Neighbors: A Short Story about Geese, Arson and Life in the Suburbs

Critique (always) welcome 

Jane stalked the commons pond, muttering to herself. She fumed, and cursed over the self-assigned task of rousting geese with a stick.  No one else would do it.  She considered them slobs, and the duty of chasing off the geese, as well as clearing the minefield of goose turds on the commons lawn fell to the only one who cared: Jane.

She shuffled along flipping turds into the water with her stick until she encountered a gander as ill tempered as she. The goose was equally bitter, having the self-assigned task of driving old women from the nesting ground.

The two exchanged hisses, a commotion that raised the attention of a neighbor, who in turn signaled his neighbors.

Drinks were cleared, children rounded up, things gathered in, and one after another patio doors slid closed down the entire length of the condominium commons.

Only a middle-aged man refused to flee. He remained on his patio, seated in the cool shade of an unruly grape-vine, content in the company of a cold beer and a thick paperback.

His wife appeared at the screen door. She too carried a drink and a book.

He stopped her with a gesture.

"We are about to be Jane-ed." He warned her.

She jerked back in disgust then clucked at him from the shadows of their living room.

"Ted, get in here before she sees you."

"Nope, this is my home, and I will not be intimidated by a crazy old woman."

"Crazy is right, you should see her walking around here during the day, knocking on windows to get the attention of people's pets. She talks to them because they are the only creatures who can stand her."

"She is just lonely."

Shaking her head, Ted's wife closed the door, and then locked it, sealing him to his fate.

He put aside his book, shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Perhaps Jane would give him a pass today.

At first she did,  meandering instead in a lazy irregular flight across the lawn buzzing with anger and nit-picking the grass clean of wind-blown leaves.

Jane didn't spot Ted at first, it was Maxwell, a miniature rottweiller belonging to Hal, Ted's neighbor, who spotted Jane.

"rar-rar-rar-rar - BONG, rar-rar-rar-rar - BONG, rar-rar-rar-rar - BONG"

The little dog barked in hysterics, bouncing against the screen of Hal's bedroom window to attack Jane.  She in turn,  swiveled to threaten the dog with her stick.

That is when she spotted Ted and made a bee-line for him, waving her hand-full of twigs and leaves.

"Look at this" she shouted.

He pretended to be asleep.

She came onto his patio and poked him with her turd stained stick.

"Wake up!"

"What the hell, Jane, I was sleeping."

"Don't you give a damn about this place?"

He just looked at her in disbelief.

"Why don't you do something around here?"

"That is what I pay dues for."

"The place is a pig-pen."

"The grounds are fine."

"With all the money we pay in dues, you would think they would keep this place clean. There is goose crap all over. Get off your ass and CLEAN UP."

A few upper windows slid shut but on the ground, she was unavoidable.

"When are you going to do something about that grape vine? It's growing wild. That is how mice and rats get in. They climb the vines."

"I like the vine, Jane"

"I'm going to cut it down myself."

"I prefer you didn't."

She ignored him, launching into her standard list of complaints, concluding with the mantra "I wouldn't care if this place burned down."

Eventually she wandered off back toward the pond. Then as if hitting the end of a tether, she bounced back waving a hand-full of debris.

"Look at this" she shouted.

With Jane this process repeated itself several times. Her near-term memory was shot and the only way an experience could burn itself into her into her mind was repetition.

Today, she departed after threatening for the fourth time "I would leap with joy if this place burned down."

Then less than two weeks later, the place did indeed burn down.

***

The point of origin was Hal Hart's bedroom window. Someone had tossed a quart of gasoline through his screen -- followed by a match.  The fire completely gutted four units and destroyed eight more with water and smoke damage.

Jane took the heat.

Around the development, people knew she had alluded to burning the place down, as well as having issues with Hal. But then she had issues with everyone.

Yet she was not the only one to butt heads with Hal.

