The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower & Other Tales of the Weird

  * * *

  The next thirty years of my life were terrifically uneventful. I skated by performing minimal amounts of work at my job as an orthodontic receptionist, generally making little if any impression on the world save my office chair.

  My marriage to Mark didn't last as long as I thought it would. I didn't ever think that children would be an issue. Over the course of countless political debates that we had, I thought I had made it abundantly clear that I did not wish for children: not only did I dismiss the possibility of having some of my own, but I wasn't crazy about adoption either. During those conversations, about which usually concerned overpopulation or some other huge social situation we could hardly comprehend, he had made mention that perhaps one day he would like children of his own, but wasn't completely sure.

  As the years progressed, something flipped in him. He smiled more when children were around, sometimes nudging my shoulder, to which I would reply with a curt smile and a polite shaking of my head.

  The highlights of our marriage were when we went traveling. Mark had quite a hefty trust fund stashed away from when his favorite uncle died, so we went on cruises, backpack hikes, and good, old-fashioned road trips. But each time we got back, there was that same park in front of our house with increasingly aging children playing in it. And Mark would whimper like a dog.

  He wanted to spread his seed. That's understandable. The urge to reproduce clamped on the back of his brain with the ferocity of a badger and just as much unwillingness to let go. He left me to go find a fertile woman that didn't openly revile children the way I did. We were friends for years after that, until he got hit by a bus in his fifties and died.

  On my sixtieth birthday, there came a horrifying noise from the sky. The sky flickered from pale blue to electric pink, green clouds spontaneously formed, and huge black silhouettes with the persistence of cataracts hung in the air, eclipsing the sun like a shattered moon.

  And then, the sky itself seemed to speak.

  “CAROLINE JONES?”

  I had been walking my dog in the park, enjoying the lack of screaming crotch-fruit playing on the jungle gyms on account of it being a school day. I paused, not believing what I had heard.

  “CAROLINE JONES?” the sky repeated.

  My dog started barking. I didn't move my head, guessing, rightly so, that if whomever was trying to address me knew how to rig the sky into a custom sound system, then they probably didn't need me to point my voice at them directly. “Er... yes?” I said.

  “CAROLINE JONES OF SAN FRANCISCO STREET, ARIZONA, UNITED STATES, EARTH, MILKY WAY GALAXY?

  I blinked a few times. My dog continued barking. I wanted to kick him. “That's... that's me,” I said.

  “OH GOOD,” said the sky. “FOR A SECOND WE THOUGHT WE HAD THE WRONG PLANET.”

  One of the cataracts descended from the sky, landing ring in front of me. And from it stepped... things.

  No matter how much science fiction you may have read, no matter how many UFO believers you've met, no matter how many acid tabs or other illegal drugs you may have ingested in your life, there is still nothing to which you could accurately compare the things emerging from the space ships. They were alien, plain and simple. They weren't carbon based, bipedal, gray skinned, or even arguably solid. They defied physical description of any Earthly kind. They were creatures from another galaxy, and this was abundantly, irrefutably clear.

  One of them oozed to me. “Caroline Jones?” it asked me with a series of squishes and gurgles.

  “Yes,” I said. Whatever doubts I once had about extraterrestrials ended there. My life became extraordinary that day, and had always been so.

  My dog hid her eyes under her paws.

  More creatures emerged from the space ship. They, too, were indescribable. They were amazingly diverse in size, shape, density, and presence. An entire ecosystem of otherworldly creatures.

  Except for the last one. He- and it really was a he- was wearing a blessedly familiar blue pinstripe suite. He was bipedal, had green skin, two eyes, and ten fingers. The only thing that was terribly off-putting about him was that he had a single ear that sprouted from the top of his head and coiled like a snake around his crown, much like a beehive hairdo. He smiled. It was a genuinely warm smile, which came from a human-looking mouth.

  I knew exactly who he was. He came up to me and extended a hand. It was G’nurrlgaaath, my extragalactic literary agent. “Nice to finally meet you, Caroline,” he said.

