Entropy in Bloom

by Jeremy Robert Johnson

  Roger looked at him and waited for the concerns to begin.

  Damn it! Did I just invite every retiree in the neighborhood over for a stop-and-chat? I can’t deal with that shit right now.

  “Shoot, Roger. It’s cold out here. I can tell from your face you think I might be in my dotage and looking to run my mouth. That ain’t it. I promise. We need to talk about this, and I’m hoping you might be the sort of fella’d be kind enough to offer me a beer and your ears for a spell.”

  Something about the look on the old man’s face told Roger he was sincere, and the smell of Brylcreem from his slicked-back gray mop reminded him of his own grandfather. Aside from that, the sound of Clem’s voice—clear and unencumbered by the hisses and clicks of a call being recorded for quality control purposes—made Roger feel human and a little less than crazy for the first time in days. Maybe it’d be good for him to take a little break. He’d earned it.

  “Sure, Clem. Come on in.”

  “NOT TO SOUND UNGRATEFUL, but you happen to have any Budweiser? Or Milwaukee’s Best? This fancy stuff tends to write me a one way ticket to Nap Town.” Clem handed his smoked porter back to Roger.

  “Mirror Pond’s the lightest thing I got. It’s a regular ale.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  Roger popped the tops off two ales and handed one to Clem. He slid a batch of insurance docs toward the center of the table and offered the old man a seat at the end.

  “Great family space you have here.”

  “Yeah. This table is old school. It’s giant. I’ve got an extra leaf for it out in the garage. I think it’s from 1918, but who knows? My wife finds this kind of stuff at the Goodwill. She’s got a sixth sense about bargains.”

  “You happen to have a coaster? Wouldn’t want to leave a beer ring on your wood.”

  “Oh, sure.” Roger had a stash of promotional coasters from beer festivals stored above the fridge. Coaster off the top promised that Hammertown’s Double IPA would deliver a Lethal Dose of Hops. He handed Clem the cardboard disc and then sat down at the table.

  “Thanks, pard.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Pard?

  The room went quiet. Clem tapped the base of his beer on his coaster a few times and took a deep breath. Roger looked over at his insurance docs and imagined the hours he still needed to spend on the phone. “You said you have some concerns?”

  “Sure. Sure I do. Only thing is, when you get to be an older fella, you kinda learn to pick what they call an ‘angle of attack’ when you have something important to say. Otherwise people have a real easy time writing you off.”

  “Yeah, that’s too bad. I think we’d be better off if we would . . . ”

  “Listen to your elders? No, that ain’t true either. Trust me, I’ve got plenty of friends my age that haven’t had a new thing worth saying for years now. That’s why we mostly fish and drink and sit there quiet. Maybe play some cribbage. No, don’t listen to me because I’m old. Listen to me because I used to be the county sheriff, and I understand a particular malady that’s gripped this area for too long.”

  “I’m all ears, Clem.”

  “Well . . . there’s a house. It’s right over by me, on 17th, across from my place and down two, right next to that big beige foursquare McMansion thing they built last year, that don’t fit the look of the neighborhood at all.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I need you to know that this house, and the folks who live there . . . well, pardon my language, but if this side of town had an official ‘Department of Fucked Up Shit,’ then the headquarters would be right damn there.”

  Great. Gramps has some old beef with his neighbors and now he’s trying to drag me into it.

  “Clem, what’s any of that have to do with me? You think the people who live there are the ones who broke into my house?”

  “I do.”

  “Did you see something? This could be great! Did you see them carrying stuff into their house on the night of the burglary? Maybe a really big TV that looked like the one over there in the living room?”

  “Nope. Didn’t see a thing like that. But a couple of nights ago it was a full moon, wasn’t it?”

  No wonder this guy’s making me feel sane. He’s fucking Looney Tunes senile.

  “A full moon? I, uh . . .”

