Love in the Time of Climate Change (15 page)

Police say the man was caught unscrewing a porch light at 100 Gray Street after residents there set up a video camera and nabbed him in the act
.

Police said that, when questioned, the man admitted to unscrewing porch lights and stated that he did not want to see electricity wasted. He claimed no other motive other than “electric conservation,” according to police
.

—Daily Hampshire Gazette

No doubt I now grew very pale;—but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased—and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath—and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly—more vehemently;
but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men—but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder—louder—louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew! they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now—again!—hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

—Edgar Allen Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1833)

“B
ASTARD
!” T
HE
R
OOMMATE CRIED
as we pulled into our driveway.

I looked over in the direction he was pointing.

There, across the street, in front of the scary neighbor's house, the guy we hated, was a newly installed enormous, inflatable Halloween decoration. It was a ghost, fifteen feet tall, waving its arms, its bloated hideous face lit up from every possible angle.

“Jesus!” I said, grinding my teeth.

“Bastard!” Jesse repeated, slamming the car door and stomping into the apartment.

Jesse and I hated all inflatable yard decorations: Christmas, Easter, Halloween, whatever—it really didn't matter.
We hated them all with a passion, but we hated this one with an unbridled intensity.

Reason #1: The Issue. It was an energy-sucking monstrosity. Stepping out of the car we had been immediately inundated with the droning hum of the ghost's electric fan as it pumped the arms half-full of air so that they could flap at us maniacally. Lights had been installed, illuminating it like the Washington Monument—small Christmassy lights, big spotlights, enormous search lights—enough electricity to power the entire neighborhood, and then some, for the next decade. I was surprised the neighbor hadn't been required to build his own coal-fired electric power plant in the backyard so that he could run the damn thing without overloading the grid. People were driving in from out of town, thinking it was the opening of a new mall. It was probably visible from the friggin' space station.

Reason #2: It looked stupid. Really stupid. Unless you were between the ages of four and seven, or your IQ hovered around the 70s or below, no one could possibly think this piece of crap was in the realm of cute. No one. It was like a gigantic sign in the front of the neighbor's lawn declaring in no uncertain terms that the owner of this humble abode is a total and complete moron and deserves to be run out of town! All of which was true.

Reason #3: With all due respect to parents with little kids, Halloween is supposed to be a scary holiday. Its purpose is to awaken the spirits, let the dead walk, turn loose the zombies. Ghosts are supposed to be terrifying specters from the other world, the undead. The thing waving its arms at us from across the street was the exact opposite. It was a happy-go-lucky Casper with a shit-eating grin, the antithesis of Halloween, a travesty of terrifying. The five-foot-high letters spelling out “BOO!” with smiley faces in each “O” were outlined with excruciatingly annoying blinking lights that induced epileptic seizures from unknowing passers-by.

We hated it.

We also hated the house at which it was installed. It was the scary-man house with the idling car, never-ending lawn mower, and Romney signs. The same one we couldn't possibly even entertain borrowing a toilet plunger from. We didn't know the man, but we hated him anyway.

And now this hideous fiend flap, flap, flapping away.

Bastard!

Jesse was seething. He paced the floor waving his arms, mimicking the ghost but with each of his middle fingers extended. He cursed the neighbor. He used words that made even me blush.

“He's done it now. He's crossed the line!” he cried. “How the hell am I supposed to sleep with that thing mocking us?”

“I don't think you can hear or see it from your bedroom.” I answered.

“What the fuck? Are you taking his side? Jesus, the thing is haunting me already and I've known about it for all of five minutes.”

“I agree. It's an abomination. But there's not much we can do.”

With each passing day the ghost seemed to loom larger and larger. We awoke to its flapping in the morning, we went to bed to its flapping at night. We spent hours getting high, staring out the window, and cursing it. We became obsessed with its presence. It stared straight at us, waved in our direction, that damn smile fixed on its face, its sole purpose to invade our dreams and drive us ever closer to the brink of insanity.

I dreaded coming home from work. Jesse and I went out to dinner three nights in a row, something we had never done before, just so that we could eat with some semblance of peace and quiet.

The situation had become intolerable. Something drastic had to be done.

—

I was at work Friday when a call came in from the Roommate.

“I've got it!” he whispered, desperation in his voice.

“Got what?”

“It. The solution. About the situation.”

“What situation?”

“THE SITUATION, you fool!”

“Tell me!” I whispered back, playing along even though I still didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about.

“I can't.”

“What do you mean you can't?”

“I can't say anything on the phone. Someone might be listening.”

“Look, if you're still going on about her holding hands with some …”

“Jesus! Drop it! The ghost!” he said.

“Oh,” I replied, relieved we weren't going
there
again.

“Ransom,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Ransom!”

I could hear someone in the background.

“Right!” Jesse loudly spoke. “Why don't you try turning it off and then turning it back on again. Call me back if it still doesn't work.” He hung up the phone.

—

That night, Jesse, joint in hand, excitedly outlined his plans for the 2012 Great Halloween Ghost Caper.

It was not overly complicated. We were, under the cover of night, going to un-tether the beast, confiscate the illuminating bulbs, disconnect the fan, and hold the whole kit and caboodle hostage.

“That's stealing!” I argued.

“No it's not. It's ransom. There's a huge difference!”

The plan was to leave a note. Outline our objections, highlighting the energy issue. Give conditions for its safe return.

