What would you do if you came back from vacation to find a monstrosity across the street in the neighbor’s yard? You start a war, that’s what you do. 3400 words.
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Squirrel Massacre
~I~
Herb always drove too fast in the neighborhood. Even with those slow, children playing signs out and about, he paid no mind to them. Jeanie had told him a million times to slow down, that he was going to smack some little kid in the head or plow right over someone’s dog. Then, they’d be kicked out of the neighborhood, for sure. At the least, they’d be asked to leave the neighborhood association. It’s not like they were well loved around here, anyway.
But today, Herb wasn’t driving like a crazed person on drugs. Jeanie wanted to say something to him, like a compliment. The thought crossed her mind a few times. But, he hadn’t slept much on the plane ride home, and he seemed crabby.
Jeanie herself didn’t feel so hot. They buckle you into a plane for six straight hours and expect you’re going to be able to catch some z’s sitting upright? Only horses and prisoners of war could do that, and that was because they had no choice. No, Jeanie hadn’t slept a wink, either. She’d watched movies on the tiny little screen in the back of the seat in front of her, and she’d eaten the complimentary pretzels and stared at the call light on the ceiling. Listened to the droning of the engines. Longed to be home. Vacation is lovely, but after a week of it, you just want to be back in your own space.
“Look out for the squirrel,” Jeanie said, pointing.
Herb leaned forward and looked over the steering wheel. “I don’t see a squirrel.”
“Are you blind, Herb? It’s right there.”
Before he could respond, two quick little bumps rocked the car. “Crap,” Jeanie said, “that’s great. Some animal rights person is going to see that now and throw a hissy fit. I’ll be cleaning squirrel guts off the road before I can go to sleep tonight.”
Herb waved a hand. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Cars hit squirrels. It happens all the time.”
As they turned the corner at the end of their street, something caught Jeanie’s eye. A metal structure, like a piece of the Eiffel Tower, was poking above the fence line.
“Do you see that, Herb?”
“See what?”
“It’s like a tower or something over there. Like the things you see at power plants? A frame or something? Am I seeing this right?”
Again, Herb leaned forward, but this time, he nodded. “Oh, yeah. I do see that. What the heck is that thing?”
Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there a week ago. As they drove down the street, Jeanie could see more and more of it. A hundred feet tall, this thing was. It stood above the trees, a collection of wires on top of it like an old-school TV antenna.
They made the last turn onto their street, and Jeanie could see the whole shebang. It was a radio tower of some kind. Gray metal, shooting up in the sky, with four cables anchored to the ground to keep it in place.
“Dear God,” Jeanie said. Her eyes followed it down and found the base of it, in Sheila and Ron Lankowski’s front yard.
Two houses down, diagonal from Jeanie and Herb’s house. Fifty feet away from where they slept.
“It’s at the Lankowski’s?” Herb said as he parked the car. “When the heck did this happen?”
“Musta been when we were in Hawaii,” Jeanie said.
“Christ, that was quick. I didn’t even know they were going to do this. Ron didn’t tell me anything about it.”
As Jeanie stepped out of the car, her mouth dropped open. Not only was this monstrosity sitting in Sheila’s front yard, blocking their view of the city skyline, it also hummed. Like a bug zapper, waiting for its next victim to fry.
Jeanie stepped out into the street as Sheila opened the front door of her house, eyes on the mailbox. She had to navigate under one of the support cables to cross the yard.
Jeanie hustled into the street and put up a hand to block out the sun. “Hello, Sheila.”
Sheila grinned and wiped her hands across her sizable belly, leaving some red stains on her t-shirt. Ketchup, or barbecue sauce. “Oh, hey there, neighbor. Back so soon?”
Sheila ventured a little closer, meeting Jeanie in the middle of the street. “You sure did get some sun while you were down there, dincha?” Sheila paused and then raised an eyebrow. “What’s that look for?”
Jeanie couldn’t speak. She lifted her hands toward the hulking monstrosity towering above them. Waved them a little bit, to get Sheila to look up.
“Oh!” Sheila said. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Cell tower. The workers came and put that in on Tuesday. It stays ten years, and we pay nothing for our cell phone bill for the whole time. How about that, huh?”
Jeanie just stared, mouth agape. If she even had the words, she wouldn’t have known how to use them.