One problem was Maxwell's constant yapping at all hours, the other was Hal, himself.  Hal was an aging hippie, an ecology nut completely out of place in a suburban condominium development. However, the location was near his work, and it was affordable. His reasons for living there were not much different than anyone else's.

Still, all too often, Hal was downright contemptuous of his neighbor's lifestyle.

He always had some cause that rubbed his go-along to get-along neighbors the wrong way. Still, some of his campaigns caught on, like planting prairie gardens of native grasses along the pond and behind the sandstone retaining walls. This was highly popular.

If only he left it there, he would be as popular as his gardens.

Unfortunately, much as Jane took on the geese, Hal launched a campaign against the rabbits who he suspected of snacking on his gardens. To scare them off, he periodically misted the area with the rank essence of fox piss.

This remedy was not only effective at keeping wild critters clear of the gardens; it kept most of the residents away for days after each spraying.

Hal timing wasn't particularly diplomatic either. Perhaps it had something to do with his open contempt of the suburban lifestyle that he chose Saturday evenings to spray his concoction. The same hour and day that most people chose to fire up their big gas grills

Jane was not the only condo member who could cause a cascading slam of patio doors.

After the fire, people quickly forgot about their disagreements with Hal, and things got pretty hot for Jane. The police hauled her off for questioning, several times. Nothing came of it. There was simply no proof of her guilt.

Yet that made little difference.

An ad-hoc vigilante group formed to confront Jane during her walks around the commons. Initially, she was energized by hissing at something other than geese, but eventually they wore her down to the point where she remained indoors. After all, as mean-spirited as she was, she was still a frail 85 year-old woman.

The next scheduled board meeting was, in a word, incendiary.

The Gang of Four, a quartet of matrons who had ruled the association board for years, called for a quorum shortly before 6:30 PM, a full half-hour early.

They could have started a full half-hour before that.

Agnes Mapplethorpe, the gang's procedural muscle-woman, gaveled the meeting to order.

"It is too early to start our business meeting but we can open the floor to anyone who wants to have their say. However, and this is very important, any decision making has to wait until after the scheduled hour of the meeting. Does everyone understand this?"

People understood and thought it fair.

Agnes then delivered the evening's first denunciation of Jane, concluding "And numerous calls by the Association to her niece have not been returned -- any hope of moving that woman to an institution where she can be monitored 24 hours a day - is lost. We are now working with the county social services to mandate an evaluation of her mental state."

The next speaker, Cindy Dingell choked on her rage. She lost not only her unit but  her boyfriend's apartment and his beloved, though extremely obnoxious, little dog in the flames.

"The woman is insane, dangerous. How can she continue to live here?"

Agnes snorted, "There is little we can do for now. No one has to be reminded that Jane's unit was not damaged in the fire, nor has she been charged with arson - YET."

The last word drew a rolling thunder of applause

Cindy was followed by the notorious liberal, Ted Gerhardt, a guy who always had a soft spot for oddballs, especially Jane.  He also was the type who never failed to provoke groans at board meetings by citing ‘civil liberties' and ‘privacy concerns' in objection to rule changes.

He self-righteously reminded the membership that Jane had not even been charged, much less convicted, of wrong doing.

He went on to admonish, "An individual MUST be considered innocent until proven guilty"

This time the thunder rolled with boos and cat-calls.

Ed Purvis hooted from the back of the room, "Ted --- Shut the hell up!!"

Applause, laughter, and more hooting.

One after another the Condo residents leaned into the microphone to state for themselves what everyone had already stated. That Jane was a threat. That she had to be dealt with.

This went on until 7:00PM when a hubbub erupted near the door. Jane had glared her way into the room.

Agnes abruptly cut off the current speaker. Rising to her full height, she motioned for silence. Everyone followed her eyes to Jane.

Agnes called out over the murmur of the crowd "Do you have something to say to us, Jane"

"Yes, I do" Jane replied shuffling forward.

Agnes contemptuously gestured toward the mike, "The floor is yours."