  “Roger, I can see I’m losing you. Maybe I chose the wrong angle here. So forget the moon thing. And did I mention their tunnels?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well imagine I never said that either. Damn. It’s never easy to talk about this.”

  “What are we even talking about?”

  “We’re talking about a house where I see people go in, but never, ever come out. Or I see people leave and they come back wearing the same clothes but not the same face. And some nights there’s a purple shimmer over the place—”

  “Clem, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to go now. I’ve still got a lot of clean-up left to do around the house.”

  “Night they busted in, you get any kind of weird headaches or earaches?”

  Roger had almost forgotten the way the pressure had built in his head the previous night, how it had been followed by phantom conversations, and the appearance of those bodies in the attic. He couldn’t hide the truth on his face. He flinched. Clem’s eyes lit up.

  “I knew it! I’m telling you, Roger, I’m not crazy. They have ways. We watch those sonofabitches all the time and they’re always changing how things work.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Oh, ah . . . royal we, I guess.” Clem held his beer out and looked at the label. “This is definitely hitting me faster than a Bud.” But Roger couldn’t help but notice that the old man’s eyes were sharp and his speech never slurred.

  “Maybe I should call back the cops. You want to talk to them— maybe leave out the stuff about the moon and tunnels—and tell them you think you know who hit my place? It’s possible that they were the ones that broke in, and if the cops pay them a visit, maybe we can put this whole thing to rest.”

  “I wish. I wish. I gave up calling the cops on them a while back. Even my old friends on the force were getting impatient with me. Getting old’s the worst. But I’ve suspected it’s them whenever a house in our area gets robbed. There’s a nasty smell that comes from their place too. Like blood sizzling on a hot plate.”

  Roger wondered how Clem would even recognize that smell, then remembered he’d once been a sheriff and decided not to venture the question.

  “I think they’re making drugs in there too and venting it right out of the damn side through the dryer exhaust. They don’t even try to hide because nothing sticks. I managed to record enough footage of comings and goings to help get a search warrant drafted. They found all kinds of chemicals, but nothing that made sense. Nothing that’d make the street drugs you’d expect. Then, after there was that rash of dog killings—maybe that was before your time out here—I worked with some other folks in the neighborhood, Susie Jenkins who’s a realtor and Dan Rostrum who’s a banker, to see if we could do some kind of workaround and get the house foreclosed. Hell, they’d nailed Dan’s dog Chester to the tree in his front yard . . . no eyes . . . nothing left inside that poor mutt . . . ”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Unholy shit, you ask me. But again, nothing stuck. Get this—nobody owns that property. Not really. Somebody owned it once, sure.” Clem pointed at nothing with the neck of his beer bottle, as if to say, This is the only reasonable fact I can state. “But after the banking crash, the original deed of trust got passed from bank to bank and then whichever one was supposed to have had it last couldn’t even find a scanned copy in their files. Not even the damn county can find their version. Somebody services their property tax with cash once a year, so we can’t get ’em that way, and there’s no viable documentation to force a regular foreclosure. City even says they have some kind of damn ‘squatter’s rights.’ Since when does a dug-in tick have fucking righ
ts?”

  Clem set down his beer with a hollow clunk. He’d drained it. Roger offered him another.

  “No. That’s kind of you, but I’m good. One more beer for me will turn into all the beers for the rest of the day. Took me eighty-some years but I finally learned to accept that about myself. Besides, I need to be clear in what I’m telling you next. I need you to really listen to me.”

  Roger leaned forward and made eye contact. He was still unsettled that Clem knew about his strange fugue state headaches. And he hated to admit it, but the more he listened, the more he could reconcile the last few days with the world around him.

  “Something about your note . . . forgive my saying so, but you sure seemed scared, and angry, and right away I thought to myself, ‘They’re playing with him.’”

