* * *
Alan watched Lou perform his yard work. He would have offered a hand, but he was far too tired. His joints were not like they once were.
Lou started with the hedges, pulling out a pair of sharp-looking shears. He gently trimmed each leaf with the care of an experienced botanist, sometimes measuring branches with a ruler. He took ten steps back to admire his work, and took a short break. After a few minutes, Lou emerged with a glass of lemonade in his hand. It was shortly after this time when a black car pulled out in front of Lou's yard.
The man that got out of the car to talk to Lou was... unique. He had a slick Hugo Boss fashion sense, a wide-brimmed black fedora, and a dominating swagger in his step. But there were things about that seemed off to Alan. His skin did not look right, in fact it didn't looked like skin at all, as if a talented artist had painted on a convincing mockery of flesh.
The man tapped Lou on the shoulder, and Lou almost jumped from surprise. The tall man began to speak, and Lou sipped his lemonade with one hand and put his other in his pocket, listening attentively. The two had a conversation that became progressively more heated with every moment. Lou started shaking his head violently and gesticulating so rapidly with his lemonade that he spilled most of it on his as-yet unmowed lawn. Finally the tall man quickly spun around, walked aggressively to his car, got in, and pulled away. Lou, obviously still upset about the encounter, began the process of weeding his lawn before the mowing.
“Dad. What are you looking at?” came a voice.
Alan jumped at the interruption. In his doorway stood his twelve-year-old son Thomas, leaning against the doorframe and glowering.
“Good morning, Thomas!” said Alan cheerfully, folding up his newspaper and pretending to look at a story on the back page, which was in fact a full-page grocery store spread.
“You're spying on the neighbors again,” said Thomas.
“I was just staring into space,” said Alan defensively. “I wish you would say good-morning to your father, Thomas.”
Thomas walked over to the refrigerator and violently plucked it open. “Whatever,” he said.
“Maybe you should be a little more appreciative of the people who house and clothe you,” said Alan gruffly.
Thomas withdrew an entire quart of orange juice and started drinking straight from it. He walked over to the bay window in the kitchen, through which Alan had been watching his neighbor do yard work. “What's so fascinating about Louis anyway? He's just so boring.”
“Watch how you speak about your neighbors!” snapped Alan. “And don't drink from the carton either! What's wrong with you?”
Thomas threw out his arms, almost spilling the orange juice. “Why do you have to talk to me like that, Dad? You're antagonizing me.”
“Stop talking to me like that!” Alan said.
Ever the angry pre-teen, Thomas turned around and resumed watching Lou. Alan angrily resumed reading the paper. He wished the child-rearing books that Betsey had made him commit to memory had mentioned this. Thomas has a mean comeback for everything, it seemed.
Thomas giggled. “What's so funny?” asked Alan, still gruffly.
“Looks like our neighbor has a bee problem,” said Thomas. “They're all over the place.”
“You're laughing about that?” said Alan angrily, getting up from the kitchen table. “That's not funny! He could get really hurt!”
“They're not stinging him,” said Thomas. “It looks like he's talking to them.”
“Oh, don't be ridiculous-” said Alan, but he stopped. It was true. Lou was indeed talking to a swarm of bees.
The conversation seemed just as unpleasant to Lou as the one with the tall man in the Hugo Boss suit. The swarm of bees maintained a cylindrical pillar shape. It contracted and expanded in controlled ways as Lou spoke, its bees displaying a wide range of flight patterns. The bees flew in graceful spirals and drifted into lazy loop-the loops; then progressed into urgent swoops and again into angry, jagged vibrations. If Alan didn't know better, he would have thought that the swarm of bees was trying to express itself.
Lou, apparently no longer willing to be buzzed at in such a rude way, angrily strutted towards Alan's lawnmower. With a single, powerful pull on the rip-cord, it roared to life. The swarm of bees, recognizing the battle cry of its natural and hated enemy, dispersed in a state of panic.
“Dude,” said Thomas. “That swarm of bees was fucking pissed.”
Alan resolved not to discipline his son for such harsh language. “Poor Lou. First, an overgrown lawn, and now, bees.”
“Isn't that our lawnmower?” said Thomas.
“That's right,” said Alan sternly, looking over at his adolescent son. “I've loaned it to him. The only thing preventing me from sending you out there with it to do our lawn is that Lou's broke last week.”
“Wow!” said Thomas, excitedly. “Maybe he's not so bad after all. Thanks Louis!”
“Watch it how you talk about people!” snapped Alan.
“Sorry, for being mean, Dad,” said Thomas, who turned around and started walking out of the kitchen, orange juice carton still in hand. “I'm going to go play video games!”
Alan sighed as his son left the room, and resumed watching his frustrated neighbor drag the lawnmower back and forth across his lawn.
Lou shook his head angrily, gritting his teeth as he forced the lawnmower across his lawn. The visit from the tall man and the swarm of bees seemed to make him quite angry indeed, angry enough that he was missing entire rows of grass with the lawnmower.
Alan resolved to give Lou a helping hand to cheer him up despite his aching joints, but he wasn't about to do so in his bathrobe. He went to his bedroom and changed into a pair of ruddy jeans and a stained T-shirt. When he went to the back yard to get his straw hat, he heard the lawnmower stop. Lou must have stopped to empty the grass-catcher.
Alan walked through the house and into the front yard, whistling cheerfully as he went around the hedge and into Lou's yard. It wasn't until he was halfway down the lawn when he realized that both his neighbor and his lawnmower were nowhere to be found. He looked left, he looked right. There was simply no way that Lou could have managed to sweep up all the grass clippings from the sidewalk, put away the lawnmower, and go back inside in the time Alan had taken to change into work clothes. Furthermore, the lawn was not by any means finished, and the missed rows of grass were still mockingly untrimmed.
Alan walked up to Lou's door and knocked. There was no answer. He waited a minute or two and knocked again. Still nothing.
Alan walked back into his house and continued his day. Perhaps Lou had an urgent errand to attend, and had stashed away Alan's lawnmower in the backyard until he was finished. In either case, Alan was sure that his lawnmower was safe, and whatever was bothering his polite and unassuming neighbor would surely be resolved.