Three
Chris and Erik lived across the street from one another. John lived a block over and gladly left the pair where their paths diverged. The lack of Chris’s complaints and Erik’s stupidity gave him some time to think about what he would tell his wife about the car. More specifically he thought about whether he would tell his wife about the car.
Jenny was as far from dumb as possible. Any story he might concoct about a bad starter or dead battery would be received with skepticism and he rarely held up under questioning. The bowling alley wasn’t far. It was possible that he could tell her he was leaving early for work the next morning and just walk back to the car. She may never notice it missing.
No. Screw that. He knew his legs were going to hurt and he hated walking more than he hated guilt. As he approached the house, he decided to just beg her for a ride in the morning.
The lights were out. That was odd.
He unlocked the door and opened it to silence. At this time of night there was usually someone watching at least every TV in the house while browsing the web, or watching TV while listening to music while browsing the web.
The quiet was welcomed, but strange. John moved inside expecting a surprise party to launch from behind the sofa or out of the closet, but could think of nothing he had done that would merit one and he was fairly certain that it wasn’t his birthday. Oh, crap, was it someone else’s birthday? He ran through his pin codes and passwords in his head. No, none of them matched today’s date so it wasn’t a birthday or anniversary. How could it be so quiet?
He called out, half expecting the boogeyman to answer, but there was no response at all. He made his way to the kitchen. There was food there and there were teenagers in the house, so he was sure he would find people there consuming his disposable income at an alarming rate.
The lights were on in the kitchen but it was empty as well. He called out again, “Jenny? Jimmy? Sarah?” The only response was the quiet hum of the ceiling fan in an empty house.
His keys jingled as they dropped on the kitchen island. They slid and stopped next to a piece of paper. His name was on the paper. It was Jenny’s handwriting. He unfolded the page and began to read:
Honey, we’re fine. My dad came and picked us up in the coach.
He skipped to the end.
Love you, xoxoxo.
So that’s where they were. He remembered now. Jenny mentioned taking the kids camping with their grandfather. Well, he didn’t remember her telling him, but he would be sure to say that he did if she asked. He smiled and dropped the letter back on the island. The house was his. The couch was his. The TV was his. He tried to remember the last time this had happened. He got nothing.
The family was with the in-laws and he wasn’t. That worked out great. He had always gotten along with his wife’s parents but he liked it better when he didn’t have to. Especially if they were in “The Coach.” Jenny’s father was a former Navy man. Once retired and back on dry land, he had purchased the most ship-like vehicle he could find. Once a passenger bus, “The Coach” had been gutted and converted into a luxury apartment on wheels. The man’s rationale was that he had seen most of the world’s ports, it was time to see America. And he hated having neighbors. To be more annoying, he called it Land Navigation or Cruising the Country and the back of “The Coach” was covered with stickers validating their travels. The inside of “The Coach” rattled with novelty spoons that did the same.
It was a nice coach, John would admit to that. But despite leaving the sea, it seemed as if his father-in-law had never left the Navy, and the man ran “The Coach” like a battleship. John had learned on one excursion that every passenger was a crewman with a station and duties. While the kids were in charge of choosing which movie to watch and shopping for snacks, John had been assigned the head. At first he had thought that the position was not unlike a navigator or cocaptain. But he learned very quickly to hate both traveling in The Coach and family chili night.
John moved into the living room and found the remote in the center of the floor. His dad hackles went up and he began to yell at the kids before remembering that they weren’t around. He grunted and decided that yet another lecture was in order when they returned.
It would begin with the brandishing of a rusted pair of needle-nosed pliers. “These,” he would say and pause for effect, “these were my remote control.” He would avoid the phrase “When I was your age,” because he knew it translated to “stop listening now and do eye rolling exercises.” But he would impress on them that needle-nosed pliers used to be how people changed TV channels. All four of them. One would have to get up, cross the room, risk electrocution by jamming the metal pliers into an electrical device, and twist to rotate what they called a dial. Carefully. Too fast or too slow and what was left of the dial would break, probably leaving the TV set to PBS, which was worse than not having a TV at all.
If it looked like they weren’t listening, he would tell them that there were only four real channels not counting UHF—you didn’t count UHF channels because turning that dial was the same as willingly dragging sandpaper over your skin but less rewarding.
They, on the other hand, had a remote that, with the push of one little button, would set all of the components to whatever their hearts desired. This convenience came at a cost. That cost was $200. So if they continued to leave this blessing of modern science in the middle of the floor where it could get stepped on, he’d start leaving rusty tools on their floor in the middle of the night so they could step on those. He’d conclude with, “And I’m not paying for the tetanus shot. That’s coming out of your own allowance.”
Planning a lecture was never as satisfying as giving it, but it made him feel a little better. He pressed the “watch a movie” button and smiled as the entertainment system came to life and each device clicked to the appropriate setting.
Too often wasted on cooking shows and God knows whatever the kids were watching these days, it pleased him to know that the system he had so lovingly compiled would soon be rattling the windows with the explosions and the roars of his favorite war movie. He set the remote on the coffee table and went to get the movie.
The shelf was a mess of crap and hastily stacked DVDs. His movies were the only ones that were vertical, alphabetized, and, for the most part, still sealed in plastic. Over the years his family had cared enough to discover his favorite movies and give them as gifts. But would any of them watch them with him? No. Of course not.
The collection of movies brought back many memories of summer days spent standing in lines with friends waiting to see the latest blockbuster. These experiences fueled their bond and provided them a shared vernacular of quotes and facial expressions that persisted to this day. Much of his movie collection had been built to one day share these memories with his children. But, as they had gotten older, they had found their own movies to love and cherish. Stupid movies mostly. They wanted nothing to do with his “old” movies. It had bothered him at first, but he was now happy to have the movies all to himself. They were his memories, after all.