We weren't heartless bastards like he was. We were reasonable. We were open to compromise. We'd allow it to run from 6:00–9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 6:00–10:00 on weekends.

We could have taken a hard line. We could have knifed the son of a bitch. Left it for dead. Deflated, tattered and torn.

But no. We were better than that.

I had to hand it to Jesse. It was a masterful plan. Bold and brilliant.

It recalled the words of a 1960s-era politician I couldn't stand who once famously said: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

This was clearly one of those difficult times that called for extreme solutions.

If it had to be ransom, then ransom it was!

—

It was Friday night, two weeks before Halloween. Dressed in black, stocking caps on, high as kites, we waited till after midnight and then silently slunk across the street.

We had spent hours going over our plans. We had made a map of the neighbor's front yard, incredibly detailed, down to the very last light. We were well rehearsed with backup plans and alternative escape routes. We had the timing down to the minute.

Watching for cars, totally paranoid, I disconnected the fan and ran it back across the street while Jesse, gloves on, unplugged and bagged the miles of stringy light bulbs. I slipped the ransom note under the door. We both lay on
top of the ghost, deflating it as quickly as we could. Flopping it into a wheelbarrow, we sprinted back home.

Joy of joys! In a matter of minutes victory was ours! Navy Seals would have nodded their heads in approval. The operation had gone off without a hitch. The ghost was vanquished!

Our ransom note, made from words cut out from newspapers, had stipulated that if the owner agreed to our conditions he should show an American flag in the window. God knows he had them. There must have been a hundred or more waving from his yard every Fourth of July.

A little bit of patriotic bullshit seemed to put a positive spin on our action. Show the flag and the victim would be returned.

I was pumped.

That morning, after a fitful sleep with considerably more tossing and turning than snoozing, I awoke to cursing from Jesse.

“Damn!” he yelled. “Damn, damn, damn!”

He burst into my room.

“Get up. Now!” he yelled shaking me. “We are in deep shit!”

There, in front of the evil neighbor's house, was a police car. The neighbor and an officer were talking, the neighbor pointing out the scene of the crime. He was holding what looked to be our ransom note and gesticulating wildly.

Peering out from behind the curtains, barely breathing, we watched with rapt attention. Finally, the conversation ended, they shook hands, and the officer drove away.

“Was that a smile on the face of the cop?” I asked hopefully.

“That was no smile,” Jesse whimpered. “That was a serious grimace. That was an I'll-hunt-these-felons-down-if-it's-the-last-thing-I-do! look.”

“Well, it's probably all over now,” I reassured him.

“Over? Over? Christ, it's just begun. They're on to us! I know they are! What if we left fingerprints on the note? What if they track us down? Christ, why did you talk me into this?”

I decided not to remind him whose harebrained scheme this was to begin with.

“I can't imagine that the police don't have more important things to deal with than something as silly as this,” I replied, nervously laughing.

“Are you fucking kidding me? This is the kind of shit they love. Traffic violations, drunken driving, bar fights—Christ, those things are a dime a dozen. This is the real deal. This is the kind of crap that gets their blood flowing. It's probably grand theft larceny or something. I bet it's the talk of the station.”

Jesse could be quite the drama queen. He loved to blow the magnitude of minutiae way out of proportion.

But there was something … something about that way the cop had looked in our direction.

The weekend was miserable. A cold, driving rain combined with creeping paranoia to keep us indoors, jumping at our own shadows, quibbling with each other over nothing, pacing back and forth, continually peering out from behind the curtain at the house across the street. I was unable to concentrate, nothing kept my attention, my stockpile of grading stared me down.

And then I heard it. A distant noise. At first I thought it came from across the street but then I realized, no—goddamn it, no! It was coming from inside our house. From the basement! I had to cock my head to make sure.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

I fancied it was just a ringing in my ears, but Jesse heard it as well. The day dragged on, the sound grew louder and louder. We put on music, paced the room, covered our ears but the wretched noise only increased. We were too
scared to leave the apartment. Too freaked out to stay. An untenable situation.

The pot only made things worse.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

On and on it went until my skin tingled and my goose bumps felt on the verge of popping.

It was late on Sunday. Forty-eight hours since we had done the deed. Forty-eight hours of pure hell.

I hadn't slept. I hadn't eaten. All I'd done was smoke a tremendous amount of weed and endlessly obsess. Jesse, disheveled and wild eyed, paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, foamed, raved, and swore. I had taken to muttering to myself and jerking involuntarily. Neither of us could even look at each other.

I couldn't hack it a moment more.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

“We've got to do something!” I said. “We've got to do something now!”

Jesse, teary and trembling, wordlessly agreed.

Holding each other's hands we crept down to the basement, sweating and whimpering.

There was the victim, half in and half out of the wheelbarrow, the head eerily cocked in our direction, the eyes wide open and accusatory. There was no more grin on its face. It was a scream. A howl from hell.

And the noise! The god-awful noise!

THUMP, THUMP! THUMP, THUMP! THUMP, THUMP!

We opened the basement door, and not even caring if there were car lights, frantically pushed the wheelbarrow, ghost and all, back across the street. Dumping the victim on the porch steps, we raced back to the apartment, grabbed the lights and the fan, and made another run. Taking the corner into our yard a little too quickly, the wheel of the barrow went right over Jesse's big toe. He stifled down a scream.