  Roger remembered the laughter he’d heard on the night of the burglary, the feeling that someone was enjoying his terrified reaction as he’d fled the house. Still, Officer Hayhurst said that some criminals did extra shit like that for kicks. It didn’t mean he was part of some ongoing harassment.

  “How do you know it’s them? Couldn’t it be a standard-issue crime? They got my wife’s best jewels.”

  “First, that kind of thing really doesn’t happen all the way out here. I mean, this is the city in name only—most of your regular criminal element can’t deal with the inconvenience of getting all the way to the boonies. Why do you think I chose to retire out here? Cops know where the pits are, and where things are mostly nice. No, this little enclave, it’s a good place. Aside from that one house. Second, though, I responded to thousands of burglaries in my day and I know this wasn’t your regular old bash-and-dash because now I’ve seen your face. That’s what I had to come over to confirm. You really want to tell me this feels normal to you?”

  Roger’s lips sealed tight. He thought of the dead birds in his attic. Had that even happened? His brow furrowed and he took a deep breath and shook his head from side to side:

  No. No. No.

  “Okay. So you are hearing me.”

  “I have to, Clem. Listen . . . I think they’re threatening my family. They messed with a picture of my daughter and I. And everything that happened the night of the burglary felt . . . wrong. There was a handprint left behind, and it was missing a pinkie.”

  Clem’s eyebrows raised at that, but he said nothing.

  “Okay then. Thank you for being honest with me. This is good. Because if I know they’re targeting you, and you believe me about that, then maybe you have a chance to do the right thing.”

  “What’s the right thing?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “That’s cute, Clem. Maybe ale really isn’t for you.”

  “Not joking. Not drunk. Never cute, young man. Now you look me right in my fucking eyes.” There was a new electricity emanating from the old man. He was still sitting in his chair but he’d tensed up, coiled and wiry. Looked ready to beat his message into Roger if he had to. “They’re interested in you. Why? I don’t know. Never understood how they pick their targets. But this is bad, truly bad, and I’m sorry to you and your family that you’ve wandered into this. I’ve watched this happen before. Watched them target someone in this neighborhood and drive them fast as they could in the wrong directions. I’ve seen people, good people, walk into that house and never come back out. Not really come back out anyways. And that’s not going to happen to you. You’re not going to give them what they want.”

  “But what do they want?”

  “Hell if I know. I gave up on trying to understand the devil a long time ago. You just gotta steer clear. They’ll try to use your anger, or your curiosity, against you. How do you think human beings found out which foods were poisonous and which ain’t? How many poor fellas died clutching their guts on the way to that know-how? The cost ain’t always worth it. So I’m telling you—that house, and the people who live there, the whole damn situation is as poisonous as they come. You don’t need to know what you’re dealing with. You only need to get away.”

  “We only bought this place three years ago. Claire will never . . .”

  “She will. Lots of folks feel like moving after a break-in anyway. It’s natural. Start there. Or, hell, we’re close to the interstate . . . tell her you’re worried about the air quality. Don’t know your wife, or what would sway her. That’s on you.”

  “Moving’s out of the question. This is crazy. Assuming what you’re saying is true, or even a little bit of it is, there has to be something else this neighborhood can do to drive them out. What if we got the whole community together? Like every last one of us, and we had a town hall meeting, and we focus on the fact that there’s a house right under our noses where the tenants might be involved in theft and drug manufacturing and animal mutilation, to say the least.”

  “I tried that, a couple of times. The folks around here are mostly retired, and not just from working. Loads of ’em gave up giving a shit about anything that don’t directly affect them. Hell, I’ve tried most things I can think of, aside from setting that damn house on fire.”

  “But I feel like—”

  “Stop feeling here, Roger. Think. Think about you and your wife and your child, and get out of here.”

  Roger’s exhaustion and confusion finally set in. He slumped his head into his open palms.

  “Fuck. This is crazy.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve pushed you too fast. But I think you’re hearing me, and I hope you’ll make the right decision. I know this is a lot to absorb. Nobody wants to be uprooted, especially if they feel like they’re being a coward. But you have to understand that you won’t be running away. You’ll be running toward a real future.”

