Gowain was walking about his neighborhood. Unexpected events had changed his plans for the day and here he was, beyond agitated. He had been shaken to the core and walking to clear his head and deal with the stress…
“Everything OK, Professor Cornwall?” Jim, his neighbor with the two greyhounds asked.
Although long-since retired, the honorific of “Professor” still clung to both him and Jana, much like once-a-Colonel, always-a-Colonel in Kentucky and rural Virginia.
“Yes. Everything is peachy” Gowain said.
“No, really?” Jim persisted. His dogs stood like statues while he was conversing with Gowain. Gowain had never used sarcasm in Jim’s long memory.
Gowain searched Jim’s face and saw genuine concern. And frankly, Gowain could use a shoulder to cry on. So many of his peers had passed on.
“Jana and I had a heated discussion this morning and I was walking to process it” Gowain said.
“What started the ‘discussion’?” Jim asked with a very neutral tone. Jim liked both Jana and Gowain. To tell the truth, he like Jana better but that was because Jana was more of a people person while Gowain rarely engaged at a personal level. Jim was not about to take sides.
“It was the dumbest thing in the world” Gowain said, frustrated. “She got mad because I fiddled with the knob on the toaster. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but she went bananas and totally over-reacted. I just don't get it!”
“That doesn’t sound like her” Jim observed. “But why did you mess with the toaster?”
A look of embarrassment crept over Gowain’s face. “I have been having difficulty with my bowel-movements and my doctor said I need to eat more fiber. So I bought a loaf of whole-wheat bread. And, you know, it is heavier and takes longer to toast.”
"I made my toast and forgot to change the dial back to the usual setting and Jana burnt her toast" Gowain said. "I don't get it. She totally lost control."
“Ah!” Jim said with satisfaction. “Same thing happened to me.
“I found that I got more even toasting if I left the settings the same as for the white-bread and flipped the toast over and sent it through again” Jim said.
“I’ll have to give that a try” Gowain said. That beat the heck out of making two marks on the dial with a Sharpie and always having to look to make sure it was on ‘His’ setting. Jana would like it better too. Good Lord! He didn't want to risk Jana going nuts again.
They had been conversing in front of a house that had recently been sold.
That by itself was an oddity. Their's was the most stable of neighborhoods with the “new families” only having lived there for twenty years.
Gowain’s neighborhood was a double-row of 1920’s vintage cottages that looked like they had been lifted from Robert Kincaide calendars. The street was two blocks from the campus and ran along the top of a gravel ridge that was a glacial feature. It boasted mature shade-trees. And praise God, the convenience stores, fast-food joints and the two bars were on the OTHER side of the campus.
While Gowain and Jim were conversing, a hotted-up Subaru had pulled into the driveway and a young man had burst out of the driver’s seat. Without turning off the car or closing the door, the young man had dashed to the door of the house and let himself in. A scant minute later he came out, re-entered his car and peeled out as soon as he was pointed down the street.
“That is odd” Jim mused.
“Delivering food? I hear that is now a thing” Gowain suggested.
“I don’t think so” Jim replied. “He was empty handed when he went into the house but had a small bag when he came out.”
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, the two men parted ways. Gowain’s mind was much at-ease while Jim’s was not.
***
Later that day, Gowain was at the barber and getting his hair trimmed. Just because he was retired, there was no reason to let himself go and become sloven.
The local barber-shop was a place where men of a certain age met and solved the world’s problems. Unfortunately, nobody took notes and the same problems would have to be solved again week-after-week. That was seen as a feature rather than a deficiency by the clientele.
The biggest topic of conversation this week was the rise in petty crime.
Gowain was not naive enough to believe that his post-card pretty town was immune to crime. As a traditional Christian he believed that every man was born with Original Sin and that temptation is eternal and that we all have moments of weakness.
In fact, in his callow youth he had once cobbed a spool of fishing line, some sinkers and a few fish-hooks from the general store in the small, New England town where he had been born.
