So, here's what happened. I was substitute teaching 6th grade English. I was bored. The kids had a writing prompt (and some reading prompts questions, etc) that they were doing, so I joined in the fun, and this is what happened.
I chose the prompt, "Late one night my neighbor knocked on my door and asked.."
Shall we commence?
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Late one night my neighbor knocked on my door and asked "Have you seen my wife?" I quickly racked my brain, flipping between a myriad of images from my daily travels, trying to recall if I had stored an image of Herb's wife in my...
"Wait a second, Herb, you aren't married."
"Valid Point," Herb retorted, "but you can never be too sure these days." Before I had even a second to glean meaning from his comment, Herb grabbed my wrist and deftly yanked me out into the cool night, whilst maneuvering his other hand to my front door knob he pulled the door shut, hardly making a sound. Astonished, I gazed at Herb, at a loss for words, as my neighbor looked slowly back and fort, from one side of my lawn to the other.
"I'm not sure who I can trust," Herb started
"Herb," I interrupted, flustered, having just realized that now I was standing on my front stoop in the cool night air, in my pajamas, with my neighbor Herb, and began feeling quite embarrassed by this thought, "What's going on?" Herb hesitated, his eyes widened as he seemed to ponder what he was to say next. Then the color drained from his face, looking like a ghost he muttered three words
"I don't know." He looked positively disheveled. Unkempt really, his hair was a mess of brunette brambles, and I think I saw one of those burrs that you curse at when they kling to your pant legs.
"Where on Earth have you been Herb?" I asked soothingly, hoping to calm my clearly agitated, (and who knows?) potentially dangerous neighbor. Trying to take control of the situation I gestured back inside my home, hoping to have this bizarre conversation anywhere else but outside, at night, chilled now, in my pajamas. Hand on the know, I turned my wrist. But the knob stayed put. THAT'S IT! No longer was I going to placate Herb with pleasantries. He had locked me out of my house at this dreadful hour. Enraged I spun on my heels, ready to lambaste my neighbor with a very hurtful and tactless insult. But, to my amazement, and to the amazement of the woman walking her dog (and quickening her pace I might add) along the sidewalk, Herb had removed his pants. Not his shoes. Not his socks, just his pants.
"That's how they track you." He said, holding his pants up by a leg, looking at me, waiting, seemingly as if I was to follow his lead.
"Herb, I'm in my pajamas, on my front steps, it's 3:15 in the morning, maybe later, it's 42 degrees out here, maybe colder, I am not taking off my pants! Let them," I paused, hoping that repeating his ridiculously irrational fear to hi would knock some sense into his skull, "let them find me. Let, whoever they are, find me. But, if they find me, it will certainly be with my pants on!" Herb, looking puzzled for a moment, then bemused in another, calmly replied,
"Well, then we only have 52 minutes to do what needs to be done." Words would not do justice to the rage I was experiencing. This was outlandish, unreal, unforgivable. I now stood on my front step, in the cold night, in my pajamas, talking with my neighbor, who wasn't wearing pants (which he had just chucked into to the bushes) but was wearing shoes and socks, locked out of my house. I realized, I just wanted to go back to sleep. Let this whole thing be forgotten. Herb wasn't really an odd neighbor, honestly. Just yesterday I let him some hedge trimmers, and, like a normal person, he unsurprisingly used them to trim his hedges.
Actually, Herb was excellent at tending his lawn. Often, I was embarrassed of my own untidy landscape compared to his pristine lot. Where I had an overgrown set of bushes, Herb had well maintained azaleas, and other flowering plants and bushes I couldn't even pretend to name. Ultimately, this behavior Herb was exhibiting was quite unsettling, and seemed to be a vast departure from his normally calm, collected and pleasant self. He was a simple man in my opinion. In his late 40s, divorced years ago (he often refers to his ex-wife as the woman who could not forgive him his simplest mistakes), never remarried, and no kids. He mostly kept to himself, but; as I mentioned, was talented with the architecture of his landscape. I suppose he may have even had a career in it. Honestly, I wouldn't know, as I recently moved into this area, not two months ago.
Once, on a sick day from my job (I am an office worker, of the boring pushing paper variety) I observed Herb departing his driveway at 7:23 in the morning, presumably on his way to work, driving his nondescript, grey Ford Focus, mid 2000s model. So I can only assume he has a job, with mostly regular hours, and by all accounts, he had seemed to me, in our limited exchanges (a 'howdy neighbor' or 'looks like rain') to be of sound mind.
In my short time in this neighborhood I had hardly met more than a handful of people on the block, and remembered maybe half of their names...
LOCKED OUT! UGH! My wife took our two daughters to her mother's to celebrate Nana's birthday, I was stuck with a meeting late in the afternoon and had promised to catch up the next day (no way was I going to miss cake!). My keys! My car keys are, of course, locked inside. Cell phone as well. My life, locked in my house as I stare at amazement, oddly turning to amusement at my presumably, though now doubtfully sane neighbor, pleading with me to help him. He was mumbling something to himself about 'them' and 'we only have forty-seven and a half minutes left' but I was trying my best to tune him out and focus my mind at the task at hand. That task being, how was I going to dispatch my neighbor to leave me alone and figure out a way to get back inside my house.
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That's all I got for now.. hopefully more comes to me eventually (that is all I wrote that day when subbing, I suppose if I took a second, I might have some more to write on it.)
