FINE FORM PRESS
The Neighbor
ISBN: 978-0-921473-21-3
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Copyright ?2015 JT Therrien
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Copyright ? 2015
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The Neighbor
by
JT Therrien
I first knew Danny-Boy was back when I heard him retching into his kitchen sink at four o'clock in the morning. He never could hold down his whiskey. It don't look like there was a big crowd waiting for him at a WELCOME HOME party, either. Let's just say there was no loud music to keep me and the other neighbors awake.
Danny-Boy got three years in Kingston Pen for suffocating his Down's kid with a couch cushion one afternoon while his missus was out of the house getting her claws polished and sharpened.
Their "kid" was twenty-eight, had a bad heart, and some sort of disease that left his head and arms flaking dead skin everywhere.
I was the star witness at Danny's trial.
He shoulda got life, which is twenty-five years in this country, but because of some legal technicality Danny-Boy only got three years, minus time served. What the hell kind of justice system is that? And then they gave him even more time off for good behavior. So all told, he was gone for little more than twelve months.
Just so you know the score, one night-this when the trial was still going on, mind you-his cute wife Suze she come by my place. Staggered over's more like it. Halfway through a whiskey highball she leans on me, hot breath and hands all over, and tells me and the wife, but mostly me, "That bastard can rot in jail! He killed our sweet, sweet boy!"
That's how she talked, you know, "Sweet Boy"? all loving and suffering Mom. If you ask me, I think they thought of Junior more as their meal ticket, since he got that big fat disability check each month that kept them swimming in Molsons and smoking Du Mauriers.
"It won't be so bad," I says, not having nothing else to say.
"Now," she whines on, getting all teary eyed, "I gotta get out of that house and find work. I can't stay there all day by myself with nothing to do while the bastard rots in jail."
Was Suze inviting me to keep her company during her lonely days? I squirmed in my seat and glanced sideways at Penny, my wife. She didn't say nothing.
"No, you really shouldn't be alone," I says. "It's not looking too good for Danny, is it?"
Suze wailed even louder and Penny, sitting beside me, punched my arm.
"What?" I asked all innocent-like.
"Jerk," Penny mumbled and returned to gawking at the TV.
"And just what kind of job am I gonna do?" Suze goes. "I ain't waitressed for almost thirty years!"
I shrugged again and tried to push Suze off of me. The wife's eyes stayed glued to the TV. Someone was winning big money on The Wheel of Fortune.
That just left me having to console Danny-Boy's wife, which was a problem. You see, I think work don't really agree with Suze's lifestyle. This was late May, and sunbathing season was coming up. I already seen her out in their backyard soaking up the rays. Everyone in the hood calls her Melanoma Suze -- 'cause of her lying out there in that tiny bikini, sunning herself all the time. She knows it ain't good for her skin, but she don't care. Anyways, I never seen her do nothing but lie out there, stretched out on a lawn chair all day long when she wasn't trekking Junior back and forth to the doctors. And that was mostly on rainy days. How she could schedule his appointments just on rainy days, I'll never know. She musta made a few deals with the devil.
Anyways, back to her problem. Work. Or not working, was more like it.
"What am I gonna do, Ray?" she asks, leaning over and smelling all nice, like she just rolled around in a strawberry patch before putting on a tank top and those short shorts of hers and wandering over here.
She had to work, right? "Everybody gotta work," I tells her. "Says so right in the Bible. No food for the ones that don't work."
She just batted those big dreamy-wet eyes of hers, but I weren't having none of it.
I nudged Penny with my elbow, hoping to send Suze in her direction. Penn finally picked up on my desperation. Me and Suze switched places. Soon, the two hens was clucking away together and I drunk my Bud in peace. As the litany of Danny's sins spewed from Suze's mouth with no end in sight, I remembered how Junior liked to play the guitar. In particular, I thought of one of his "concerts" a couple summers back.
It was two straight hours of pure hell, listening to that guitar noise coming from their house, and me, stuck on a ladder, scraping paint off of my house. No chords. No rhythm. Out of tune strings. Strum. Strum. Strum. Then a bunch more dischorded noise. Pure torture. It sounded like a guy wearing work boots was stomping on a bunch of cats. No word of a lie, I had two thoughts up on that ladder that day, my head splittin' and my hand squeezing the crap out of that paint scraper: one, I could've strangled Junior just to stop that effing noise he was making; and two, I wouldn't blame Danny-Boy if he ever done it.