  “Likewise, G,” I said, taking his hand. He even knew how to shake hands properly. “So what's going on here?”

  “We're here to end things,” said G’nurrlgaaath. “The war is over. We've put aside our difference and forged an alliance, and the first thing we decided we should do was come to Earth to see you.”

  “What for?” I asked.

  One of the oozes piped up. “To arrest you for war crimes, of course,” it said.

  I dropped the leash for my dog. She took the opportunity to sprint away as fast as her tiny paws could carry her. “What was that?” I said.

  “Many of our people have died,” continued the ooze.

  “And mine,” interjected another.

  “Don't forget me,” said something that appeared to be an absence of light and mass.

  “Planets have been shredded to pieces,” said the ooze. “Entire populations have been displaced. Trillions of people have died.”

  I didn't know what to say about this. “I'm... I'm sorry,” I said.

  “And all because you had to get your novel published,” said the ooze. “Did you think about the consequences you might bring?”

  “I...” I said. “No. I'm sorry.”

  “Well, now you know,” said the ooze. “We're here to bring you to your hearing.”

  “But... I mean,” I tried to defend myself. “It's not like I started those wars! It was just a novel. You didn't have to kill yourselves over it.”

  “It doesn't work like that, Caroline,” said G’nurrlgaaath. “Maybe in your world, it might, but we treat the written word very differently in the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.”

  “I was just trying to get published,” I said.

  G’nurrlgaaath laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. He smiled. “I'm sorry, Caroline,” he said. “You've got to come with us.”

  I nodded. I was an old lady. The past thirty years of my life had been nothing but taking calls, scheduling appointments, looking for variation in my life, and utterly failing to do so. Now I didn't do these days but collect retirement checks and knit. And there were only so many pattern books in the world. “Okay,” I said. “Take me away.”

  The next thing that happened, I couldn't have predicted if I'd been given a thousand years to do it.

  My phone rang.

  A shrill ringing of music punctuated the air. The aliens stopped dead in their tracks, puzzled.

  I picked up my phone.

  “Is this Caroline?” said a voice on the other end.

  “Yes,” I said, thinking it might be another debt collector. “I've paid all my bills. I'm retired. What do you want now?”

  “No, you don't understand. My names Janet Smith.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but it didn't exactly boggle my mind at the time.

  “I'm a publisher,” said Janet.

  I didn't say a word. I just let her go on.

  “I've got your novel, A Shot in the Dark. It's been sitting in our slush pile for over two decades, but I don't know why it hasn't been picked up yet. It's brilliant! It's funny, and I love your characters, and the plot glides along like a—”

  “Are serious?” I said. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “I know, it's very exciting,” said Janet. “But we'd like to talk about a deal here. Do you have any other manuscripts you can show me? We could work out a three-book contract.”

  “Thirty years!” I said. “Thirty years!”

  “Sorry, hon,” said Janet. “Sometimes it takes that long. It'
s how the game is played.”

  “Did you know that my book started a war in another galaxy? And that it's over now?”

  “Is that what all those black dots in the sky are?” said Janet. “I thought to myself, there's probably a reason why the sky is pink right now...”

  “Go to hell,” I said. “Go right to hell and take the rest of your stupid industry with you.”

  I spiked the phone on the ground. It bounced at my feet and ricocheted off a wall. It slid away from me and landed a few feet away from the black cataract ship.

  “So,” I asked G’nurrlgaaath, “What's it like on this world I'm going to?”

  “It's beautiful,” said G’nurrlgaaath with a smile. “We've got four and a half suns. There's nothing quite like watching those blue stars shine through emerald green mushrooms twelve stories tall... leopards the size of commercial buildings lounging on beaches of purple sand...” His eyes grew distant as he thought about his homeland.

  “That sounds lovely,” I said. “I know I'm a prisoner of war and all, but can I wander around a bit before the execution?”

