I sat sometimes--making sure she was nowhere near!--and just looked through the window and loved the view. It should have been peaceful and wonderful.
It had been great--beyond great!--before she moved in. Once she did, II should have just given it all up and left.
But, I didn’t. Like I said, I loved it, and whether she liked it or not, it was just as much mine as it was hers--I was there first--I was actually born there. Still, I’m not stupid. Once she saw me, and I saw her face--I was afraid.
I was just stubborn.
I really did my best to disappear. But, still, sometimes, I could hear her talking about me. She’d be on the phone, arguing with this one or that one. Yes, she understood the house was old. Yes, she understood that she was in the country, she’d chosen to live where I was…
I’d hear her whisper; I’d hear her say that she just didn’t care. She’d smile and go through life--knowing I was there--but she’d sleep with one eye open, certain that I would murder her in her sleep.
Me! All she had to do was ignore me and I’d stay so far away she wouldn’t even know that I was there.
But, here’s the thing. The woman was nuts. I mean, totally on the far side. Insane--paranoid. She outright said at times that she’d like to torture me--burn me!--and then cut my head off! I heard all this, mind you, but, she didn’t really scare me.
She was a “beautiful woman, stunning, really!” I’d heard Stephen say to Mrs. Sandusky--second floor, apartment B--when my nemesis moved in.
Yes, she was beautiful, I guess.
But, she wasn’t at all coordinated--she’d never catch me.
For a while, it went on. We both lived in the house--we carefully watched one another.
Her friends and relatives would come by now and then, mostly a young nephew named Frank.
Frank knew I was there. He would shake his head and smile and bring his fingers to his lips when he would see me. Nice guy--I liked Frank. Sometimes, he’d even talk to me. “Hide, my friend, hide. Don’t let her see you,” he would say.
And I would hurry away.
One night when Frank was there, I heard her talking to him. “I’m going to hire someone to take care of the situation,” she said.
Frank groaned. “Hire someone? Oh, please, Aunt Belle. Please, please, you’re being ridiculous. You’re being absolutely ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous! Why, I could die, Frank!”
“Aunt Belle, you’re not going to die. She doesn’t give a wit about you--you’re just obsessed with her.”
“I will hire a killer!”
“Really? Don’t even talk like that! Someone might get wind of it. Stephen Lee could hear about it. Oh, my God, truly, you’re talking crazy!”
“Shush! Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not crazy--Stephen Lee is a bit crazy. He doesn’t see that she’s the one who is a killer!” she said.
Frank tried to explain that I was harmless and that it was all in her head, but none of his words were to any avail.
“Don’t do it!” Frank insisted. “Don’t even talk this way--you’ll upset Stephen, he’ll refuse to renew your lease, and you’ll be very upset! Honestly, Auntie, this is crazy.”
I thought it was cute, the way he called her “Auntie.” He was the son of her oldest brother--not more than four or five years younger than she was.
He gave her one of his great smiles--he’d assumed that he’d talked her out of doing something so ridiculous that it wasn’t worth talking about. Something, of course, that she didn’t really mean.
When he left, she walked around muttering. “I’ll do it myself--by God, I’ll do it myself!”
She had that crazy look in her eyes. The woman was a menace. I needed to be afraid.
She meant to kill me--herself.
And so, I warily kept an eye on her.
A few days later, I was down in the laundry room, minding my own business, causing no harm or foul to anyone.
It was a beautiful day, truly beautiful. Not too hot, a few puffy clouds in a sky that was unbelievably blue. The air was moving, just a touch cool.
But the laundry room was delightfully warm.
She came in.
I hadn’t been watching for her--I wasn’t expecting her. She usually did her laundry on Tuesdays and it was a Monday.
But, in she bustled with her wicker basket filled with her delicate little “unmentionables.” I really should have been smarter; she wasn’t seeing a man at the moment--she was extremely ambitious and creating “the world’s finest tour company.”
Still, she did her sexy little pieces of lingerie separately--on a different day every couple of weeks.
How had I been so remiss!
There she was--there I was!
And it was just her, and me, there, in the laundry room.
I can remember the hum and whirl of the washers and dryers, the sun dappling through the windows. Mrs. Sandusky--from the second apartment upstairs--had been doing her husband’s work shirts. They were piled upon one of the empty dryers. An old wooden bookshelf between the washers and the dryers held detergents and water softeners, and, actually, books!
I didn’t say a word. I stared at her. And she looked at me with that crazed, serial-killer gleam in her eyes.
I froze for a moment.
“You! They don’t you like I know you!” she cried. “You heinous creature!” she said.
And then, she took her shoe off and ran at me like a truly crazy person.
I think I mentioned that this was not a coordinated person. Nor did she seem to have much depth perception--lucky for me.
She charged; she charged as if she were a maddened bull. I moved--and quickly, I do assure you!
She slammed into the washer, banging it hard enough with the heel of her shoe to leave a crack in it. Again--she came after me, this time slamming into the dryer where Mr. Sandusky’s shirt had been set, neatly folded.
