The Devil Next Door

“Violence. It’s the core of the human beast. It’s what we are and where we came from and what we descend into with the slightest provocation. It’s true, Louis. We carry within us the animal aggression of our simian and proto-human ancestors. Every beating, every rape, every witch hunt and mass murder is evidence of that. Even a child threatening another with a stick or a gangbanger with a switchblade in an alley is an expression of animal legacy in its purest form. The armed predator. Everything we do-from our urge to find and maintain territory, or real estate, to pecking orders and hostility to those outside our social grouping, the competition for females or males, race hatred and fear of strangers-all of it based on ancient animal patterns, like it or not.”

Louis licked his lips. They were very dry. “But it’ll stop. It has to.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Louis absently looked at his watch. “I don’t know.”

“This town is a perfect microcosm for the world. People don’t see it as such, of course. Because they’re too close, too involved, that’s why.” Earl worked his clippers, taking out a stray twig. “You need a bird’s eye view of this town to understand what ails it. The people who live here can no more examine their lives objectively than you or I can study the tops of our heads.”

Louis just stood there, not in the mood for it.

Earl Gould was a nice old guy and he was very smart, but he had the sometimes annoying tendency to over-analyze and over-intellectualize things. Louis figured it was the fact that he no longer had a classroom to occupy or students to lecture. So he grabbed anybody that happened by-a neighbor, the meter-reader, the guy from the gas company-and discoursed at length on anything from politics to world economy to small town culture to that patch of weeds growing under the elm in the front yard. Louis would have liked to tell him what he’d seen and experienced, but that would mean sacrificing another hour or two that he just did not have. Because Earl would have to minutely examine each shred of evidence and then play devil’s advocate for a time before finally rendering his hypothesis.

He was a smart guy, sure, but now was not the time for such things.

“Look at it this way, Louis. There is reason and cause if we can only open our minds to see them. And the people of Greenlawn cannot see beyond the ends of their noses, God bless ‘em, each and every one.” Earl leaned closer over the hedges. “I think, though, if they were able to what they would find would scare them. Because small communities like this are often quite scary to an outsider, eh? Isolated, inbred, insular, paranoid even. Tribal. Oh yes, very tribal. Places like this always have one or two episodes of explosive violence in their pasts. Mostly you don’t hear about them because small towns know how to keep their secrets and to lock their closets most securely so that the skeletons do not get out where they can be seen by shocked eyes.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Earl.”

“Oh, I am. You can bank on that. I’m not a native. We only retired here because my wife spent her childhood in this very town. But that gives me an advantage, doesn’t it? No rose-colored glasses or troublesome blinders on this old man’s eyes, eh? I can see the mechanics of this town, where decay has set in and where new growth may yet bloom. The very anatomy of Greenlawn is mine to view.” He chuckled at the idea, but there was a sharpness to his laughter, a darkness welling just behind his eyes. “I think, deep down, Louis, that the good citizens of our fair city of Greenlawn are not surprised at any of this. I think they’ve been expecting it. In the primal blackness of their souls, I think they’ve been waiting for something like this, something terrible to happen for a long time. And now the cork has been popped from the bottle and all that fermented juice is leaking out, spoiling everything and everyone it touches. I think, Louis, some will welcome this, what today has brought and tonight might still bring. They’ll see it as an inevitability, won’t they? All those tensions and frustrations building all these years, needing to vent themselves. Oh yes, Louis, they’ve been running hot and rancid like bad blood for too long now. Something that’s needed purging, a sore that’s needed lancing. Yes, my friend, things have been approaching critical mass for some time and I’ve been watching it happen. Critical mass has been reached and now comes savage fruition. All it took was a catalyst and do you know what that catalyst was?”

“It isn’t just this town, Earl. It’s the whole damn world.”