Red Sea by: Hillarree Hamblin, Mixed media on canvas, 2010.
Weeds
by: Melissa Parker
Ben knew how distraught I was over our neighbors Karina and Jacob moving, so when the Fields family moved in, he suggested we invite them over for dinner. Of all the people who could have moved into that house, I was appalled to hear that a family of those nasty Mormons had moved in.
As our dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Fields moved on at a glacial pace, I fretted over what my friends and family would think of the house next door, looking like it had been turned into an orphanage. Would my property values go down because their lawn would be cluttered with toys? I shuddered to think of how they might ruin my garden that I worked so diligently on ever since we had moved into our house twenty years ago. It was about this point that Ben nudged me and I started listening to them talk about and explain their freak religion.
After they left, Ben and I had an argument over them. My husband seemed to think there was nothing wrong with the way those people acted. Well, he might not understand, but I did. Those people were living and breathing a lie, and they were raising their children to do the same. At dinner they had told us with pride that their son was in Guyana on his mission to convert people to their cult. When Ben suggested that I try to have an open mind, I handed him his pillow and gave him his walking orders to the couch.
Several days after the dinner incident, I decided it would be relaxing to go and work in my garden. Since Karina had moved away, I had gotten into the habit of taking a glass of wine out with me while I weeded, trimmed, and watered my little slice of peaceful oblivion. Now that the new neighbors had moved in, it was almost imperative that I have this glass of wine with me while I worked. It felt good to have on my old, dirty, gardening jeans and to feel the dirt between my fingers. Just as I was reaching for a particularly nasty weed, a small voice piped up from behind the white picket fence just to my right.
“My mommy and daddy say that Heavenly Father doesn’t want people to drink. It’s bad.” The little boy stood there wearing a pair of red and blue rain boots that were scuffed, faded and just a size too big for him. What irked me the most wasn’t the dirtiness of these shoes (although it did bother me), but how out of place they were. It hadn’t rained in weeks, and wearing rain boots seemed preposterous and cheap. The ratty hand-me-down shorts he wore in no way matched the heavily stained green shirt he had on. Worst of all, this little boy, from his buzzed to the scalp haircut down to the scabby knees, was coated in a thin layer of flaky, dried dirt.
“Well, that’s their opinion, isn’t it?” I grunted as I yanked up the dirty weed that was trying to strangle my beautiful garden.
“No! It’s the truth. Daddy said!” His muddy brown eyes were suddenly wide and bright with shock that I didn’t believe him. A lanky hound appeared at the boy’s side and nudged its nose under the kid’s grim crusted hand. There was nothing special about the dog other than its height. Its coat was wiry, tough, and looked as though it had been rolling in whatever puddle of mud the little boy had been playing in.
Standing with a huff, I swigged the rest of the deep red liquid down in one gulp, and stomped away biting back a great many insults that I desperately wanted to yell at the toddler.
Things got better when school started up, and it was easier to garden in peace, but there was still always at least three whelps making noise in the next yard. Everyday I had to deal with balls being thrown into my yard or Frisbees flying into my rose bushes.
One day, I walked out to hear nothing except for the twittering of birds, and the soft hum of cars whispering along the highway just two miles away. My ears buzzed with tinnitus, and I smiled wide at the thought of a quiet afternoon in my garden. I walked down the steps victoriously and was about to sit down, until I noticed the grey lanky mutt standing by my mailbox sniffing vigorously.
These damn people could never keep their house or yard together. There were always bikes, basketballs, skateboards, blown up swimming pools, and dolls lying around, and now their damn mutt was out roaming the streets. I walked over to my front fence with a shovel still grasped in my hand that I had been planning on using to spread new mulch around my flowerbeds. By the time I had reached my mailbox, the dog had loped off down the street to the next streetlamp. I was very tempted to just allow the dog to continue on its way. There was always the possibility that it would be hit by a car.
My gloved hand grasped the handle of the shovel, and I decided instead to call to the mangy animal. Clearing my throat, I smiled and called out in my sweetest voice. “Puppy! Dirty polygamous hound, come here! Come here puppy!”
The dog’s ears perked, its eyes twinkled, and it trotted gracefully over. My fingers twitched on the wooden handle, and I called out once more to the mutt. “That’s right. Come to me, you dirty beast.” The dog looked as if it was grinning by the time it came close enough for me to hit it in the head with the shovel. I hadn’t even thought about doing such a thing, but a vicious joy filled the pit of my stomach and coursed through my veins like a hot poison. I looked down at the hound and watched it convulse and whimper as red tinted foam seeped out of its maw.
I stooped forward and gently caressed the dog’s face, and scratched lightly just behind its ear. The dog looked up at me, and its tail wagged weakly against the cracked pavement. Standing with a grin of victory, I raised the shovel and swung it down with all of my might. Again and again I swung the shovel, knowing that it was just the dog and I, and no one would see. Besides, I was just doing some harmless weeding. There was nothing wrong with keeping the neighborhood looking its best.