They all went flying in a pile of white tailored cotton.
I swear, the woman went entirely insane. Next she spun around and slammed at the book case. Bottles of Tide and Arm and Hammer went flying. Thick bluish liquid flew all over the floor, the walls, and the machines.
She hit the boxes of fabric softening sheets--they seemed to explode into a million pieces.
War and Peace went flying next. A gossip magazine blew into confetti.
I’d had enough--I knew I had to escape.
I started for the door.
As I did so, I heard her scream. When I slowed in my own maddened scurry to escape, I saw that she was on the floor.
She’d slipped in the blue liquid--and apparently hit herself in the head with her shoe.
I just ran.
Then, of course, for the rest of the day, I worried. I stayed hidden, and I listened and fretted.
She was insane; she needed to be reported by someone to someone as being totally, completely, certifiably insane.
And yet…
If she’d hurt herself, I could be blamed. She was beautiful; she could be charming. She could lie her way out of just about anything.
On pins and needles, I waited.
And then, I began to hear the others talking.
“Something terrible!” Mr. Sandusky said, wearing a new shirt since his old shirts were quite ruined.
“And how crazy! A break-in to destroy a laundry room!” his wife said.
There was more; I heard Stephen Lee talking on the phone.
Police came! The police.
I kept my peace, staying far away and I slowly realized that she had never reported what had really happened. She’d gotten up and run herself--and pretended she’d had nothing to do with the wanton destruction in the laundry room.
I did have to laugh when I saw her. She was sporting a big bruise on her forehead. Yes, the crazy woman had apparently hit herself really hard with her own shoe!
The experience must have rattled her. There were long days then when she seemed to settle down, when she came and went--and I
came and went--and she either didn’t see me, or she pretended not to see me.
I thought that maybe she had come to a state of peace with me. While she might have lied to everyone else and told them that there must have been a break-in that terrorized the laundry room, I knew the truth.
I would so carefully hide myself and try to watch her as she came and went. Days went by; we seemed to be okay.
And then, on the third day of watching her, I saw her eyes again. Now, they had this glazed look that was no less crazy than the bulging look.
She wasn’t at peace. She hadn’t accepted me.
She was plotting.
She didn’t say a word to nephew Frank again. And when she saw Stephen Lee or Mr. or Mrs. Sandusky, she was all pleasantries and smiles.
The Sandusky couple remained perplexed.
Who the hell broke into a laundry room and simply tore it to pieces?
A high school kid just pissed off because he had to read War and Peace?
The police, of course, had put it down to a gang of wandering would-be toughs from the local high school. The same kind of kids who liked to deface gravestones and rip up gardens or knock down garbage cans.
While most of our residents remained baffled, that certainly seemed to be the logical explanation
Not that the gentle, intelligent, industrious, and gorgeous young woman living on the ground floor had totally and completely lost her mind and gone on a killer rampage!
She was letting time pass, and that was it, and nothing more.
And then, she’d be coming to kill me again.
I thought about the things I could do to her in revenge. But, of course, if I hurt her, she might well develop some kind of proof that I was the one who was evil.
I reminded myself that the best defense was often an offense.
Ah, yes. There were many sayings I could go by.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
That was one that stuck with me as the days went by and I thought of the way she had looked at me while trying to attack me with her high heel--stone-cold whacked-out-institution-able-dangerously crazy.
Downright terrifying.
Revenge. Get her--before she got me.
The thing is, I’m not mean, and I’m truly not evil. Honestly, all that I wanted was to live in peace--and let her do the same.
Move, I told myself. Just move! Find another place to live!
But, as I said, it was my place. I’d been there longer than her. Why should I give up a place I loved because this woman was deranged?
I was actually starting to feel okay--weeks had gone by since the shoe incident.
Then, she changed her approach.
Like many obsessed people, she couldn’t help talking about what she was doing.
She talked to herself.
She started to wander around the house and garden and grounds--carrying on long conversations with herself.
Her next mode of attack, I learned, was going to be poison.
She argued with herself.
What kind of poison? How would she set it out? If she cooked it into something, how would she get me to eat it?
Decisions, decisions!
But, I knew the day she bought the poison--I could tell by the giant smile on her face the day she came home from the store with it.
I saw the bag.
I knew what it was.
It was summer and hot and while Stephen Lee had seen to that most of the house--except for the laundry room and the storage in the basement--was nicely air-conditioned.
But, when she was cooking, she opened the window above her stove.
Naturally, I snuck around to watch her.
Amazing! It was like the woman had transformed into an animated fairy-tale witch!
She was humming and singing, and I swear, she cackled now and then. She was putting the poison into some kind of muffins.
“You’re dead now!” she said over and over again. “Dead, dead, dead! Ah, my pretty! My pretty, pretty, pretty--pretty dead!”
And then she’d cackle and then she’d sing…
But, when the muffins were done, she set them to cool on the windowsill.
Naturally, I knew not to touch her cursed muffins.
