Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

Good Neighbors
by Bobbi A. Chukran

I didn’t start out loathing my new neighbors, but after several years of living next door to the Stewarts, I came to hate the very sight of them. Those two were the nosiest people I’ve ever met. So nosy that I couldn’t even walk out to pick up my mail without one or the both of them vaulting out to see what I was doing. They must have had a buzzer attached to their door, so they would know when I opened mine. Or a motion detector, or a security camera trained on my front walkway. There's no other explanation for it.

One problem was, the Stewarts were retired, with too much time on their hands---way too much time. My husband and I were much younger and are not retired. I do work at home as a garden writer, but I definitely don’t consider that being retired. Tired, definitely, but not retired.

Mrs. Stewart came banging on our door, pleading for me to come over and entertain her during the daytime. “Good neighbors should socialize. Surely you can’t be working in there, can you?” she’d ask, wringing her hands as she spoke. “What do you do in there all day?” she asked, peering over my shoulder into our home. “Take a break; come over and see my new grandbaby. He’s so cute!” she begged. Or she’d call me on the phone. “I’m having some friends over and you have to come meet them. No excuses now!” she wheedled, and the more insistent she got, the more stubborn I got.

I felt like screaming. “Of course I’m not working!" I'd shriek. "I'm watching General Hospital and eating chocolate bonbons and reading a hot romance novel. After that, I need to polish my toenails Seashell Pink.” Well, you get the idea.

Isn’t that what all writers do during the day?

She didn’t take the hint, and got even more insistent. “Come over and see me,” she demanded. “We’ll have tea, and play bridge.” Gag. Bridge? She had to be kidding. As far as I’m concerned, a bridge is something you drive over.

Mr. Stewart was a perfect match for his wife. After meeting him, I understood her need to be entertained. He was what you might call a little over-protective of their yard. He carried around a small plastic pocket ruler that he used for measuring the height of the grass on their front lawn. Every blade had to be the same height---every one of them. I’d frequently see him out there in the yard with the ruler, on his knees, measuring.

If he happened to see anything out of place (a small bird’s feather, or heaven help us all---a weed!) he ran for the lawn mower and grass blower and weed trimmer and firmly and swiftly dispatched the interloper to weed heaven. Husband called him the “Mow and Blow” guy. He slapped that sucker into a plastic garbage bag and then slammed that into a metal trashcan and slammed the lid on that to be picked up immediately, if not sooner. Then he dumped several thousand gallons of water onto the grass, cooing nervously to it as he did so. He was certifiable loony-tunes. Those two definitely deserved each other.

The one saving grace of the Stewarts was that, just like me, they loved birds. They had a plethora of birdhouses, feeders and birdbaths in their pristine backyard, and they religiously refilled the feeders as soon as they emptied. The birds came, seemingly uninterested in the fact that the lawn was flatter than a cement parking lot.

In spite of all the bird love, after a few years I was fed up. My husband, ever the peaceable fellow, said to ignore them. I tried, believe me. I tried so hard, my teeth hurt and my eyeballs almost popped out. I decided to try one more time and was doing okay until the day we started to paint our house.

Being hungry for color in a neighborhood full of beige and dirt-brown houses, we picked several colors that we thought quite snappy and cheery---Adobe Blush for the siding, and Santa Fe Teal for the trim---very stylish, very southwestern, very colorful and very artistic. And totally within our rights to do so.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think to warn the painters about Mr. Stewart. They had barely climbed out of their truck when he rushed over, ready to supervise—or snoopervise—as husband called it. Mr. Stewart seemed to feel like it was his obligation to advise us on all matters house-related and to keep our workers in line. It’s an old-man thing, I’ve decided.

“What are y’all doing?” he shouted at the painters.

The painters exchanged a look. “Painting, man” they said, glancing at one another then chattered in quiet voices in Spanish. Miraculously, Mr. Stewart disappeared for several hours, grumbling as he walked away. But after the painting was well underway, he came back, stood in the middle of the street with his bony hands planted firmly on his hips and surveyed their work.

“Oh, my lord!” he screamed, flapping his hands back and forth, pointing at the house. “Y'all need to stop that right now!"

I heard the commotion from inside the house and rushed out to find him arguing with the painters. “There’s got to be some mistake!” he continued. "Do they know what you’re doing to their house? Stop that this instant! Before it’s too late! This is absolutely intolerable,” he said, wagging his head back and forth.

I took a deep breath. “Mr. Stewart,” I pleaded. “Please let them get back to work. We chose these colors on purpose.”

His face turned pale. I could see he didn’t approve.
“Aren’t they great?” I asked, grinning. “Ya know, your house could use a little color, too. I’ll be happy to help you choose something bright and colorful.” I couldn’t resist.

He looked at me as if I were insane. Muttering and shaking his head, he walked back over to his house, glancing over his shoulder at me every few seconds. With a cry and a scowl, he suddenly stooped down, whipped out his ruler, and took some spot measurements here and there in his yard. Satisfied that his grass hadn’t grown too unevenly since the day before when he had mowed, he slowly walked towards his front door, past his perfectly pruned pittosporum, shaking his head and giving me one last hateful scowl. He was obviously unhappy with our color choices, and I knew we’d continue to hear about it. Did I care? Not one bit. At least, not at that time.

