The Exterminator

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

       The truck was parked in front Shirley Meyers’ house, and she didn’t like that, not one bit, especially since its driver, the unkempt man in the uniform labeled “Pest Control,” had gone into her neighbor’s house across the street.

       Shirley didn’t like the neighbor, either. For one thing, he was a renter, not an owner, and everyone knew that renters didn’t care anything about the property they rented. More often than not, they abused the condos or houses they leased, sometimes leaving hole sin the walls or letting the grass go uncut or flowers and shrubs untended for weeks at a time, or, like the present occupant of the house across the street, a Mr. Lincoln, blared their stereos night and day, when decent people who actually owned their own houses were trying to sleep or read or watch television undisturbed, having worked hard all their lives and contributed to society.

       It was commonly assumed, among Shirley and her fellow homeowners up and down the block, that Mr. Lincoln was mentally disturbed. Teresa Johnson, who lived behind the rental property, had actually heard the tenant bellow, “sounding like a bull,” according to her, in response to his mother (the woman who actually owned the house her son rented), who’d asked him to turn down his sound system and keep it down. The neighbors were complaining, she’d told him, and if he were to be evicted, he’d have nowhere else to go, except, perhaps, back to the hospital. It had been her reference to the “hospital,” Teresa was sure, that had set him to bellowing. Twice in the past six months, Mr. Lincoln had been carried out of his mother’s house, strapped to a gurney, by two men in white coats, slid into the back of an ambulance, and transported elsewhere—presumably to the “hospital” of which his mother had spoken.

       But he’d come back, to blare his music, pound on neighbors’ doors at all hours of the morning, growl and snarl at his mother, and, in general, make life unlivable in the master gated community of Golden Hill.

       Oh, they’d call the homeowners’ association, of course. All they’d done was to send the mobile security guard around to knock on Mr. Lincoln’s door and ask him, oh-so-politely to turn down his music (hip-hop, of course). They’d also sent his mother a couple of warning notices, but they never followed up on them.

       Teresa and several other homeowners, Shirley included, had called the police—numerous times—and officers had come, pounding on his door with their nightsticks, to no avail; Mr. Lincoln refused to open the door, even to the police, and they said that, under the circumstances, there was nothing more they could do, as the tenant was within his rights not to answer his door if he chose not to do so, unless the police had a warrant for his arrest or probable cause to believe that he’d committed a crime.

       “What about playing his music too loud?” Teresa had challenged one officer. “Isn’t that a crime?”

       “It may be,” the patrolman had answered, “depending on how many decibels it is.”

       “What about our rights?” Shirley had demanded.

       “Have you considered moving?” the officer had asked.

       That was all the good complaining to the HOA and the police had done, which is to say none.

       And, now, from the looks of things, the neighborhood wouldn’t have just Mr. Lincoln’s loud music to contend with; the tenant, apparently, now had a cockroach or a rat infestation. Why else would a “Pest Control” vehicle be parked across from his house?

#

       “It’s been a week now,” Teresa said.

       “Seven precious days of peace and quiet,” Shirley remarked.

       She sipped her tea.

       Her guest helped herself to another finger sandwich. “Like the old days,” she declared, “before he arrived, to ruin our lives.”

       “I wonder what happened to him.”

       “Maybe they took him back to the hospital.”

       Shirley considered the possibility. Not much happened in Golden Hills without their or one of their friends noticing it, but, of course, it was possible, if only barely, that an ambulance had spirited Mr. Lincoln away, perhaps in the middle of the night. After all, on the two occasions they’d seen this very thing happen, the vehicle had neither flashed its lights nor sounded its siren. “No doubt, you’re right, dear,” she concluded. She placed her hand around the teapot’s handle. “More tea?”

       Teresa held her cup out. “Thanks, dear. Don‘t mind if I do.”

       Shirley poured. “I just hope the exterminator eliminated the cockroaches or rats or whatever other vermin infested his place. I sure don’t want any such pests in my home.”

       Teresa shuddered at the thought. “Nor do I!”

       The women settled back in their respective rockers, surveying the street in peace and comfort from Shirley‘s front stoop. Everything was neat and orderly, trees and shrubs trimmed, flowers in bloom, lawns mowed, houses fresh with paint, and not a sound but that of birds twittering in treetops high overhead, an occasional light and melodious jingle of wind chimes., or a flutter of leaves in the summer’s breeze.

       Shirley sighed. “There is nothing more precious than peace and quiet,” she declared.

       “Silence truly is golden,” Teresa agreed.

       For half an hour more, the women sipped their tea, nibbled their cookies, and rocked their tired, aching bodies, enjoying the sound of silence and praying, fervently, that Mr. Lincoln would never return from the hospital again to ruin their lives.

#

       He didn’t.

#

       The next tenant to rent Mr. Lincoln’s mother’s house was a school teacher, Mr. Lombardo, and he lived quietly, keeping to himself. He rented the place for six months, and then a young woman named Cynthia Reynolds took up residence in the house across the street from Shirley, annoying the woman of the neighborhood only by passing on their invitations to join them for gossip and tea. Still, she was quiet, and that’s what mattered, really, in a renter. She lived in Golden Hills for over a year before leaving.

       Then a rough-looking, loud, obnoxious, and foul-mouthed young man named Skinner—Shirley was never sure whether it was his first or last name—moved into the house, and all hell broke loose. He sped up and down the street in his sports car, instead of keeping to the posted fifteen-miles-per-hour speed limit; hosted loud parties that lasted into the wee hours of the morning; neglected the lawn, trees, shrubs, and flowers; abused the property; frequently had any number of different young women as his overnight guests—sometimes two or more at a time!—drank to excess; and played harsh, discordant “music” at all hours of the day and night.

       Something had to be done, Shirley, Teresa, and the uncouth young tenant’s other neighbors agreed, but what? That was the question. The HOA and the police proved of no greater assistance than they had before, in the case of Mr. Lincoln, and, as far as Shirley or any of the other ladies knew, Skinner wasn’t insane—at least, not certifiably. There was, therefore, no chance that he’d be carted off on a gurney to a hospital, as Mr. Lincoln, presumably, had been. With the HOA unwilling to enforce its rules and regulations and the police unwilling to enforce the county’s ordinances, there was nothing, really, that anyone could do. Golden Hills, once an idyllic paradise, had become, once again, a hell on earth, and Shirley and her friends were stuck with Skinner, damned to the endless torment of his devil-may-care ways.

       And, then, one day, the exterminator’s truck showed up, and, this time, Shirley didn’t mind, not one bit, that it had parked in front of her house. As before, its driver, the same unkempt man in the uniform labeled “Pest Control,” had gone into her neighbor’s house across the street, and, ever since, there had been

serenity in Golden Hills.

       “Seven precious days of peace and quiet,” Shirley remarked. She sipped her tea.

       Teresa helped herself to another finger sandwich. “Like the old days,” she declared, “before he arrived, to ruin our lives.”

       Shirley had been about to say, “I wonder what happened to him,” but she didn’t. She knew what had happened to him, all right: the same thing that had happened to Mr. Lincoln.

       There was no need to worry about cockroaches or rats, either, she knew, or pests of any other kind, not when someone in their community, bless his or her heart, knew the number of The Exterminator.

       She placed her hand around the teapot’s handle. “More tea?”

       Teresa held her cup out. “Thanks, dear. Don’t mind if I do.”