Episode 3: The Garden
I woke up the next morning having resolved my difficulties with the local cultists, looked out the window and discovered 42 cars parked on my lawn and one parked on my Spirea bush. I was hot! I mean I was hopping mad! I wasn’t going to be pushed around like this just because I was the new person on the block. I’d give THE Pastor and the meatball-shaped, Fire Rescue volunteer fellow a piece of my Armenian-Welch-English-Dutch-French attitude and show them I am not to be trifled with! I stomped outside, steam flowing from my nostrils and ears to give them what for AND…wandered aimlessly around by their cars giving the cars a dirty stare. It was then that I met Sally. At first I thought one of the church cars had a talking alarm system that had gone off when I gave it the evil eye, but the voice actually belonged to a neighbor. “Don’t take that shit from them,” She said. Her name was Sally and she was married to John. She was crouched down planting fresh Hosta plants while smoking a Marlboro cigarette. Her eyes smoldered the color of her smoke when she spoke again, “Every weekend they come in here from all over and trample everything, parking in everyone’s yard and then leave middle fingers blazing”. “I threatened to call the cops but it doesn’t faze them”. “ I noticed THE Pastor was over”. “He’s been to my place a dozen times and I told him he can go to HELL along with his entire flock”! “My advice to you is to not take their crap! We have a right to live here in peace”! “I’m Sally, my husband is John, WE will get along just fine”! I thanked her for her advice and so inspired began to devise the rousing speech I would use to reduce THE Pastor and his meaty minion to tears and contrite pleas for forgiveness,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he(or she or whatever) to-day that sheds his(or her) blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in Willis now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks…
“Hey Jackass!!! Get away from my truck!” said the rotund Fire Rescue volunteer. “You sir, are an ass,” I said with quivering fury. “WHAT!!!!” he blasted (EDITED FOR THE KIDS). Six minutes of verbal terrorism and a mouth full of road gravel later, I watched his truck pull away in a cloud of dust. That’s it! Revenge is a dish best served cold, and it is very cold in Willis! These are the times that try men’s souls and I was willing to take the part as the devil’s soldier and roust these worshippers of Southern Baptist mothers right out of Paradise and I knew just how I was going to do it! I looked at the gaping canyons left by the truck tires and immediately thought in the most violent imagery…flowers!!! Even a cold-hearted Southern Baptist must fear something; I bet they are afraid of violas! So I planted and planted for 40 days and 40 nights I planted flax, poppies, butterfly bushes, coreopsis, daisies, black-eyed susans. I planted and I dug and I weeded and I put up a tiny little garden fence. A line of neighbors gathered. Someone thought about starting up a local paper to marvel over the feats I accomplished. Soon a new Garden of Eden had formed where previously only the knobby tracks of a 12 ton fire engine red pickup truck had been and finally I had thwarted my foes and could begin work on my venerable estate.
1 Comment
Jennifer of Moonglow Crossroads
3/6/2011 04:38:27 pm
Dean, I can appreciate your twist of humor in these stories! Wanting to get away from the drab sameness of corporate America, I made my retreat to a small town. Only to flee back to the city before a not so subtle form of madness crept in.
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