“You look confused, Jeanie. You got the jet lag or something?”
Jeanie licked her lips and found the words. “Why is there a cell tower smack in the middle of our neighborhood street, Sheila?”
Sheila put her hands on her hips and let out a little chuckle. “I just told ya, Jeanie. Maybe you should go get some rest. Oh, and tell Herb to come over as soon as he’s able. Ron has some gossip or something about the fantasy football league. Says he’s been dying for Herb to get back. Gotta go, now.”
Sheila trotted back up to the mailbox, snatched the mail, and then waddled across the yard and back into the house.
Jeanie stood there, staring. “This has to be some sick joke.”
~II~
In the morning, Jeanie peeled back the curtains, hoping she was going to find the neighborhood exactly how she’d left it a week ago, before boarding that plane. The cell tower had to have been a nightmare.
But, there it was. And now, Jeanie was certain she could hear that hum inside her own goddamn house. It was the same sound the DVR made, but definitely not coming from the living room.
“Herb!” Jeanie said. “Get down here.”
He trundled down the stairs, his hair a mess, his eyes bleary. “What, Jeanie?”
“Get over here. Look at this.”
He got up onto the couch with her and squinted. This close, Jeanie could smell the cream he used on his thinning hair. It was like Vick’s Vapo Rub mixed with alfredo sauce.
“Dear Lord,” he said. “It looks even bigger now in the sunlight.”
“But can you hear it?” she said.
He eyed her. “Don’t yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling, Herb. Just listen. You can hear the hum, right?”
He turned his ear to the window and grimaced. His eyes searched all around, bouncing up and down and left and right. Eventually, he nodded. “I can. That’s horrible.”
She walked to the coat rack and slipped on her jacket.
“What are you doing, Jeanie?”
“I’m going to put a stop to this.”
“What in the heck are you saying? How are you going to stop it?”
“Action speaks louder than words.”
Herb raised his palms to the ceiling. “You can’t stop this, Jeanie. It’s not like a birdhouse you can knock out of a tree.”
As she flung back the front door, she pointed a finger in his face. “Just you watch me, Herb.”
Outside, the cold air nipped at her exposed cheeks and hands. Jeanie still hadn’t adjusted to the stark difference from the Hawaii weather, the rich warmth that hugs you all day long. These freezing days felt like the bane of her existence. Their next vacation would have to be to somewhere miserable, so coming home would feel amazing.
She stomped to the edge of the Lankowski’s property, halting on the lip between the sidewalk and the grass. “Sheila?”
Ten seconds passed, and nothing happened.
“Sheila!”
The curtain in the living room window peeled back, with Ron’s ugly mug appearing in the window. He looked confused.
“Get Sheila!” Jeanie yelled, hands bracketing her face to amplify her words. This close, the hum was so loud, it vibrated Jeanie’s stomach. Made her nose itch.
Ron nodded and disappeared, and a few seconds later, the front door opened. Sheila was in her bathrobe, a steaming mug of coffee clutched in her hand. In the tree just to the right of the front porch, a collection of four squirrels scattered, like roaches after the lights had turned on.
Sheila half-grinned, half-frowned as she hustled down the front steps. “Hey, neighbor. Everything okay? You seem a bit worked up this morning.”
“It’s got to go.”
Sheila tilted her head and let out a chirp of a laugh. “What’s got to go?”
“The damn tower, Sheila,” Jeanie said, jabbing a finger at the metal monstrosity throwing shade on the both of them.
“Well, Jeanie, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I think I told you yesterday how I’m getting the free cell phone service? Ten years, Jeanie. Ten years of free cell phone service. That’s not chump change.”
“I don’t care. It’s got to go.”
Sheila’s smile finally darkened. “Maybe you don’t understand, Jeanie. We signed a contract. There’s nothing I can do.”
Sheila’s eyes drifted down to Jeanie’s waist, and Jeanie realized she’d balled her fists.
“You’re going to find a way to get rid of it,” Jeanie said.
Sheila laughed incredulously. “I think maybe you’re still jet-lagged. Go on home and rest, Jeanie. This tower is staying, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
~III~
Jeanie rummaged through the garage until she could find the hammer. The red paint was peeling from the head, the handle’s wood was scarred. Didn’t matter. It would get the job done.
