Trouble in My Backyard.

 

Some of my friends came over last night while I was having trouble in my backyard. They each brought a roll of magnetic tape. I'd stuck my neck out before, but, by the time they felt free to fall into line, I had a not-so-funny feeling that this would be the perfect opportunity to see if any of them had a change of heart. We took turns probing one another's inner recesses with a customized instrument. When my own reading came in at 9.7 we gathered around a temporary unit and slipped each other the barest hint of where we might take this thing if our continued existence proved problematic in the long term. By now one of us would always agree to remain standing on the other side of a road while the rest would resolve a matter of deep concern. To keep morale at a fever pitch, I would now beseech random passers by and have them follow us into one of our Community rooms here at the Centre. Then we would ask them if negative thoughts had ever presented a problem for their loved ones. Generally, assuming they behaved themselves, we'd try to wrap it up in under an hour and they'd be free to get in the chow line. Mild contamination would only be an issue if one or another acted thoughtlessly toward a female Board Member. Then the police would be called.

After I went back inside, I couldn't stop asking myself if it had somehow been all my fault. I wanted to know out from under which rock I might have slithered before I first got to town. Having given up on my search for answers, I lay down on a leather-bound legal couch. I tried to touch my toes. There was nothing else to do but consider writing a letter to Neal Harkman. He and I had always gotten along until that day in the Summer of 1971 when I tricked him into performing his magick act at a long-term care facility in the Canadian Rockies. He never got over my duplicity. I never got over the doughiness of his fingers. It was frankly disgusting. Sometimes he would run around our house in the middle of the night throwing stones at the roof. My Dad, who never had any ambition to become an open-heart surgeon, would use his consumer-grade metal detector to search for lost coins on the beach at Barnegat, New Jersey during the Winter months.  I hadn't added to my stamp collection in weeks. Only when I heard my name from the loud speaker during Fifth Period did it finally dawn on me. I knew what I had to do. And no, I was never caught. You might be able to google it, though.

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