David Dean - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

It was typical, if destructive, boyish pranks at first: a full garbage can left at the curb for pickup turned upside down, the lid vanished; impossible to right without emptying the entire stinking contents into the street. A carefully carved jack-o’-lantern smashed against the siding of the house, orange gore dripping and a stain that took great effort to wash away. A paper bag set aflame on his front step, which Rueben found, after stomping it out, to be full of excrement (he never cared to discover whether it was of animal or human origin). In every case, he could count on looking up and finding Danny watching impassively, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Events grew more alarming, and not just for Rueben. It seemed no one was exempt, even if Rueben was especially singled out. One neighbor got a brick through the windshield of his brand-new automobile left proudly parked on the street. Another awoke to find his newly filled pool fouled in a manner reminiscent of Rueben’s porch incident. There were accusations and recriminations, and even Rueben joined in after he awoke to find his front door spray-painted with the word “FAG” in bright yellow. It took several coats of enamel paint to conceal the epithet and Rueben noticed that several men in the neighborhood were cool to him afterwards.

Rueben was shocked at the appearance of Curtis and Dot when they warily answered his rings on this occasion. He had not seen them except at a distance for several years, so cool had relations become in the neighborhood as a result of their son’s depredations, and he found them shrunken and timid — hollowed out with shame and something else... fear, Rueben thought. They looked ancient. He hadn’t the heart to do anything other than ask them to keep an eye on Danny and beat a hasty, embarrassed retreat.

Danny was sitting on the front steps when he came out and Rueben gave him a terse nod. As he hurried past, a cigarette butt arced past his head like a tiny comet. He spun about to find Danny staring off into the middle distance, making perfect smoke rings.

Rueben’s cat did not return home the following day. A week later, he found the old tom curled up on the patio with his head tucked neatly beneath his tail — frozen solid and slowly defrosting in the blazing summer sun. In the adjacent yard, Danny leaned from his rickety lawn chair and retrieved a cold beer from the refrigerator plugged into an outside outlet that he kept for his convenience, and with slow exaggeration, rolled the sweating can across his sloping brow. Rueben fled into the house, tears of shame and rage choking him in a slow, steady grip.

As Danny could and did roam at all hours (he never held a job, to Rueben’s knowledge) and could, therefore, strike at will and without witnesses, the neighborhood simply hunkered down and tried not to gain his attention. Any complaint to the police resulted in inquiries at Danny’s door, which had the unfortunate result of identifying the complainant. Retribution was sure to follow.

Sadly, it was the hapless Curtis and Dot who suffered the silent scorn and universal condemnation of the community. Though their abhorred son had long ago reached adulthood, it was they who were afforded the status of “non-persons”: They were invited nowhere, spoken to only from necessity, and soundly, firmly, and pointedly ignored. The kindly middle-aged couple shrank from public scrutiny over time and were seen less and less often. Even as their closest neighbor, Rueben only caught glimpses of them as they ran the most necessary errands. After all, the beast must be fed, Rueben thought meanly, on more than one sighting. Yet he could see the toll taken on them. They looked more ill and frail than their years should have made them. Dot died the tenth year of Rueben’s residency, of ovarian cancer, and Curtis followed a scant two years after from a heart attack.

Both funerals were surprisingly well attended, though Rueben suspected baser motives at work than the simple act of mourning might portray. He suspected because he recognized the cowardice at work in himself. But if the crowd expected a softening from the son in the face of their apparent grief, they were sorely disappointed. Danny simply sat at the foot of the coffins like a drugged, though still potentially dangerous, guard dog, and stared out over the uncomfortable gatherings as if he were in an empty room.

The neighborhood was also to be disappointed in yet another way. With Curtis’s death, hope raised its head and happy speculation circulated from house to house. Surely, now, they would be released. The watch for the For Sale sign to appear was a happy and expectant one. It was not to be, however, for the truth eventually supplanted the rumors, and Danny was found to be the sole possessor of a mortgage-free home. If this was not disappointing enough, and infuriating for all those who would work thirty years to attain the same status, it also became known that he was the recipient of some mysterious source of income — not much, but enough to meet his basic needs. The neighborhood fell back in dismay and awaited the next blow.

Strangely, that blow had yet to fall, and this was almost worse than the campaign of depredations. The neighborhood and Rueben existed in a state of tension, an unbearable condition of expectation and dread: Like beaten dogs they seemed to scurry, not walk, always looking back to see who, or what, approached.

Danny’s lassitude only made matters worse. His lizardlike posture on his front porch was ascribed to planning; his seemingly casual forays on his bike were interpreted as reconnaissance, and when lights were seen in the windows of his house in the small hours, it was understood to bode ill for someone.

All of these thoughts raced through Rueben’s head as he stood at the edge of the road, the wind beginning to rise once more, as evidenced in a murmuring of dried leaves.

“Enough,” Rueben hissed. “I don’t deserve this! Who the hell does he think he is?” Rueben kicked the small, broken body that lay at his feet, and stepped back immediately with a stifled cry of horror and disgust at what he’d done. From across the street came an answering report of a snapped branch or twig, and Rueben spun about, fully expecting to find Danny returned — but saw only darkness. Breathlessly, he returned to his car, and hurriedly drove away with but one lamp left to light his progress.

Rueben waited until the following morning to request an officer for an accident report. He reasoned that he would need it for insurance purposes, but as no one had been injured and it had not involved another vehicle, it could wait until after a night’s rest. The officer, an affable fellow named Blaise, arrived at ten to find Rueben hollow-eyed and nervous after a fitful sleep, standing next to his car in the driveway.

“Mornin’, Rube,” Blaise huffed as he bent to examine the damage.

Rueben gritted his teeth in annoyance. Though the nickname was almost universally employed by the officers of the department, and Rueben had come to accept it over the years, it had a particularly demeaning ring this morning.

“Good morning, Blaise,” Rueben returned stiffly, overemphasizing the officer’s unusual name.

Blaise glanced up at Rueben with a small smile. “Somebody cranky this mornin’, Rube?”

Rueben exhaled noisily and tried a strained smile. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m a little cranky... I hit a deer last night. A baby deer,” he added a little guiltily.

“What were you doin’? Drivin’ drunk?” Blaise inquired pleasantly.

“No! Of course not. I just got off from work! You know that! I was just—”

“Whoa...” The officer held his hands up from his still-kneeling position. “Take ’er easy, Rube! I was just kiddin’. Maybe we should go out and knock back a few and shake the starch from your britches!” He chuckled.