As I mentioned, I’m a garden writer and part of being a garden writer is to actually get outside and work in the dirt and do some, well, gardening. Huge old oak trees shade our front yard, and no grass had a chance of growing there. That was fine with me; I prefer to save water and energy by planting ground covers and native plants instead. Which I did—at night, skulking around by moonlight, after the Stewarts had gone to bed. I’m no dummy.

The next week, the doorbell rang. It was Mr. Stewart. He pointed an accusing finger at some native vine I’d planted, and asked, with a sneer, “What the devil is that?” I told him, he stalked off in a huff and I felt it was a small victory.

A month later, an anonymous hand-printed note showed up in our mailbox. It read “Please clean up that weedy mess in your yard! Don’t you take pride in your home? All of your neighbors do! Good neighbors keep their yards nice for the rest of us. Shame on you!”

I thought that last bit was a nice touch. Shame on us, indeed!

Needless to say, I was quite angry. I was mostly angry that someone hadn’t had the guts to complain to our face, but also angry that someone had the nerve to tell us what to do about our own yard. After all, we were breaking no laws.

At this point, even my mild-mannered husband was ticked off. Of course, it took us no time at all to figure out that the anonymous note-writer was---Mr. Stewart. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. He didn’t come right out and ask if we’d received any anonymous notes lately, or “Checked the mail today? You’ll never know what you might find in there.” But we knew.

I’m not normally a vengeful person, but I’d had enough. The time had come to retaliate. The lawn war was on!

I pondered and pondered, but couldn’t come up with the appropriate message to send to Mr. Stewart. My message had to be just right. I thought about toilet-papering his square shrubberies, but figured that was too childish. Besides, it would just blow over in my yard next time he blew the leaves. I thought his square shrubs would look great with little ears or a nose cut into them—sort of like a very fat and angular bovine topiary, but figured the chainsaw would make too much racket. The scenario did amuse me for a few days, though. I even thought about painting their mailbox Adobe Blush and Santa Fe Teal, but I didn’t want the postal carrier to get confused and deliver the Stewart’s Green Lawn Monthly to us by mistake.

Finally, the perfect solution occurred to me. One night, under cover of darkness, I snuck outside and opened a small brown paper bag that I’d been collecting specimens in. I had been researching a story on the usefulness of a certain wildflower, and needed to do some field research, as it were. And where better to try it than a nice, flat, pristine area of lawn---the place where these particular wildflowers grow best---their perfect habitat. Mr. Stewart’s pristine, anal-retentively up-kept lawn seemed like a good subject. I silently poured the sack of seeds into his birdfeeders, filling them to the top.

I snuck back inside, glad that I’d done my duty to spread the joy of such a useful plant. A plant that produces seeds that birds eat by the ton and joyfully gather for their nests whenever they get the chance. A plant that happens to be a fast grower--a really fast grower.

The next morning, I watched the flocks of happy birds, gathering in Mr. Stewart’s yard, chowing down.

About a month later, I heard a cry of anguish coming from Mr. Stewart’s front yard. “My lawn! My beautiful lawn!” he shouted. “Where did all these weeds come from?”

I slowly sauntered out the front door, looked at the beautiful field of yellow, sunshine-faced dandelions, nodding in the breeze. I shook my head. “Oh dear!” I commiserated. “What’s that on your lawn?” I asked, sweetly. “And to think it looked so nice just a few weeks ago, too!”

Mr. Stewart’s face turned beet-red, and I thought he’d blow a gasket right then and there. I stooped down to examine the short little flowers. “Oh! Dandelions!” I said. “Too bad,” I said, shaking my head. “I feel like I wouldn't be a good neighbor if I didn't tell you that their roots grow as much as fifty-feet underground.” I clucked my tongue. “Those pesky birds! They simply adore dandelions, but what can you do?”

Mr. Stewart ran into his garage, his eyes bugging out like a mad person. He came back out with a tiny hatchet and started hacking and digging at his grass, mumbling and frothing at the mouth. Pretty soon, the ambulance came and they carried him away. He was still kicking and screaming. His lawn was shredded. I don’t know what got into that poor fellow. I do hate to see good neighbors take ill like that.

I shrugged, walked over and picked a little yellow flower from his yard and stuck it into the buttonhole of my shirt, whistling as I went back inside my house. I looked out the window and gazed at our two back yards---both blooming with hundreds of lovely yellow flowers. A few days later, the birds were back, gathering food from Mr. Stewart’s yard and happily chasing the fluffy dandelion seeds as they floated on the air.

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Bobbi A. Chukran is the author of LONE STAR DEATH, a Texas 1880s historical murder mystery and the contemporary "Nameless, Texas" short story series available for the Kindle on Amazon.com. Her short stories have appeared at the Kings River Life Magazine, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Clockwise Cat Literary Blogzine and elsewhere. Ms. Chukran is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, Sisters in Crime and Dorothy-L. More information and links to her other books and stories can be found at her website and writing blog: http://www.bobbichukran.com
http://bobbichukran.blogspot.com