  “I don't see how that's a problem,” said G’nurrlgaaath. “I'm sure they'll let you hang around a bit. I bet you they might even let you do a book signing. There are plenty of people out there who loved your book, and didn't even kill anybody over it.”

  I found myself briefly imagining what it would have been like if Jesus had held a book signing for the Bible.

  “Missus Jones,” said one of the oozes, “We should go now. No need to bother this galaxy any more than we already have.”

  G’nurrlgaaath took me by the hand and lead me to the prison ship. I noticed a something on his hand that didn't look like it belonged. I thought it might be a glove he was wearing, or some kind of birthmark I studied it more closely, and then laughed out loud when I saw what it was.

  It was a dark green tattoo on the back of his hand, in the shape of an aloe plant, or a fern.

  Danny Dizzle

  Based on “Danny Deever” by Rudyard Kipling

  With Apologies to that same Rudyard Kipling.

  “Why's that bass beat playin' so loud?” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “To get your asses to show up,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “What makes you looks so pissed, so mad?” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “I don't wanna watch, he was my boy,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “They're killin' Danny Dizzle, son, they're layin' his ass down.

  “They're pourin' out his forty an’ he ain't gonna make it out.

  “They're celebratin' his demise with a bullet to the brain.

  “They're wastin' Danny Dizzle, son. I told you they weren't playin'.”

  “Why the ones in the back all pantin' and sweatin'?” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “It's cold outside, it’s cold as ice,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “That mutha in the front just fell down,” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “It's just the sun, it's still real bright,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “They're pastin' Danny Dizzle, son, they're laughin' in my face.

  “They're putting him in a fuckin’ pine box, buryin' him without a trace.

  “He gots no service, he gots no priest, no fuckin' eulogy.

  “They're killin' Danny Dizzle, son, just to fuck wit' me.”

  "His hangout pad was next to mine,” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “He's sleepin' in the ground tonight,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “I liked to drink his fuckin' beer,” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “Danny's drinking alone tonight,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “They're cappin' Danny Dizzle, son, remember where you at.

  “He killed a homey in his sleep, 'stead of shooting him in the back.

  “He dead as saints and all because he broke some fuckin' code.

  “They're icin' Danny Dizzle, son, t'make sure all y'all get told.”

  “Why do I here gunshots now?” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “Danny's making one last stand,” the Shot-Calla Said.

  “What was all that screamin', loud?” said Posse-On-Patrol.

  “That's Danny gettin' what he earned,” the Shot-Calla said.

  “They've gotten Danny Dizzle, son, they shot him in the head.

  “He killed a rival homey, and they made sure he got dead.

  “They hunted him, an' flushed him out, like a cock'roach in the sink.

  “Danny Dizzle's dead now, son--

  “Now let's go get some drink.”

  A Marriage of Magic and Science

  It was a perfect union of the most advanced of sciences and the darkest of magics. A spell book, written by the late Aleister Crowley, provided the incantation. We were going to burn it if the spell didn’t work, lest someone asked why the magical symbols in it so strongly resembled famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, or the Great Wall of China.

  There is a reason, of course. Aleister, the brilliant old coot, knew that a circle of power for a spell that relocates an entire planet would of course have to be as large as one, if it was going to work. So Aleister created his own magical language in which all the letters resemble things that humanity has conveniently already built. That’s why the diagram looks more like a world travel guide than a spell of dark magic.

  My part in the plan was simple, at least for me. I’m a scientist. Jack Parsons is the name. I’ve been a pagan for as long as I can remember. I once wrote a spell that was supposed to turn me into the Antichrist so I could destroy Christianity. Instead I got a formula for rocket propulsion. Oh well. When life gives you a rocket propulsion formula, become a rocket scientist, I guess.

  We had set up the final stage of the spell in a desolate desert in Nevada. And by “We,” I of course mean myself, Jack Parsons, rocket science occultist, and L. Ron Hubbard, drug-addled science fiction author, con artist, and boat thief.

