By D. Ryan Lafferty
Jerry was a good man, well, as good a man as any, you might say. He took care of his home, his yard, that cherry-red mustang in the drive; all those little important things, like a good neighbor should. He was kind enough to the folks next door or the couples walking down his block. He would marvel often at how ridiculously some people would just strut right down the middle of the street as if they didn’t know any better, even with their dogs. He thought about the logistics of that whole situation, looked at the spotless sidewalks, scratched his head, and just like those oddball travelers, the thought meandered away.
Hendley Way, had always lived up to its name in his esteem, at least the name he called it as a private little joke. In Jerry’s mind it was always Heavenly Way and he’d chuckle to himself when the thought would visit him from time to time. The street was a postcard snapshot of the perfect suburban small town, a cookie cutter neighborhood, the kind Norman Rockwell would illustrate for The Saturday Evening Post. Not that anyone read an actual newspaper anymore, except for his neighbor on the left, let alone an evening edition. His Heavenly Way, reminiscent of that one sketch where the boy stares up at the policeman, his bindle on the floor under the swiveling stool, the smirking face of the sodajerk mouthing his cigarette, and not a soul paying any attention to the spaghetti and meatball special on the chalkboard. To Jerry, this neighborhood was like that, but real; real in the way that Jerry’s little slice of heaven would be paradise lost when his eyes met the virtue-signaling sign on the lawn next door or the banners and flags festooning the street.
He mumbled something unfriendly under his breath and stomped into the house, clicked on the TV to the constant cable news that he’d come to crave. It was always on whenever Jerry was home. He found himself missing it somehow, if the chattering pundits and red scrolling chyrons weren’t there, informing him of the freshest faults of the world. He didn’t even notice his conditioned reaction to the dramatic “dong” of the breaking news banner. Without fail, he’d look up from scrolling on his phone, or cooking dinner, robotically turning his head to catch the latest intel on the enemy within everything all around him. The TV kept Jerry steeped in a daily cycle of outrage and frustration. The glowing frame of the television set, a window to the sentries standing guard over moral society and sounding the alarm at a constant fever pitch, pinched off intermittently by endless ads for medicare benefits, hucksters pushing reverse mortgages, gold and an assortment of gibberish-named medications. Just then something caught his eye through the window. Even through the curtain he could make out a strange form floating along the curb, stop in its tracks and head back toward his front yard.
The mysterious man made his way from the sidewalk and up to Jerry’s door, a gentleman in a dark coat and wide-brimmed hat; a character ripped from the flicker of film noir. “Good evening friend. I couldn’t help notice the signs next door, such a shame, wouldn’t you say? What is this world coming to?” he hissed, and for a second the stranger seemed as if lost in some ancient memory of far better times, oh so long ago. “Here, try this, our only hope, to make this neighborhood great again.” He handed him what looked like a hideous gnome lawn decoration; a part-frog looking creature with a red hat and terra-cotta toned skin. Instead of a beard, its bulbous neck drooped and rested upon a protruding clay belly. “Here are three slips of parchment, simply write your command on this paper and feed it to gnolem…” he said with a knowing grin. “You expect me to believe that this absurd little toad, this gnome, will make my neighbors leave?” Jerry scoffed. “Yes, these are the old ways, and if you really want results, it’s simply a means to an end. And it’s not a gnome, a gnolem…,” “A whah?!” “A No-Lemm” the figure continued, “Dig a small hole in your backyard, write a command on a slip of this paper, tuck it inside, and our little friend will make it happen.” The incredulous look on Jerry’s face enraged the man, “Don’t be a COWARD!” he growled, leaning in too close for comfort. “Either you’re with us or against us. Do it, or you might as well join their side.” The ferocity in the voice, the look in his eyes made Jerry snatch the trinket out of impulse, “What does it cost?” he sighed. “Nothing serious, just your loyalty, that is all” he hissed. Jerry nodded as he closed the door and shivered from a sudden chill. He set the homely toad on the kitchen counter and looked out over his sink at the signs and banners from his neighbors’ yard. He scowled and scribbled, “remove the neighbors next door” naming them both on a single slip of paper, “and that incessant mongrel too.” He popped the folded paper into the mouth of the creature and tucked it in his garden, buried up to its nose in soil, then Jerry whistled merrily as he went up the stairs to bed.
He awoke in the morning to the familiar voices of those nuisance neighbors, calling their dog, “Misty! Here girl!” over and over again. Jerry rubbed the sleep from his eyes and peered out the bathroom window and looked into his garden. The toad had shifted. Inches of soil had shaken loose and it was facing toward the neighbors house, looking as if it were smiling. “Impossible!” he puffed and went about his day. Locking the door behind him, Jerry couldn’t help but notice the dark stranger visiting the house across the street. As he leered in that direction, a familiar face winced at him over steel-rimmed glasses. If looks could kill, this was a machete; brutal, sharp, and painful. “Pffft” Jerry scoffed, and drove to work.
It was 5:30 in the evening when Jerry’s mustang returned home to a crime scene. The yellow police tape draped over the sign-filled yard. A lump caught in his throat. “I hope nothing terrible has happened to them…” he said to himself. Slowly, it dawned on him, still slightly comatose from the mind-numbing doldrums of his workaday routine in the office, he raced to find the little clay toad. Gone. What had happened? He couldn’t resist stepping out into the back yard and leaning over the neighbors’ fence. Their deck was in shambles, a scene of terrible carnage, like something out of a horror movie. Holes dug under the fence led to tracks from his yard, leading toward the destruction. He could see just out of reach, a familiar scrap of paper containing the names of the recently departed. Jerry’s conscience or fear of getting caught got the better of him and he climbed up and over to snatch the evidence and take a closer look.
All was quiet as he stepped closer to the back door. The windchimes the only sound, tinkling like sleigh bells in the suffocating silence. They played an atonal tune, almost peaceful in the midst of such devastation. A rustling in the hedges made him nearly jump out of his skin. An orange neighborhood cat bounded out from the shrubs and into the front yard. A sigh of relief gave Jerry a momentary break in the mounting tension. “It’s just a coincidence, that’s all, I didn’t cause all this,” he laughed out of nerves. Another rustling in the bushes caused him to lean down, ready this time for the friendly feline. “Psst, psst, psst, here girl,” he said in a sing-song voice, but the shape that emerged wasn’t anything like a cat. Its skin made of clay and two piercing eyes burning with an ancient rage. A frog-like gnome that moved with the swiftness of a shadow and the strength of bear. Startled, Jerry fell backward, clamoring in the mud to gain his footing. In an instant the horrible fiend was upon him, clawing, biting, gnashing at him piece by piece, until it was over and in one final, desperate act, Jerry lifted his fist and smashed the creature as his breathing slowed and he was gone. Under his lifeless fist, another slip of paper could be seen within the fragments of pottery. The note read, “Jerry, with the mustang across the road, so rude to his neighbors next door.”
At that moment, a mysterious man strolled down the picture perfect street wearing his long black coat and wide brimmed hat, whistling a happy dirge to himself as the sun set on Jerry and his Heavenly Way. “Nothing ever changes,” the stranger chuckled to himself with a satisfied smile, “and as long as they hate each other, nothing ever will.”
Dr. D. Ryan Lafferty is a local Bordentown poet, writer, and the author-illustrator of children’s books. To see more of his writing, visit http://www.dryanlafferty.com.
Literary Crumbs: Poems & Short Stories to Savor by D. Ryan Lafferty 