I didn’t think that she’d gone insane enough to try to kill Stephen Lee, her nephew, or the lovely Sandusky couple. But, still, a whole batch of muffins…
Well, what happened was this. Her nephew Frank did come by. When he knocked on the door, she told him to come on in. And Frank did. He went into the kitchen and saw the muffins and he called out to her. “Wow, Auntie Belle! Who knew? A modern, working woman who can cook like this! These look phenomenal! I’m going to have one, all right?”
I wasn’t close enough--I was outside. I couldn’t stop him.
He reached for a muffin.
Luckily--for Frank!--she came tearing into the kitchen, flying at Frank.
The muffin was nearly in his mouth.
In fact, he paused in the action of putting it into his mouth because she had that absolute crazed look in her eyes as she ran at him and slapped his hand so hard that the muffin went flying out the little area of open window above the stove.
“Auntie Belle, what in God’s name?” Frank demanded.
She didn’t have to answer.
A large black crow swept down and nipped off a piece of the muffin and went flying up into the sky.
Five seconds later, the crow crashed down to the earth.
Its little clawed feet slashed at the air.
Its wings flapped insanely.
Then it was dead. Stone cold dead. And for the longest time, Frank just stared at it in horror.
Then, of course, he turned to his aunt.
Oh, Frank went on and on that day. And she was cowed. And she cried.
And she swore, swore to him, a dozen times over, she would cease and desist.
I was so disgusted I wanted to spit! But, that was the thing about her--the reason I was so wary and careful of her. She was so lovely that even when she cried, she was beautiful. Her eyes became so big; her words so soft. She charmed everyone.
I didn’t stand a chance against her wiles. And, trust me, they were wiles! She made people believe; she twisted them around her finger.
So Frank--who might have died himself!--listened to her cry. And he soothed her. He suggested that she talk to me; befriend me.
She looked at him as if he was the crazy one.
She tried to get him to stay for dinner. But, Frank, as I said, was a nice guy, a good guy--and not at all stupid. She might make him believe that she was truly penitent.
He still wasn’t staying for dinner.
He looked out the window at the dead crow and declined, telling her that he was really busy, he and his girlfriend had a date with one of his real estate clients.
I looked at the dead crow for a very long time myself that night. I realized how far her deadly mania would take her.
But, while she was insane, she was also amazingly devious.
Once again, while I contemplated revenge--someone had to act on behalf of the poor dead crow!--she lay low. She was careful.
Luckily, Frank had made certain that the poisoned muffins--and the deceased crow--were carefully discarded, wrapped in plastic and put in a tin. Frank didn’t want any animals digging around a landfill to fall prey to her insanity. I was very glad--I had been fearing greatly for the Sandusky family poodle. Who knows? The little pest might have decided to chew up a dead bird.
Once again, a few weeks went by in which she came and went about her business, smiling and pleasant. I never let up my guard, though. I saw what others did not--the complete depth of her insanity. All they saw was the beautiful woman. People always smiled when she spoke with him; their smiles remained after she had gone.
I wanted to vomit.
And, of course, I quickly realized that, even in killing the crow, she had not realized the error of her ways.
She was as nuts as a po
und of roasted pecans.
And still, somehow, I was the only one who saw it. Frank knew, but maybe he just couldn’t admit it to himself.
Days went by; weeks went by.
A whole month went by.
To the best of my knowledge, I avoided her completely. I kept an eye on her carefully--but I kept myself hidden as I did so!
I was in the storage room, completely minding my own business, when I heard her come in.
I hid. I hid behind a pile of boxes that held family treasures belonging to Stephen Lee’s family.
I thought she was drunk at first. She seemed to stagger in. I heard her as she clumped her way through boxes, around a dressmaker’s dummy, through the path between an old wheelbarrow and a bucket of baby toys.
She stopped, and she started to talk.
“I know you’re in here. You think you can hide, but I know that you’re in here. I know!” She almost screamed the last. “You’re watching me. You think I don’t see you, but I do! I feel your eyes--I feel your wretched eyes on me. I lay awake at night…you have to die. You have to die! The others don’t see it…they think you’re just good and helpful, but I know the truth!”
I wished I could have shouted back at her that she was off the charts loco, but…
I had to stay hidden. I had to move furtively. I had to get away, but I couldn’t let her see me.
Because this time, she had a massive lighter with her.
It was one of those things that people bought to light candles or barbecues of whatever; the torch at the end created a searing blue flame, but kept the person wielding it a foot or so from the fire they intended to create.
She wanted to burn me alive!
She thought that she saw me; she did not. She raced toward a dressmaker’s dummy, screaming and cursing, and swearing that I was dead!
As I’d mentioned, coordination was not her highest asset. She tripped over a pile of old computer gadgets on her way to the dummy. She’d already lit the barbecue match or whatever the flame-thrower in her hand was called.
The flame soared blue and gold toward a stack of old newspapers and magazines.
They burst into flames.
Sobbing incoherently, she jumped to her feet. She grabbed an old horse blanket and tried to tamp out the flames.
Well, paper was burning. Old, dried-out paper. Bits and pieces leapt to into the air as if they were alive.
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