If it is possible for a man, as he's being hauled in front of a judge for his arraignment, to somehow still project an air of haughty superiority, well, that man would look like Rene Boucher did as he appeared in court just over a week ago.

A retired anesthesiologist, Boucher—who stands accused of a bizarre beating earlier this month that left his neighbor, the Kentucky senator Rand Paul, with six broken ribs—strode into the jammed courtroom wearing a well-pressed blue suit. His back was ramrod straight, his head was held high, his nose not quite in the air. Seven other accused criminals who joined Boucher on the court's docket that morning had been schlepped to the courthouse from the adjoining county jail in orange jumpsuits.

Not Boucher. He'd stayed the night before at a friend's place—all the easier to comply with the court order requiring him to remain at least 200 feet away from his badly injured neighbor, whose house sits exactly 269 feet from Boucher's own.

A slight man, Boucher spent only a few moments inside the courtroom, enough time to approach the bench and plead not guilty to one count of misdemeanor assault. He and his lawyer then hustled toward the door, leaving behind them a pack of reporters and a still-lingering mystery: What exactly happened earlier this month in Rand Paul's yard, and why?

The apparent scuffle was as odd as it was rare. Not since 1856, when a cane-wielding congressman named Preston Brooks nearly killed the abolitionist Charles Sumner, had a sitting United States senator suffered such a violent drubbing. Brooks at least had the decency to perform his beat-down in front of witnesses in the Senate chamber, and to announce his motive: a beef over slavery. There's been no such clarity in the weeks since Rand Paul was sent to the hospital.

In the days after the dust-up, local newspapers suggested a long-simmering spat over yard care. But the senator's own spokesman quickly refuted the notion that the two men had been feuding: He said Paul hadn't had a conversation with Boucher or any of his family members in "over a decade." Instead, right-leaning outlets in Washington—and Paul himself—have pushed the idea that the alleged assault was actually motivated by politics. Specifically, the theory goes, it was Boucher's "socialist" beliefs and his antipathy for Donald Trump that led him to confront his Republican neighbor. (The FBI is said to be looking into that claim, which, if true, could turn Boucher's simple assault charge into a trickier federal case.)

But to many people in Bowling Green, there's nothing about this that smacks of politics. From the locals who know both men well, a portrait emerges of something much more personal and petty: a clash between a big-deal politician, living in a small town and rarely realizing the ways in which he rubs people the wrong way, and his neighbor, a proud, fiery, and meticulous former doctor. In other words, something far less Sumner-Brooks than Hatfield-McCoy. "It's like the old hillbilly feud over the property line," said longtime Bowling Green resident Bill Goodwin, who has known Paul for the better part of two decades and has become friends with Boucher in recent years.

On the afternoon of November 3, Paul was mowing his lawn in the well-to-do gated community where he's lived for 17 years. It's an enclave dotted with swimming pools, an artificial lake, and at least one private tennis court—a place where the Greek revival homes feature grand columns out front that support porticos and little balconies. Actually, the columns on Paul's house are rather modest by the standards of the neighborhood—a fact that doesn't escape notice. "They pick on Rand because he has the smallest one out there," one local confided in me.