When Jeanie raised the garage door, Herb was standing in the driveway, his hair still greasy from his hair-growth cream.
“What are you doing, Jeanie?”
“Never you mind, Herb.”
He frowned at the hammer. “Please don’t cause any trouble. Remember what you always say about us not being the most popular people on this street? Please don’t make it worse.”
Jeanie reached out and put a reassuring hand on her husband’s shoulder, then she donned the most brilliant smile she could muster. “I love you, Herb.”
“I love you too, Jeanie.”
“Now get out of my goddamn way.”
She darted past him, hammer above her head. Behind her, Herb bellowed and hollered and made all kinds of protestations, but Jeanie ignored all of it. Adrenaline pumped through her body, and she felt none of the cold morning air stinging her extremities. She felt none of the usual ache in her knees and back.
What she did feel was power. Resolution.
She stepped onto the Lankowski’s property, watching the windows for any sign of Sheila or Ron. The curtains didn’t shuffle. The front door didn’t open.
Jeanie navigated underneath one of the four support cables and approached the base of the tower. The four shafts that made up the base were arranged in a square, each one anchored inside a separate slab of concrete. Unearthing the concrete probably wasn’t an option, but that didn’t matter. She only had to rupture the metal, and then topple the damn thing. The concrete bases could stay. The remnants would only make Sheila’s yard ugly, not the whole neighborhood.
Jeanie raised the hammer just as the front door opened.
“Jeanie?” Sheila said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m fixing this!” Jeanie shouted.
She swung the hammer, three feet above the ground, at one of the four metal pillars. When it connected, it gave off a deafening clang.
The hammer bounced off the tower, headed right into Jeanie’s face.
Next thing she knew, she was falling in the opposite direction, the ground sailing up to meet the back of her head.
~IV~
The next few minutes happened in blips and flashes. Sheila standing over her, then Ron, then Herb. The three of them helping Jeanie to her feet. Jeanie being placed in bed, the covers going over her. Vomiting and shaking. A throbbing pain in her forehead, which improved after they gave her a pill of some kind.
Later, Jeanie woke up, staring at the ceiling. Felt like someone had taken a chunk out of the middle of her face. Why did she ache like this?
She groaned, and Herb appeared at her side, a glass of water in his hand. He was looking down at her like she was a damn charity case.
“What?” she said.
“Are you okay, Jeanie? I’ve been so worried about you. Want some water?”
“How long have I been in bed?”
He shrugged. “A couple hours, I think.”
“Why does it feel like someone took a drill to my forehead?”
He leaned over, the pitying look morphing into one of genuine concern. “You don’t remember, Jeanie?”
“No, but it seems like you do, so why don’t you tell me what happened, Herb.”
“You attacked a cell phone tower with a hammer, and the tower won.”
Like submerging her head in a bucket of ice water, everything came rushing back. The scarred hammer. Storming across the street. Picking one of the four legs of that heinously ugly cell phone tower and swinging the hammer. The hammer rebounding into her forehead.
“You remember now?” he said.
“I do.”
“So you understand what happened out there. You understand how nutty it was. You understand that we need to let this go and move on with our lives.”
Jeanie shook her head. “I understand exactly what I did wrong, you mean. And now I know how to fix it; how to bring that goddamn tower down once and for all.”
~V~
Jeanie stopped by the bathroom to survey the damage to her face, and she almost lost her breakfast when she saw it. A giant red mark like a tattoo in the middle of her forehead. It was so horrendously ugly, she barely recognized herself.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
“What?” Herb said from the bedroom.
“Nothing, Herb. Don’t worry about it.”
As she left the bathroom, he met her in the hallway. “Please, Jeanie. Think about what you’re doing. It’s crazy. This plan is crazy. It’s never going to work.”
“Don’t tell me my business, Herb.”
With that, she brushed him aside and raced down the stairs. Head throbbing. She stopped in the kitchen to grab some aspirin, downed it with a glass of water, and then she rushed into the garage to retrieve the item she needed.
Herb was still behind her, complaining, as she shut the garage door. How could he not see she had no choice?
It was a good plan. Nothing crazy about it. This was going to work, and the rest of the neighborhood would hail her as the hero who restored order and beauty to this street.
With the bolt-cutters in hand, Jeanie opened the garage door, sights on the cell phone tower across the street.