  Aleister Crowley was with us, despite being, as I have said, long-dead. And I’m not just saying that he was in our hearts. I mean his spirit was being channeled through a small hand mirror. His ethereal figure didn’t look old, as I had expected, but it certainly looked like it would rather be anywhere than in the middle of some desert with nothing but L. Ron Hubbard’s chubby face to look at.

  “Tell us,” said L. Ron. “Tell us what it’s like on the other side.”

  Aleister sighed heavily. This would be the fifth time explaining this. L. Ron’s short-term memory was on the fritz, as usual, because he was on drugs, as usual. “I can’t tell you what’s on the other side, you fool.”

  “Why not?”

  “Partly because there isn’t much. Partly because don’t I want to. But mostly because I had to sign a very strict non-disclosure agreement.”

  “But, I have to know,” said L.Ron. “I’m thinking of starting a religion.”

  This enraged the ancient mystical master. “What did you just say?”

  “I want to start a religion. I’ve seen the sort of money it can make. I want in.”

  Aleister couldn’t turn purple. He would need blood for that. But he could still look more pissed off than a mere mortal could manage. “You fool! As if this world weren’t poisoned enough by those petty superstitions. Now one of my own students is betraying me!”

  “But didn’t you call yourself The Beast once? Didn't you start your own religion?”

  “I did that to piss off the Christians, not because I believed it. No, I will not have you spreading more lies about angels or demons or whatever-the-fuck.”

  “Actually, I was thinking frozen volcano ghosts,” said L. Ron.

  Aleister’s spectral eyebrows furrowed. “I forbid you!”

  L. Ron shrugged. “Fine with me.”

  I was tightening up the last bolt of the firing device. This was my part. It was my job to provide the “switch” for the spell. Circles of power—in this case, sphere— are sometimes “activated” when a candle marked with runes -usually carried by t
he spell caster-crosses a certain point in the circle. This was such a spell, and since it was designed to compress an entire planet and transport it, it was going to need a big candle. When I told Aleister I was a rocket scientist, he smiled, and told me to get to work. And thus, my rocket-candle was born.

  When my glyph-encrusted rocket passes under the magical symbol of “Transport” (which by no coincidence looks like the St. Louis Arch), the spell will begin its dark work. First, our world will be reduced to the size of a grape, then, it will perform the magical equivalent of a quantum leap, and the next thing everyone knows, Earth will be wiped out by L.Ron Hubbard's digestive fluids.

  It makes sense. The harshest environment scientists can find is the human body. At the bottom of the ocean, the only problems are high pressure and freezing cold. In space, there’s merely no air or atmospheric pressure. In the human body, however, if one wanted to survive, they would have to find a way of staving off huge fluctuations in temperature, rampaging viruses, E.Coli, hungry white blood cells and a violent immune system. Nothing would stand a chance, not even Planet Earth.

  “Master,” I said. “The rocket is ready.”

  “Why do we have to destroy the world anyway?” asked L. Ron. “It’s not so bad. There's boats, and drugs, and other people's wives to enjoy.”

  At this I ground my teeth.

  “Humanity is a festering wound upon this Universe,” said the late Aleister Crowley. “If life elsewhere is to survive, our kind must be stopped.”

  “What do you mean, ‘life elsewhere?’” I asked. “Surely you don’t mean there’s life on other planets?”

  “Is there a Galactic Federation?” asked L. Ron.

  “Shut up. Of course there’s life on other planets. I’m dead. The afterlife has a huge interplanetary database.”

  “You weren’t this angry at humanity when you were alive,” I remarked.

  “Of course not. The human body can’t possibly contain enough rage when there’s all that flesh and blood weighing it down. I can see things so… clearly. And one of those things is the blight upon our Universe that we humans happen to be.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” I said.

  “It’s all the thetans,” said L.Ron.

  “Shut your stupid fat face,” said Aleister. “I know what I’ve seen. In a hundred years humanity will reach other planets. In a thousand, they’ll be wiping them out for their resources. Time works differently here.”