But according to Tony, the barber, the up-tick was not just notable but striking. “Billy Pierson had his truck broken into” Tony intoned. “Busted his side window and took everything out of the pockets on the doors and out of the console in the middle.”
Billy was a local building contractor.
“Everything?” Gowain asked, inviting Tony to elaborate.
“Yep. They cleaned it out. Contracts, lists, tools, coupla-packs-a-cigarettes, loose change...everything” Tony said.
“Why would they do that?” Gowain asked.
Bert, one of the guys killing time in the shop volunteered “Faster to grab everything and sort it out later. Lotta these kids don’t know what things are worth so they take it all and try to sell everything to their fence.”
“Billy is pissed” Tony advised Gowain. “He doesn’t keep information on his computer so he is going to lose a bunch of time back-tracking. That, and his insurance company is not wanting to pay for replacing the window they broke. Said they only replace windshields.”
“Billy said it is probably gonna cost him over a thousand dollars to sort it out...all for about $30 worth of stuff.”
Frank, another old guy, hurrumphed. “The scumbag will be lucky if he gets $10 for the stuff. Fences don’t pay top dollar. Everbody knows that.”
Tony added, “Not just Billy, either. Seems like all of a sudden lots of folks around town been having those kinds of problems.”
Gowain left the barber-shop in a more apprehensive frame-of-mind. He vowed to park the car inside their garage and would caution Jana to make sure the doors of the house were locked at night.
***
Two days later the window opening to Gowain’s front porch was smashed, the perp stepped over the sill, swept his collection of more than thirty African carvings off the display shelf into a bag...and was gone.
Jana and Gowain’s peace-of-mind was shattered.
The police took an hour to show up and were not optimistic about the items being recovered.
The insurance company classified the historically significant artifacts as “knick-knacks” and offered to replace the window and $30 for the stolen items.
***
Some of Gowain’s fondest memories were of the time he spent with his uncles in rural Maine. They had seen him as a deprived, city-person and had taken him under their wing and tried to teach Gowain the ways of the woods and stream.
They had never succeeded in fully converting him but their influence may be why he had been able to resist the siren-songs of Ann Arbor and East Lansing and had settled in the tiny, college hamlet of Aesphodel.
One of the lessons Gowain had learned in the deer blind was that Blue Jays were the rat-finks of the woods. No hunter could slip through the woods without eliciting the running commentary of the raucous, neighborhood watch otherwise known as Blue Jays and Red Squirrels. Unlike the Red Squirrels, though, the Jays would follow the miscreant through forest and field and give the unlucky gent the benefit of their sharp-edged tongue.
“That is why we listen for the Blue Jays” Gowain’s uncle told the curious 12-year-old. “They also rat out the bucks.”
The old farmer then went on to explain “The bucks know that, so they move at dawn and dusk when all of the other birds are singing. Nobody notices the Blue Jays when the pretty-birds sing. Nobody but serious deer hunters like us, that is.”
In fact, Gowain had learned, nobody paid much attention to the Blue Jays when the the pretty-birds weren’t singing, either.
Gowain’s innate sense of human dignity had him establish relationships with the Blue Jays in his professional life: The acid-tongued assistant to the college dean, a custodian, the groundsman, a curmudgeonly doctor and many others. At critical junctures in his life, it was them and not the sweet-talking pretty-birds who had been instrumental in helping him avoid poor decisions and dangerous situations.
Gowain knew he was far out of his swim-lane and so he approached one of his Blue Jays, Danny the trash-collector. Gowain caught up with Danny at his salvage yard.
“What can I do for you, Perfessor?” Danny asked.
Danny knew everybody in Aesphodel. He also remembered that Gowain and Jana were excellent tippers. Not only did they tape a card with a $20 bill in it to the trashcan at Christmas, but they had somehow learned when his birthday was and they were the only ones who gave him a card for his birthday.
