He shut the door.
The recently widowed Jill Bryant has called a meeting. Most of our neighbors are there, except the Griffins. “He pushed her into the grass, rubbed her face in the dirt because she refused to kiss him. She’s only
She serves coffee and hot apple cider, thick sliced pumpkin bread and cherry chip cake. There are caramel apples for the kids gathered around a Disney movie in the upstairs den.
She invites me and three others to the basement. We huddle around a card table. I used to play poker with her husband here before he was hit by a drunk driver.
“I want to do something about those Griffins,” Ms. Bryant says.
Bill Swarthout’s got a pair of five-year old identical twin girls and says, “You can’t just ignore a cancer like that. Let ’em go on the way they are, and next thing you know, you’re no longer you. No, what you gotta do to cancer is burn the fucker off.”
There is little eye contact here in Ms. Bryant’s basement. It’s like the lighting is too harsh, and everyone has to look at the floor to avoid damaging their eyes.
Finally Todd Kaufmann — husband of Katrina, father of eight-year old Ellen — puts forth an idea that we’ve all thought of before, but were too afraid to say out loud.
“There’s one thing to do,” he says. “One thing that’ll return this place to normalcy.”
We listen. We grow in turn sickened and excited by his words. But in the end, we agree with him. Damn it, we agree.
Here’s what I want; a peaceful, quiet place to live and raise my son. I don’t want the bad influences in this world to touch him. Is that so much to ask? I want to sit on our front step, look up and down the street and know that all is right with our little corner of the world. People mowing their lawns, parents pushing kids in strollers, playing catch, shooting baskets. Barbeques, walking dogs, dressing up for church, eating dinner at a table, not in front of the TV like I’ve seen the Griffins do. What kind of values does a family like that have?
I know tolerance is important. We have our differences. But at the same time, we have only one life to live. One life to enjoy, to do and be the best we can. So should we be so tolerant as to let the evil out there affect and change our lives? To the point where our wants and desires become compromised?
We can tiptoe around evil, swerve out of its way when it comes at us.
Or we can eliminate it. Take control of our lives, our destinies. Sometimes you have to do something unpleasant to make things right.
Last week, Darren comes home from school, asking if he can sleep over at Johnny Griffins’. At first I think he’s joking, but my smile soon fades. “Isn’t he the same boy who takes your lunch money? Isn’t he the same boy who chases you on your way to school, who hides in a tree and jumps on top of you when you pass beneath?”
“We’re friends now,” Darren says.
“How so?”
He looks away, his cheeks turning pink. “We got in a fight yesterday.”
I run my fingers through his scalp, feel for abrasions. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay. I clocked him pretty good.” He looks up at me and grins. “Knocked him on his back. Then said I was sorry, but I was tired of him picking on me and my friends all the time. And you know what? He says he wants to be my friend. Says he was sorry, and that he was mad at us because he thought we made fun of him behind his back. Which we did. But he wants to be friends now, and wants me to sleep over.”
Emotions swirl through me. Pride at my son’s actions, but anger at Johnny Griffin. This is what it’s come to now; Johnny pulling out all the stops to corrupt my son. He’s learned that the best way to influence someone is to pretend you’re a friend, and just when they’re most vulnerable—
“No,” I say. “Absolutely not.”
“But Dad, I thought—”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want you with that boy.”
Darren sighs. He looks up at me and shrugs. “But he seems so lonely.”
“You’re a good kid. You’re kind, and you look for the good in people. Those are admirable qualities, Darren, but you’re also naive. I don’t want you hanging out with Johnny Griffin. End of story.”
We gather a few more times around the card table; Bill Swarthout, Jill Bryant, Todd Kaufmann and me. We discuss things that shouldn’t be discussed, but feel it’s our duty to do so. Duty to our families. Our neighborhood.
The plan we finally agree on is Bills’.
“Members of firing squads,” he says quietly, talking to the table, “used to be given blanks. Only a few had live ammunition. This way, none of them knew who fired the fatal shot.” He raises his eyes and looks at us in turn, and each of us, with only the slightest movement, nods acquiescence.
Our plan will take place on Halloween night, when it won’t be unusual for disguised figures to wander the neighborhood after dark. It’s the only night, really, when our plan will work.
I’ve been assigned only one task until that time; buy a costume. I find a grim reaper outfit. It comes with a plastic scythe, which I won’t need come Halloween night.
Bill has the most items to gather. Mostly things from his father’s farm where he grew up. It’s four hours from here, located amidst cornfields stretching in withering rows as far as the eye can see. He gathers old burlap feed sacks and frayed rope, takes down a real, honest-to-goodness scythe from the barn wall, where it’s hung on a couple four-inch rusty nails for forty-five years. He stacks five bales of hay in the back of his pick-up on top of these things, whips a plastic tarp over that, and drives back to our neighborhood on a quiet Sunday night.
Jill Bryant has a knack for crafts. Sewing, quilting, flower arranging. She sells decorations made from Indian corn to hang on your door come autumn. She takes the old burlap, the hay and the rope, and cuts and shapes it until it’s just right.
And when the time comes, Todd Kaufmann’s contribution will be his strength.
Three days away, now. Tonight, from my window, I see two figures smoking cigarettes behind a tree in the Griffin yard. They must think they’re hidden, but even though the night is moonless, I clearly make out Darren from the light shining from the Griffin’s windows. I watch him for twenty minutes. He goes through two more cigarettes with a practiced ease that makes me dizzy. I know I should go out there and stop him, grab him roughly by the shoulders and drag him away, but I find it impossible to move, impossible to take my eyes off this boy, my son, who suddenly appears to be a man I’ve never known.
When he comes in, hair and clothes reeking of cigarettes, I ask, “Have you been smoking?”
He hardly looks at me as he brushes past. “You’re paranoid.”
I’m frozen in place, unable to respond as he disappears into his bedroom and shuts the door.
Halloween night. The children in the neighborhood are home plopped in front of televisions, eating the candy they’ve gathered, watching Disney movies, some already asleep, bits of missed Halloween make-up mottled behind their ears.
It’s just the adults now. The weather starts turning ugly. A storm is forecast for late in the night, but so far, it’s just windy and cold. Small, white flakes dance over the lawns.
We stop at all the houses on the street, say “trick-or-treat” in jovial voices, and those who are home to hand out candy nod at us and give us handfuls of sweets. Their smiles seem forced. They pretend not to recognize our voices. Just nods. A few knowing glances. I wonder how many Bill has hinted to about our plan. After we receive the candy, the doors shut quietly to the building storm.
We creep through the neighborhood, walk down the street, the glint of steel hidden behind the increasing snowfall. Our forms are shadowy and feral. Each of us in turn walks to the Griffin house with our bag of candy clutched in one hand, our other hand beneath our costumes occupied with handles made of wood.