  “I’m no coward, Clem.”

  “Never said you were.”

  Roger remembered Officer Hayhurst: You were so easily penetrated.

  These men didn’t understand that Roger could handle things when the chips were down. It could be that running away wasn’t the answer at all. Maybe there was only one real method for dealing with criminal assholes like the ones this tiny old man had come to warn him about.

  Roger straightened his shoulders and leaned toward Clem. “You mentioned setting the place on fire. And that’s insane, I know it, but what if . . . maybe there’s some way, hypothetically . . . maybe we get a group of like-minded guys together late one night and we pay that house a visit and make it really clear that those bastards can’t live there anymore.”

  Clem held Roger’s gaze for a moment and frowned.

  “Shit. They’re already drawing you in.” Clem ran a hand over his slicked back gray hair and sighed for a moment before looking back at Roger. “I know we just met, but . . . I worked with the law long enough to get a read on folks, and I don’t think you’re the kind of hard man that runs around at midnight issuing threats.”

  Roger crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t know me, Clem.”

  “No, but I’ve talked to you long enough. What I’m saying isn’t meant to insult. World needs more kindhearted men. Lord knows we’ve got more than our share of macho morons bashing around. Besides, the kind of ugliness you’re talking about is just what they want. The violence. The conflict. Devils love a good game. They love to get you outside your own head. So, no, Roger, there aren’t going to be any old-fashioned lynchings down at Doc Frankenstein’s place.”

  Roger stared at Clem, then past him.

  Telling me to stand down. It wasn’t his goddamn house that got broken into. It’s not his wife waiting in another city to hear that everything is safe again. You want to help me, old man? Help me take care of the motherfuckers who did this to my life.

  “Christ, Rog. I’ve seen that look in your eyes before. Don’t go thinking some moral upper hand gives your anger any more power. I had a friend, once, had that look in his eyes all the time. I don’t like to talk about what happened to him, but I think it’s clear you need to hear his story. Can you stop mad-dogging me first?”

  The old man smil
ed and held his palms up, facing Roger.

  Fuck. I’m acting like an asshole. This guy, crazy or not, is just trying to help.

  Roger laughed and shook his head. “Clem . . . I’m sorry. It’s been really intense, the last couple of days.”

  “Fair enough. Fair enough. And thanks. So . . . my friend. Name of J. P Schumacher. Good guy, solid as they come. If they had a factory for righteous dudes, Jason P Schumacher would have been the prototype. I knew him when we were brothers on the force, back when we all called him ‘Spud’ ‘cause he brought a baked potato for lunch every day.”

  “Clem . . . ”

  “Forgive me. It’s how an old man’s memory works, plowing through the garbage to find the rest. Anyway, he worked vice with me for a while before he took another tack—got married, had a kid, went back to school and pursued a judgeship. He said the bench was better for him. That once he had a family he couldn’t handle some of the shit we saw out on the streets. But the truth was that even behind the bench it all still stuck in his craw. He’d never learned to let it go, or drink it away at least. And then he had a case that went sideways in his court and a fuck-up in the chain of evidence puts some repeat kiddie fucker back on the street.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “Yeah . . . . So one evening a week later J. P. decided that court was still in session. Bought a pistol, put down the short eyes like a rabid dog.”

  Roger nodded. Fuck. Yes.

  “You’re thinking he made the right call. Part of me feels that way too. But the moment he decided to pull that trigger he signed his own death warrant. He exposed himself and his family to something he didn’t fully understand. Turns out the pedo had been mobbed up and running a film line for a crew out of Ukraine. Now Ol’ ‘Spud’ had put a kink in their money. He fucked up their production schedule. So what do you think they did in return?”

  “They killed him, yeah? But at least he got one of those bastards off the streets.”