“Lots of things are going on that are leaving me baffled” Gowain started out. “I was wondering if you could educate me a little bit?”
“Well, this is a switch, isn’t it?” Danny teased a little bit. “The College Perfessor asking the trashman for an education.”
“Pity” Gowain replied. “Everybody is an expert at something and I believe in consulting the best experts I can find.”
Danny did not disagree.
“I can see something is on your mind. What can I do for you?” Danny asked, cutting to the chase.
“What is going on in Aesphodel?” Gowain asked. “The town changed just-like-that!”
Then Gowain shared that his front window had been broken and his beloved collection of ebony, ivory and terra cotta artifacts given to him by returning missionaries had been stolen in broad daylight.
Danny pondered how to answer Gowain’s question. He decided the direct approach was the best approach.
“You know that house that was sold, the one that is three doors down from your’s?” Danny asked.
“Of course I know the house you are talking about” Gowain said.
“A buncha crack-heads live there” Danny said.
“I beg your pardon!” Gowain said, shocked.
“It is a crack-house. They sell drugs” Danny said.
“How can you know that?” Gowain asked.
“All the signs are there” Danny asserted.
“Is it junky? Do you see trash all over the yard?” Danny asked. “That is what I see when I go by in the trash truck.”
“Well, yes, their yard is untidy” Gowain admitted. In fact, the rapidly collecting trash had caused Gowain large amounts of aggravation. It was such a NICE neighborhood and the new neighbors were making it look like a trailer park.
“But that doesn’t make it a crack-house” Gowain said.
Danny had to think a few seconds about why that house was different.
“Think about the KINDS of trash” Danny suggested. “Do you see basketballs, lawn-chairs, push lawnmowers and that kind of thing?”
“Or do you see mail, auto-parts like exhaust pipes and about a million screwdrivers and wrench sockets and broken glass?” Danny asked. “People comin’ an goin’ at every hour of the day an night with nobody stayin’ long?”
Gowain replayed his last walk past the problematic house in his mind. He did remember seeing glitter like glass.
“I don’t see why those things are important” Gowain admitted.
“Smash-and-grab. Stealing catalytic converters. Crack pipes...oh, by the way, never touch a crack-pipe, no telling what kind of toxic chemicals are on it or what the crack-heads are smoking” Danny advised. “The crack-heads steal shit and take it to the crack-house hoping to trade it for drugs. They dump what the dealer won’t buy...and they dump it in the yard because they are focused on getting high, not in being tidy.”
"And you know all of those little statues?" Danny said. "I bet they are tossed in the side-yard because no way in hell will they be able to resell them."
Gowain blinked. It all fit.
“Why don’t the cops do something about it?” Gowain asked.
“Their hands are tied. Being messy isn’t a crime. Nobody wants to testify against drug dealers because they can get violent” Danny said sympathetically.
“What can I do?” Gowain asked, plaintively.
“Move!” Danny said. “Move while you can still get a good price for your house.”
“Unless you are willing to commit arson, that is your only real choice.”
“Your neighborhood is dead-man walking. Leave while you can.”
"But what about my artifacts?" Gowain wanted to know. "Isn't there any way I can get them back?"
Danny pondered the dilemma for a second or two. "Well, I suppose that if you know any 12 year-olds you could have them play catch and every once in a while they could bobble a catch. Then, when the kid went to collect the ball they could bring back one of your statues...."
It turned out that many of Gowain's former students had children in exactly that age range.
---Comment from the author: Communication is hard, even after being married many, many years. In this case the result will be better than if it had not been a miscommunication. And communication is hard....
I got a lot of help on this one from a reader who does not want to be named. He gave me the specific details of why a "drug house" is easy for street-wide person to identify. They don't need a sign. He also gave me the info on crack-pipes. Please, never touch anything that looks like a crack-pipe and don't let your wife, kids, grandkids or pup touch them.---
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