  “Well, I’m not arguing, sir,” I said. “But there’s a lot of ways this spell could go wrong.”

  “Of course there is, it’s magic,” said Aleister. “One cannot tame the forces of the dark, especially in such quantities. For all I know, my spell might end up turning this planet into a bowl of pudding.”

  “So, what’s the point?” I asked.

  “The point is, we’ve got to try. I’ve seen what can happen if we don’t.”

  “Okay,” I said. “L. Ron, get in the space suit.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  I sighed. I had done my share of repetitive explaining as well. “Get in the space suit. You’ve already agreed to this.”

  I couldn’t stand the guy, not after all the girlfriends and wives he’d stolen from me. But we still had to have some way of keeping him alive as he floated through the void of space, his drug-fueled gastrointestinal processes wiping out life as we know it.

  L. Ron put down the hand mirror, much to the enjoyment of the master of mystics. In his other hand was a Dixie cup, one of those old fashioned ones decorated with tacky orange mountain ranges, white sky, and yellow clouds. It contained, against all odds, water. We were in a desert, after all.

  L. Ron fiddled with the various buckles and knobs as he got onto the space suit. In about half an hour, it was on, the life-support system hissing as it pumped pure, narcotic oxygen. As if the bastard needed to get any higher.

  “Now,” recited the old master, “you must step into the hexagram.”

  We had painted the hexagram with chalk. This was basically the “coordinates” of the teleportation spell. L. Ron would stand here, so the planet-sized sphere of power would know where to put its planet-sized cargo.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” said L. Ron. “Why am I in a space suit? Is the Galactic Federation coming to get me?”

  “Shut up, you dumb fool,” Aleister drawled . “Just step into the hexagram.”

  L. Ron did as he was told, lifting up the visor for the space suit and taking a sip from his Dixie cup.

  “Now,” Aleister said, this time addressing me. “Start the engines. When the rocket leaves the desert, I shall begin the incantation.”

  It was funny, I thought. The spell actually required an otherworldly being to recite the incantation. It was if the old coot knew he’d be dead when it came time for him to say it.

  I primed the fuel-injection pump, and pulled the lever. The launch sequence had begun. At last, the explosion struck the blast plates, and my long-range rocket was off. Within a minute, the thing would be in St. Louis, and the spell would begin. Now, all that remained was making sure that L. Ron stayed put. I turned to the chalk Hexagram...

  ...From which L. Ron Hubbard had wandered off in a drug-filled stupor.

  I clutched my hair, nearly tearing it out. “Stupid!” I screamed to myself. “Stupid!” I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off him for a minute. Aleister had already begun the incantation, and would be too engrossed in concentration to hear me.

  L. Ron was about fifty feet away, stumbling awkwardly and muttering to himself. I ran the fastest I had ever run in my life. If I could get him to turn around right now, I might be able to get him back to the hexagram by the time the rocket reached St. Louis.

  “You idiot!” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

  “Galactic Federation,” mumbled L. Ron. “They know I know about them.”

  “Listen,” I said, “We have to get back. We need to get you to the Hexagram before...” I stopped dead, in horror. “L. Ron,” I said. “Where is the cup?” The Dixie cup was nowhere to be seen.

  “Dropped it,” muttered L. Ron. “Dropped it and now I’m running from volcano ghosts.”

  I was so angry, I was literally vibrating. “Look,” I said, shaking his shoulders. “Did you drop it in the hexagram?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” muttered the drug-addled spaceman.

  I tried to lug him back to the hexagram, to no avail. His weight on its own was impressive, but when compounded with the space suit, I could barely get him to stumble at a very slow rate. In seconds, the rocket would reach St. Louis…

  And as I approached I discovered, much to my horror, that the drugged-up fool did indeed leave the Dixie cup exactly in the center of the hexagram.

  “I don’t want to go in,” he muttered. “’Can’t make me…”

  I put all my might into trying to get L. Ron into the magical marking, but it was too late. There came a tremendous noise, like the rending of spaceime itself. Dark energy blotted out the sun, and I felt like my body was being pulled through a strainer.