Except for this time, Sheila Lankowski was standing next to it. Can of Pepsi in one hand and a half-unwrapped burrito in the other. Her gut spilling over the top band of her Capri pants.
“Sheila!” Jeanie said as she stepped foot in the street.
Sheila bit the burrito and swallowed a hunk. “Whatever it is you’re planning on doing, Jeanie, you better stop right now. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself anymore.”
“Out of my way, Sheila.”
“Not going to happen, Jeanie. Free cell service for a decade. Do you understand that? Do you know what this means for me and Ron?”
Jeanie paused at the edge of the sidewalk. Sheila set the Pepsi on the ground in front of her and folded the aluminum foil back over the top of the burrito.
“Not another step, Jeanie.”
“Eat shit, Sheila.”
They both took off at once. Sheila had her eyes on the bolt cutters, Jeanie on a ladder built into the side of one of the cell tower’s four legs. Sheila started to reach out for the bolt cutters when she was still a few feet away, hunching over as she ran. All Jeanie had to do was lift the bolt cutters into the air and hop to the right, and Sheila was outmatched. She lunged, trying to compensate, but was already off balance.
She landed face-first in the grass. The burrito flew into the air and tumbled onto the sidewalk, then rolled out onto the street.
Jeanie snagged a chest-high rung of the ladder and jumped. Her feet landed on the bottom rung, and she shifted the bolt cutters to underneath her armpit so she could use both hands as she climbed.
Within a few seconds, she’d climbed twenty feet. The will to succeed drove her, and she felt fifteen years younger. Felt alive. Driven. Destined for success. She kept her eyes up because she didn’t care much for heights. But, she didn’t have too far to go, only another thirty feet or so.
The four cables anchoring the cell tower were spaced around the four concrete bases of the tower, each one angled, so they came to a point at the top of the tower. Obviously, trying to cut down the tower by felling it like a tree was foolhardy. That was never going to work. But, if she could clip two of the support cables on one side, the whole damn thing would topple to the ground. If Jeanie hit it just right, it would land smack in the middle of the street.
“Ha!” Jeanie said as she huffed and puffed up the rungs of the ladder. “Let’s see those phone company sons of bitches try to pick that thing up out of the damn road.”
As she climbed, the angles of the cables shifted closer and closer to the four legs they supported. In another ten feet, Jeanie was high up enough that she could reach out and touch one.
Down below her, Sheila shouted and wailed, for no good reason. Jeanie wasn’t going to stop for nothing. Fixing this mistake was the only thing on her mind, and no one could do a damn thing to stop her.
Jeanie wrapped one hand around the ladder for leverage, then she choked up on the bolt cutters so she could position the cutting blades around the cable.
Except there was one problem. She needed both hands to operate the bolt cutters.
Sixty feet in the air, a breeze made Jeanie’s hair swish around her face. She tested her footing by loosening the grip on the ladder and bearing down with the lower half of her body. Seemed okay. She would need as much balance as possible to take both hands off this ladder.
“Okay,” she said. “You can do this, Jeanie. Remember what’s at stake here.”
She leaned a little to the right, touching the tip of the bolt cutters to the cable. Then, gingerly, carefully, slowly, she released her grip on the ladder.
Jeanie’s feet instantly shifted, and the bolt cutters slipped from her hand.
She felt herself moving backward, away from the ladder. Her feet separated from it, and in an instant, they were leaving the rungs. Like a trust fall, she moved backward in space. Arms pinwheeled. Legs kicked out, trying to find the ladder.
Jeanie fell.
As the air whiffed by her face, she pivoted. Below her, standing in the grass, were Herb, Sheila, and Ron. All three of them with wide open mouths and eyes as big as full moons.
Standing in a triangle. A spot of grass between them, which was exactly where Jeanie was headed. They started to run in crazy circles, arms out, maybe thinking they would catch her.
And, in the middle of that triangle, a single squirrel, beady eyes pointed straight up, its tiny frame darkened by the shadow of Jeanie’s plummeting body.
* * *
Discussion Questions:
1. Is a decade of free cell phone service worth destroying the neighborhood?
2. Should Jeanie and Herb go someplace awful on vacation next year, as Jeanie proposed?
3. Is the squirrel going to live or die?