I didn’t say anything.
“I knew it,” Earl said, draining his beer bottle. “You mind grabbing me another beer out of the fridge?”
I obliged. A powerful rotting smell hit me as I opened it. “Shit, Earl, I think you might want to clean this out.” I looked in the vegetable hamper, where some celery was liquefying.
“I got no sense of smell,” Earl said, tapping his nose. “I can’t even smell these smokes, but I’m hooked on them just the same.”
I handed him his beer and he twisted off the cap. “All those lights downstairs,” I said. “Your electric bill must be through the roof.”
“I bypass the meter,” Earl said. “I’m handy.”
I took another swig from my bottle. It was covered with moisture, the label was starting to peel. For a long time I said nothing, then finally, “I keep thinking about Paul and Angie.”
Earl said nothing, but he watched me closely.
“You talk about pressures. I think of the pressure my kids are under. More than you or I were under back when we were in school. And it’s a lot easier to succumb when the thing they’re giving in to is so readily available, when it’s being processed right across the street from where they live.”
Earl nodded thoughtfully. “I appreciate what you’re saying. I would never give anything, I swear to God, to your kids.”
“But the people you do give it to may end up giving it to my kids.”
Earl ground out his butt in a metal ashtray and lit up another smoke. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not expecting the Nobel Prize or anything.”
“Does Paul know what you’re doing here?”
Earl shook his head. “No, he’s never been down there. I’ve made sure of that. Of course, he knocks first.” Ouch. “I just help him with his questions about plants and flowers, what needs shade, that’s all. He’s a good kid.”
I had a sip of my beer. “So how’d you get into this line of work?”
“Pays good. No taxes. I need the money. I can make a lot, and I can make it fast. What can I say? I’m not the sort of guy who’d do well at an insurance company or a bank.”
I put my head in my hand, rubbed my forehead. Sweat collected in my palm. I could feel a major headache coming on. Maybe it was the humidity. “I don’t remember this kind of thing happening when we lived on Crandall.”
“You were on Crandall?” Earl asked. “Nice street, nice houses. There was that little fruit place at the bottom of the street.”
I put down my hand, took one last drink, and looked Earl in the eye. “I won’t do anything. Not right away, anyway. And if I do, I’ll give you some warning. But in the meantime, maybe you should think about some other way to make a living. And please, don’t come around our place carrying that.” I pointed to the gun.
Earl put up his hands, cigarette smoke trailing from his right one, like he was under arrest. “Never.” Slowly, he lowered his hands.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “A guy used to be a cigarette smuggler, took cartons by boat from the U.S., across Lake Ontario, when Ottawa was taxing the shit out of tobacco. He’d bring them to the Indian reserve, up near the Thousand Islands. I’d pick up a carton from him now and then, what he didn’t turn over to the Indians. Anyway, he made a lot of money this way, and it was illegal, no question about it, the customs people wanted him, the cops wanted him. So one night, he’s going across with a couple of other guys, and suddenly there’s this other boat, you know? With the searchlight, and someone on a megaphone telling them to stop? The other guys, they throttle up, figure if they can get back past the midpoint of the lake, they can’t touch them, right? And the customs boat comes up alongside, and this guy’s buddies, they ram the boat, and one of the feds, he goes right off the bow, into the drink, but he’s not splashing around, like maybe he hit his head or something? And my friend, he sees this guy, looking like maybe he’s going to go under, and he dives in. His buddies on the boat, they think he’s fucking lost his mind, this is their chance to get away, while the other customs guys try to find him, but my friend, he can’t do that. He figures there’s no time to waste, and he gets this guy, grabs hold of him, screams for the feds so they’ll get a light on him and pull them both in.”
I didn’t say anything.
“So, anyway, my friend got charged, of course. But he saved that asshole’s life. All I’m saying is, there’s good in everybody.”
I stood up to leave. “I hear you, Earl. Thanks for the beer.”
I WENT BACK ACROSS THE street, passing Trixie’s driveway, where a low-slung blue BMW was parked next to her Acura. I unlocked my front door and went inside, flipping the deadbolt behind me. I went into the kitchen and reached into the fridge for another beer.
The phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“What’s new?” Sarah asked. I could hear her typing in the background, sending memos or editing stories while she chatted.
“Oh,” I said, “not too much.”
Except that the police dropped by, confirmed that the man I found in the creek definitely was murdered, so there’s a killer roaming around the neighborhood, and Earl, our neighbor across the street, has a gun in case his Asian employers start shooting it up with the Russian mob in a turf war over the massive pot-growing operation he has in his basement. Other than that, things were pretty quiet.
“Okay,” said Sarah. “I just thought I’d say hi. That was fun, what we did last night.”
“Huh?”
“Oh great. You’ve forgotten. I got the kids out of the house? With pizza money? Remember?”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, that was good.”
“I’m so glad I made an impression.”
“No, sorry. You did. Really. We should do that again soon.”
“You sure you’re okay? You sound kind of funny.”
“No, really, I’m fine. Just working.”
“Whoa,” said Sarah. “Meeting time. Gotta go. See ya tonight.” And she hung up.
Even though I was out of Earl’s humid house, I was still sweating. I should have told Sarah about him. I hadn’t promised Earl I wouldn’t tell her. But what if Sarah wanted to call the police? What then? I’d only promised Earl
Maybe that was my out. Tell her, let her do the dirty work, get me off the hook.
Right. Earl would understand. Earl, our neighbor who packs heat, would understand.
And then again, was it really that big a deal? Weren’t the pot laws twenty years behind the times? The place wasn’t a crackhouse, for cryin’ out loud. So a guy has a few plants in his basement. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a few. So maybe Earl had a fucking farm where most people have a pool table. But was it any of my business?
And there were risks in telling Sarah, or the kids, what I knew. Risks to my reputation and integrity. The first thing they’d do is remind me whose idea it was to move out here in the first place: “Way to go, Dad. Thanks for rescuing us from the evils of the city.”
I went into my study and tried to work, but couldn’t focus. I kept getting up, going to the living room window, looking through the blinds to Earl’s place. At any moment, I expected to see a fleet of Ladas with Russian mobsters pull into the driveway, guns a-blazin’. Or maybe the cops, driving up on the lawn, pouring out of their cars in riot gear, guns drawn, surrounding the house. Tear gas is lobbed in. Men in gas masks break down the door, and moments later, Earl is dragged out by an officer on either side of him, thrown facedown onto the driveway, his hands cuffed together behind his back. Men in spacesuits start hauling out hundreds of plants and packing them into the back of a specially sealed van.
But nothing like that happened. The housecoat lady watered her driveway. The BMW, driven by a man in khakis and a sports jacket, his eyes shielded by sunglasses, backed out of Trixie’s driveway. A kid, a rare sight in the day in this neighborhood, actually rode by on a bicycle. Earl came out, got in his pickup, and drove off.
And I stood in the window, peering through the blinds, spying on the neighbors, and wondered what kind of a person I was turning into.