  “Volcano ghosts!” screamed L. Ron. “They’re here!”

  The colors of everything went wrong. Black became white. Brown became electric blue. I could smell sounds and hear lights as Earth shrank to a size no life-bearing planet should be.

  When I came to, I was in a pool of my own vomit. My head was still spinning as I stood, my legs wobbling unchecked. The hexagram was empty, save a small burn mark in the center where L. Ron’s refreshment once sat harmlessly. The sky looked… wrong. It was still blue, yes, but off in the distance, as if submerged underwater, I could see undertones of tacky orange mountain ranges, white sky, and yellow clouds. The events of the previous minutes slowly connected in my brain, and I realized the new, horrifying truth:

  Planet Earth was in a cup.

  Thanks to L. Ron Hubbard and his imbecility, Earth’s atmosphere was now partially leak-proof, cut-res
istant, and recyclable.

  “You fool!” screamed Aleister. “What have you done? Why isn’t life being wiped out?”

  “Dropped my cup,” said L. Ron. He seemed sober now. I guess that’s what exposure to huge quantities of black magic can do to a guy. He was scribbling furiously in a notebook, grinning madly. “Now we’re in a cup.”

  I stared at this bewildering figure. I hated him so much. It wasn’t enough that he stole my wife and my boat, and hundreds of thousands of dollars that he promptly spent on drugs. He had to go and lie to my own students, until I had to resign in disgrace from the very post Aleister Crowly himself had appointed me to. I decided I couldn’t rest until he was dead. When Aleister came to me in a dream and told me how he planned to end the world, I jumped at the chance. If there was one man I wanted to die in the vacuum of space after the world ended, starving to death and defecating in his space suit, it was he.

  It was my fault the spell went wrong. The man was incapable of even standing in one place without fucking it up. And I had recommended him.

  I looked at the notebook he was scribbling in. He had given it the odd title of “Dianetics,” and was apparently taking his notes of the experience and blaming it all on frozen volcano ghosts.

  “How are we going to end the world now?” Aleister hissed.

  L. Ron didn't even look up. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got that covered.”

  The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower

  “Hi Lou,” Alan said as he retrieved his newspaper from the driveway. He was clad in a bathrobe and waddling in slippers, blinking at the sun.

  Lou, Alan’s neighbor, was standing in his yard, visibly upset, inspecting his hedges critically as if demanding his shrubberies to explain their unkempt state.

  “My yard needs work,” said Lou. “My shrubs are looking ragged, weeds are taking over and my lawn's overgrown. I thought I was a better caretaker than this.”

  “Better fix that before the Homeowner's Association gets word,” said Alan.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Lou. “I tangled with them last week, and they fined me. Dealing with them is worse than hell.”

  “I don't doubt it,” said Alan. “I hear our HOA's got lawyers for their lawyers. So what happened last week that they fined you?”

  “Some damned kids performed a satanic ritual on my yard.”

  Alan blinked a few times. “And the Home Owner's Association fined you for it?”

  “They've never been lenient in the time I've known them. Didn't matter that it wasn't my fault.”

  “So... what'd they do?” asked Alan with a humorous smile. “Draw a big pentagram on your yard? Cover it in trash? Sacrifice your lawn ornaments?”

  “They built a stone altar and burned a lamb alive on it,” said Lou. “And to top it all off, they broke my lawnmower.”

  There were a lot of answers Alan had been expecting, but that had not been one of them. “Uh,” he said. “I'm sorry, Lou. I wish I would've been there to stop them. I've been working a lot of overtime lately.”

  Lou sighed. “What can you do?” he said. “When kids get an idea in their heads, they just can't get 'em out. It doesn't bother me so much that they found me; the part that bothers me is that Levitcus 1:9 clearly states that burning lamb entrails creates a pleasing odor for the Lord. I guess they got the wrong Lord.”

  “It says that in the Bible?” said Alan.