He ripped the plastic off the disc and began to struggle with the sticker that held the case closed.
There was a crash outside in the alley. On any given day, the din in the house would have made it impossible to hear such a noise, but now it was unmistakable. Those damn kids were at it again.
Issues with the neighborhood brats had begun innocently enough. They had been playing in his side yard without him yelling at them. His generosity was repaid when the kids left a handful of nails in his driveway only a few days later. He had told them to get out of his yard and it had just escalated from there.
One of their favorite pranks was overturning his trash can and spreading it all over his property. The police said there was really nothing he could do and that it was probably a raccoon and not kids. He had considered installing a security camera to catch the punks in the act and show the cop what he knew, but the more he considered it, the more it had sounde
d like work so he decided against it. Plan B was catching them in their strewing act and scaring the crap out of them. Until now, they had always come too late and too quietly. This was his chance.
Racing upstairs, he stripped off his bowling shirt and unbuttoned his pants. He knew he had only a few minutes. His pants hit the floor as he rushed into the bedroom and dove under the bed. His hand slapped the darkness until he found the warm wooden grip of his old baseball bat. The Louisville Slugger was kept there for whenever an intruder broke in or when Jenny heard the ice in the ice-maker fall into the ice tray but couldn’t place the sound.
Air dashed aside as he took a couple of practice swings in front of the mirror. The bat, the blue boxers, the sweat-stained undershirt—this was the look of the suburban psycho. Every teenage delinquent in the world knew this to be the uniform of the homeowner pushed too far. John smiled and ran back down the stairs.
The door to the back refused to open despite turning or violently shaking the doorknob, so he unlocked it and stepped onto the patio. There he stopped to listen. The clatter had stopped and he heard no distinct sounds of strewing, but he knew they had to be there.
For a brief moment he wondered what if the cops were right. What if it was some kind of animal? What if it was just a family of raccoons rooting around for dinner? He would feel pretty stupid if he dashed into the alley in his underwear swinging a bat and there was nobody around to see him. He’d still scare the crap out of them, but, after a while, he’d feel pretty stupid.
John bounced slowly to the gate and kept to the grass to lessen the sound. The dew soaked through his socks. He winced. Wet socks sucked.
He put his ear to the gate as if sound couldn’t travel over the eight-foot fence. All was quiet. Disappointed, he let the bat hang at his side. He leaned in closer to the gate and looked for a knothole to peer through. He knew he wouldn’t find one. The fence had been built too well. There were no gaps in the pickets or holes in the boards. He had seen to that during its construction.
John held his breath to see if he could hear breathing that wasn’t his. There was nothing. He had missed them again. Part of him wanted to open the gate and see what they had done, but the idea of picking up once bagged trash in his boxers was less appealing than watching a movie at full volume with no one to complain about it. Besides, his socks were wet and he couldn’t imagine a creepier feeling. The socks would have to be changed.
Then, there was a sound. A human sound. True, he wasn’t sure what kind of noises raccoons made, but it could be nothing like this. It was the beginning of a deep laugh—the mwa before the haha of a maniacal chuckle. The little bastards were still out there.
John tore open the gate and made sure that it flew against the fence and rattled. He raised the bat and rushed into the driveway screaming. The trash was everywhere. The kids were gone. He ran into the alley and looked up and down trying to see into the darkness. There was no one there.
The sound was still building. They had to be somewhere. They had to be watching.
“I know you’re out there, you little brats! And, when I get my hands on you ...” The rest of John’s words were swallowed by rage and turned into a frantic swinging of the bat.
“Oooooo,” came the reply from the darkness.
John raised the bat in the direction of the sound. “Are you mocking me?”
“Oooooo.”
“Damn right, you’d better be scared!” John could see movement towards the end of the alley. So that’s where they were. He started down towards the noise.
“Oooooo.” This time the sound came from behind him.
John spun around and looked into the darkness. He couldn’t see the source of the second voice. “Get over here! There’s enough hurt in this bat for both of you cowards!”
“Ooooo.”
“That’s right, ‘Ooooo.’ Just come and see the, ‘Oooooo.’”
Three voices, all from different directions of darkness, echoed his mockery, “OOOOoooo!”
John stepped back into his driveway. He couldn’t spot the third voice either. A fourth joined in. Now the mockery didn’t fade. The chorus of mockery rose in volume and didn’t cease. The taunts became a howling.
“So ... so knock off this ... this crap with the trash. Unless you want this bat shoved up your,” they were just kids, “noses.” Unable to pinpoint three of the four voices and the combination of dew-soaked socks, John felt a shiver grow at the base of his neck. He was creeped out more than he would ever admit. In fact, he’d probably never mention this to anyone.
“Oooooo!”
“Fine. As long as we understand each other. Just ... just stay out of the trash.” John ducked back inside the gate and slammed it behind him.
The voices grew louder. Were they coming to the gate?
John snapped a padlock on the latch and ran back to the house all while bravely ignoring the dew in his socks.
He had moved so fast that shame didn’t catch up to him until he was back in the house. He put his face in his hand and shook his head. “Damn kids. They broke me.”
They were at the gate. They were shaking the fence.
Let them shake it. His was the strongest fence in the neighborhood. John believed the old adage about fences and had it built to ensure he made the best neighbors possible.
Their mocking grew louder in frustration.
He’d show them. John pulled off his dew-soaked socks, strutted into the living room and grabbed the remote. “Seven hundred twenty-five watts per channel to drown out their crap.”
He slid the movie into the player, closed the tray, turned up the volume and collapsed across the couch. The DVD’s sound test rattled the windows behind him. He was asleep before the movie started.