I grateful for that. At least she isn’t upset. Man, you’d think I had murdered one of our family members. They all cried and said that they still loved me, but there was something very wrong with me, and my mom said that it was time for me to move out because she couldn’t stand the idea that someone in her house didn’t believe in Doug. And so, here I am.” Ted spread his hands as if to say, “What can I do?” I nodded heavily to acknowledge the weight of the situation. The insanity of it! What was wrong with these people that they put more value on an imaginary friend than on their own son and brother? “I have a confession to make,” I said sheepishly as I reached out to shake his hand. “My name is Doug.” “Yeah, I know,” he said, and we all had a good laugh. It’s true. That’s my name, and unlike some other people I actually exist!