  “It says a lot of things in the Bible,” said Lou. “It's three-quarters of a million words long. Depending on the translation.”

  Alan and Lou lived in a gated community with dozens of cookie-cutter houses exactly like each other. It was extremely unlikely that any kids could break in and desecrate a lawn, but not impossible. The past few days, a doomsday cult had left its usual concrete compound and had been camping out just outside gates proclaiming the end of the world, and Alan would not put it past them to sneak in and pick on a poor guy like Lou.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with those doomsday whackos?” Alan asked.

  “Maybe,” said Lou.

  “Bunch of crazies, the lot of 'em,” said Alan. “No reason to take it out on guys like you and me.”

  “I wouldn't write them off so soon,” said Lou. “Someone's always proclaiming the end of the world, and you never know, maybe the world will end one day.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Alan.

  “One day the angels of demons of the world will get bored with life as we all know it,” said Lou. “And on that day, we're all in for it.”

  “Er, okay,” said Alan. He was about to go back inside, when he caught a glimpse of Lou's lawn. It was, indeed, in a pitiable state. “Your lawn does look pretty unkempt. I haven't seen it that shaggy before.”

  Lou shook his head. “Those kids broke my lawnmower, and my warranty's expired. I knew I should have bought the extended coverage. A friend of mine got his tiller in 1802 and they still covered it when it broke last year.”

  Alan chuckled. “Nothing's built to last these days. Tell you what. Why don't you borrow my mower?”

  “That'd be awful swell of you,” said Lou.

  Alan shook a warning finger at Lou. “But you better give it back. My wife doesn't want me lending out any of my garden tools. And my twelve-year-old son needs to earn his allowance somehow.”

  Lou smiled. “If you want it back so badly, why don't I get in writing?”

  “Oh, that's not necessary,” said Alan. “You've been my neighbor for- what is it- two years now? I know you're good for it. Besides,” he added, “I know where you live!”

  The two neighbors laughed at the corny joke. Lou reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a piece of typical notebook paper and a pen. He started writing. “No, I insist,” he said. “I'd like to get it in writing. I sign a lot of contracts at my job, and I swear by them.”

  “No fine print, right?” Alan joked.

  “Those days are behind me,” said Lou.

  Lou placed the piece of paper in Alan's hand, and Alan went out to drag his mower from the garage. He didn't even bother reading the piece of paper Lou had given to him, and simply tucked it into the pocket of his robe.

  Alan retired to his living room to have his morning cup of coffee and read the paper. His wife, Betsey, trotted in moments later. “Lovely day out,” she said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. “Good way to start the weekend.”

  “Can't say the same of our neighbor Lou,” said Alan as he took a sip of coffee. “Poor fellow has a lot of yard work to catch up on.”

  “Poor man. I heard about the trouble he had last week with the altar. Some kids come by and wreck his lawn, and not only does he have to pay to fix it, but he had to pay the Association as well.”

  “That H.O.A.,” said Alan, “I tell you, they work for the Devil. Charging a young guy like Lou for something he didn't even do.”

  “Money is the root of all evil,” said Betsey. “I think it says that somewhere in the Bible.”

  “I wouldn't doubt it. It's three-quarters of a million words long, you know. I loaned him our lawnmower, by the way.”

  Betsey looked upset. “What have I told you about loaning our expensive tools to neighbors?”

  “It's all right,” said Alan, pulling out the slip of paper from his bathrobe. “I made him promise to bring it back.I got it in writing.”

  “Oh?” said Betsey. “He actually signed a contract?”

  “I insisted,” lied Alan. “Now he is required by powers far greater than myself to return my lawnmower.”

  Betsey smiled. “Well, good,” she said. “I'm glad. Thomas will get to the lawn later, then. I don't want the H.O.A. fining us. Anything good in the paper?”

  “Just another interview with those apocalypse nuts camped outside the gates,” said Alan.

  “That's nice, darling,” said Betsey, and went out of the kitchen.