How could Danny stand that noise, I wondered, him cooped up in that tiny house all day long, crippled with his fibromyalgia and unable to work for a living?
So, okay, I did Danny-Boy a solid and eventually took care of Junior myself.
One afternoon Suze went out to get her nails done, and Danny, well, he'd taken a habit of sneaking off to go fishing whenever he could. Suze didn't like him to go off alone, and they weren't suppose to leave Danny Junior alone either.
I seen her leave and sure enough, five minutes later I seen him leave. Right away I snucked in through the back door. That place was worse than a pig sty! Dirty dishes stacked in the sink, piles of clothes everywhere, like they never heard of a dresser or a closet. I seen all these music sheets by this Nucio D'Angelo guy scattered all over the floor. I laughed when I spotted the three guitars laying around . . . . The kid couldn't even play one of 'em right, let alone three! Those two saps. They never could say no to their sweet boy.
So, I done him. He didn't put up no fight, either. He thought we was friends! When I walked in he was sitting on the couch with his Martin guitar, making enough racket to raise the dead. He stopped strumming long enough to smile and wave. I walked up, pushed him over. That bad heart of his made him weak as a girl.
He dropped the guitar and fell on his back. He started giggling, thinking we was playing.
I jumped on him, couch cushion in hand.
It didn't take long before he stopped jigging beneath me. I snucked back home, popped open a Bud, turned up the tunes on the radio. And then I waited for someone to come home.
It took long enough, but eventually they did.
Oh, guess what?
I learned during the trial that Junior coul
d play the guitar after all! He apparently had a talent for playing what some bigwig professor from the local university Music Department called atonal music. The prof played some of that D'Angelo's CDs at the trial and sure enough they sounded exactly like the garbage I'd heard the kid play lots of times.
Truth be told, CDs or not, that so-called music sounded just as bad as someone not knowin' how to play, if you ask me.
Anyway, no more ear-splitting concerts since Junior's demise.
That day in court, I testified how they come home. Danny-Boy musta been keeping an eye on the time, cause he was just getting home when Suze's banged up Tercel pulled into the driveway. He made it look like he'd been home all the time and was just coming out to greet her, fishing pole in hand, but I seen him just get home.
They went in and I heard Suze scream her head off. I swallowed my beer and then ran over, all innocent-like. I'm the one who called 9-1-1. Danny-Boy was useless, all broken up, crying like a woman, hugging Danny junior, stroking his hair and slobbering all over him.
Gave me the willies.
"My boy, my beautiful boy . . ." Danny wept.
EMS, the cops, and even the fire truck come over. Lots of excitement for the whole neighborhood that day, let me tell you.
I guess no one believed Danny was out fishing alone, and with me not saying nothin, there were no witnesses to support his alibi. The trial lasted just two days. The guilty verdict sent Danny-Boy to prison and Suze straight into my bed.
Guess what, she ain't tanned everywhere, if you know what I mean.
But now Danny's back from the clink and I guess I gotta deal with him. Or Suze, if she hints again that she don't got no money and wants me to do something about it.
All I know is it's gonna be a bitch of a summer.
THE END
If you enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy reading some of JT's other works:
The Well - a sweet love story novella.
Guppy Soup - An eclectic collection of literary short stories.
Sprainter - An inspirational, art-themed, young adult, dystopian romance novella.
The Betrothal - A contemporary/historical art-themed romance novella.
Dr. Farkas - Part one of a horror/paranormal romance novella series.
Blood Work: Dr. Farkas II - The continuation of the Dr. Farkas series.
King's Daughter: Dr. Frakas III - The continuation of the Dr. Farkas series.
Complexities - An art-themed contemporary romance novel.
Faith: A Cautionary Tale - A contemporary re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood.
The Wedding Scheme - A contemporary romance comedy novel.
Shadow the Ghost Dog - A children's short story. The first in the Shadow series.
Shadow the Cyber-Dog - A children's short story. The second in the Shadow series.
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