The Merchant of Menace

coffee?' she asked Shelley.

“I wouldn't object violently. Where do you stand on the Lance King thing?'

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Julie called this morning and said she'd uninvited him and he took it like a man.”

They were both silent for a moment while Jane refreshed the coffee cups. 'I don't believe it,' Shelley said when Jane sat back down.

“I believe he said it,' Jane said, frowning. 'But I don't believe he meant it. I'll bet he's down at city hall or the newspaper files or someplace else trying to dig up something to ruin me with. He's not going to find anything. I've got plenty of sins on my soul, but I don't believe any of them are public record.”

Jane's son Mike came home from college that evening. He wasn't due to come home until the next day, but cheerfully explained that he'd come sooner so he could set up the electric train. Jane opened her mouth to object, but remembering the classes she'd cut in college for far less valid reasons, said nothing.

“What's happened to the house next door?' Mike asked when he'd dragged his belongings into the house and dumped them in the living room.

“New neighbors,' Jane said. 'They're really into decorating for the holidays in a big way. Be sure and take your things upstairs right now. We have to keep the house really clean for a couple days. There's a neighborhood caroling party tomorrow night and everybody's coming here afterwards. And the next afternoon I'm having a cookie party. Then we can slob out until Christmas Eve when your grandmother's coming to dinner.'

“A cookie party. That's great. I remember you used to go to those parties when I was a little kid,' Mike said. 'We ended up with all kinds of good stuff. Remember those stained-glass cookie things? Let's make some of those.'

“Pick up some Life Savers and gingerbread mix next time you're out and we will.'

“How about tonight? I haven't had dinner and want to go pick up a hamburger,' Mike said. 'Where are Todd and Katie? I'll take them along.”

Jane bellowed up the steps for the other kids and watched the reunion of the siblings. The younger two were of ages that couldn't openly show affection for a big brother, but they were obviously glad to see him.

Katie gave him an air kiss.

“Hey!' Todd said when Mike gripped him in a bear hug. 'What's with the mushy stuff? You were just here at Thanksgiving.'

“Yeah, but I didn't have presents with me then. Help me take my junk upstairs.”

Katie trailed along after them, pretending that she was going that direction anyway. Jane caught a snatch of the conversation and called after them, 'Katie, quit asking about Mike's friends. You are not in the dating market for college boys.'

“Oh, Mother!”

Jane stood in the middle of her still-clean kitchen. Lance King didn't matter, the scratchy blare of a reggae version of 'We Three Kings' blasting from next door was of no consequence. The fact that she had to feed at least thirty people this time tomorrow wasn't even much of a concern. She had her kids home and they were pretty neat kids.

Life didn't get much better.Six But life could — and did — get considerably worse the next day.

It started with the anonymous note stuck into the front storm door. Jane noticed it as she came in from getting the morning paper. Handwritten and copied on bright pink paper, the note was signed A Group of Concerned Neighbors.

In Jane's experience a 'group' with no name attached usually meant one disgruntled, cowardly individual.

The gist of the note was that the Johnsons' Christmas display was a detriment to the neighborhood. It created noise and light pollution. 'Light pollution?' Jane snorted out loud. Furthermore, the Concerned Neighbor went on, it would create a traffic problem as word spread and more and more people came to look at it, thus endangering the welfare of the children who might not be used to so many cars on the street and possibly drawing the attention of a lot of 'less than desirable' outsiders. Moreover, the Group of Concerned Neighbors said, going overboard on political correctness, the display was largely Christian in intent and was offensive to Jewish, Moslem, and atheist residents. It might, the Group said, even violate the constitutional right to separation of church and state.

Jane stared at the note and muttered angrily, 'Get a life!' as she headed for the phone. When Shelley answered, Jane said, 'Have you opened your front door yet? No? Do so. I'll wait.”

It took Shelley a surprisingly long time to return. 'Assholes,' Shelley said, rattling paper furiously.

“What took you so long?' Jane asked.

“I ran out the sidewalk to see if the perps of this trash were still on the street. They weren't.”

“I could have told you that. This is a 'dark of the night' communication.'

“So what do we do about it?'

“Well, we certainly don't want to violate any constitutional rights,' Jane sneered. 'But there's a section urging neighbors to call city hall and make their feelings known. I suggest we organize people to do just that. I'll call the people on this side of the block, you call the other side.”

Before she called any neighbors, she called city hall herself. She gave her name and address and said, 'I'd like to make known my feelings about the house decorations next door to me.'

“Yes?' the city clerk said wearily. 'I've gotten several calls.'

“I like the decorations.' This was an outright lie, but Jane's constitutional rights provided for free speech, which included lying for a good reason, she figured. 'And I like the Johnsons.

And I dislike the mean-spirited jerks who put this note in my door.”

There was a brief silence, then the clerk said, much more cheerfully, 'Thank you, Mrs. Jeffry. I'll see that your comments are passed up the line.”

Jane called Suzie Williams next, who said, 'I'm just on my way to work, Jane, but I'll call the city clerk when I get there. That house looks like a combination of Disneyworld and a train wreck, but it's their house and the Nazi busybodies haven't got any damned business interfering.'

“Hey, Suzie, before you go, do you happen to know Sam Dwyer? Down the block. Single. Has an owlish- looking little girl?'

“You bet I do,' Suzie said with a rich chuckle. 'Gotta go spend another fulfilling day stuffing little old ladies into corsets. Tell you about him later.”

Jane got out her address book and called everyone else on her side of the block that she knew. Two of them tried to convince her that the note was perfectly correct and Something Must Be Done. Another two were as outraged as she and thanked her for suggesting they call the city offices. The rest were either neutral or not answering. She thought she'd won over a couple of the neutral parties.

Her last call was to Sharon Wilhite. 'Not to worry,' Sharon said. 'It would take years of legal wrangling to impose somebody else's standards on the Johnsons. Since they're renters, only their landlord could stop them.'

“I wonder who the owner of the house is?' Jane said.

“Me,' Sharon said with a laugh. 'I bought it as rental property a couple years ago. And I don't much like people trying to use the Constitution to be rude. I'll call the city before I go to work and make sure they know it's okay with me.”

Jane hung up. 'Constitutionalize this!' she said, wadding the pink paper up and throwing it in the trash. Then she fished it back out and left it on the counter so that the Concerned Citizen, who was sure to be one of her guests this evening, would see what her opinion was.

She suddenly realized that she hadn't ever invited the Johnsons to the party. That was really rude, having a block party next door and ignoring them. She didn't have a telephone number for them, so she threw on a coat and boots and went next door. Though she could hear a television newscast, it took a long time for anyone to answer the doorbell and she was about to give up when Tiffany opened the door. 'Oh, Miz Jeffry, come on in,' she said. She was wearing a new-looking, but tacky robe — fluorescent pink with little white bobbles outlining the yoke.

Jane followed her into the house and they were just sitting down as the sound of a computer printer started