Jane took the microphone, fumbling for the on-switch. Her white hair lay wet and flat on her head, as if she just stepped from the shower. The old pull-over, that many thought was her only shirt, hung loose on her shoulders and though she still had the same foul temperament, she appeared fatigued and had lost weight. She directed a few half-hearted epithets at the microphone before Ted stepped forward to power it on.

Jane speared the Gang of Four with her harshest gaze, and spoke:

"When is the Association going to do something about those goddamned geese - shitting all over the lawn?"

The room erupted.

Everyone was on their feet shouting, and Jane looked at them in genuine confusion.

"You killed Maxwell" Cindy screamed.

"Who the hell is Maxwell?" Jane shrieked back.

"Hal's miniature rottweiller, you old witch."

"Why do you think I killed his annoying little dog?"

"You set the fire, didn't you?"

Jane hissed at her, as she would a goose, "You're an idiot. The police arrested Hal Hart for the fire, Tuesday."

Cindy was beside herself, "That's a lie."

"The girl friend is always the last to know" pondered Jane out loud.

An incredulous Agnes proclaimed. "I have been informed of no such thing."

"Then get informed, you old goat, the Police Chief stopped by personally to apologize to me and you should too. --  and you should also do something about them winged rats shitting all over the lawn too"

The Gang of Four flipped out their cell phones. Sure enough Hal had been arrested.

Apparently, the arson investigators recovered a trace of spilled gasoline from beneath Hal's bedroom window. This they kept to themselves until the state crime lab issued an analysis report. The sample contained traces of lead, suggesting the gasoline had been siphoned from the tank of a pre-1975 vehicle, like the Volkswagen Hal was storing in his garage.

The investigators executed a search warrant, which produced both a recently used siphon hose and a sample of fuel perfectly matching the accelerant found at the scene of the crime.

Hal protested his innocence, of course.

He claimed the garage had not been opened for weeks, but he was not able to explain how the gasoline could be obtained from his garage when he was the only one with the access code to open the door.

A little more digging unearthed all kinds of incriminating treasures. His insurance claims were heavily padded. He had prepared to list his condo for sale, but the appraisal of his property was discouraging because of the declining real-estate market. His agent informed him it could take up to a year to sell his condo, and he had recently been laid off.

It all added up.

Twelve earnest suburbanites found Hal guilty of arson in less than an hour of deliberation and an indignant judge, angered by his refusal to elocute, sentenced him to five years in state prison.

Even with Hal's conviction, the board refused to apologize to Jane for trying to put her away. They felt they had acted responsibly during the entire affair.  An apology may not have helped anyway, the bad feelings between the residents and Jane never went away, and Jane's nieces moved her in with one of them, in Indiana.

This was all very sad, but most felt that though they had rushed to judgment, Jane was still the source of her own problems.

It would have all ended there but for an association meeting the following December.

An unbearably smug Agnes Mapplethorpe began with the announcement, "For those of you who have not heard" (here she paused to relish the moment) "Jane Barns has recently been arrested in Maple Island, Indiana on the charge of ARSON."

This latest twist sent the assembly spinning.

In an Indiana condo development, someone had tossed a quart of gasoline through the screen of a bedroom window. Everyone there suspected Jane because of her constant threats to "burn the place down".  This prompted the investigator to probe into her background, which uncovered the arson report from Minnesota.

The Modus Operandi was simply too close to ignore; so the investigator tested a theory. He informed Jane that some of her property was in the garage of a suspect that he had charged. He apologized, stating that her belongings could not be returned until the investigation was over. She asked what it was he had but he said he was not at liberty to tell her.

A couple hours later Jane shuffled over to the garage and punched the code on the keypad. She was arrested before the door clattered to the top of the track.

The old bird obviously had eyes sharp enough to lift a code from over the shoulder of a neighbor hitting their keypad, but her mind still needed to repeat an action, even arson, several times, until it burned its way into her memory.

© Greg Schiller, 2007

Author: Greg Schiller