NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Mr. Fawkes’s white van was backed up askew and parked, taking up the whole width of Diddlie’s driveway. The doors are open, but a green tarp hides the interior, suspended like a curtain across the back to keep the rain out.
Mr. Fawkes’s white van was backed up askew and parked, taking up the whole width of Diddlie’s driveway. The doors are open, but a green tarp hides the interior, suspended like a curtain across the back to keep the rain out.
Red letters along each side read, “FAWKES, Expert Pyrotechnician available for hire at GuyPyro1605@sparkler.com” in an eccentric font designed to look like Elizabethan script. Underneath, in smaller Helvetica, “Alternative INTERESTING jobs accepted”.
Diddlie’s yellow slicker hangs off her like a tent. She folds her flip phone.
“What makes your yard work so interesting to Mr. Fawkes?”
“It’s not the work, sweetie, it’s me. If I do say so myself.”
“Oh, has a crush, does he?”
“Well, I hope NOT!”
“So, what then?”
“Just certain things, you know, sweetie.”
“I don’t know.”
We both look up as the unexpected sun cast our shadows on the moss and leaves at our feet.
“Glad it stopped raining”
Diddlie pulls on my sleeve.
“I think you have an idea, honey.”
“Honey, sweetie, you are trying to distract me with endearments.”
“Not at all, Fred.”
“Well, you are not telling me much.”
“We have been friends for what? ten years or more. You know what I do.”
“You somehow gather goldenrod, in full bloom, throughout the year and store it in that bomb shelter your husband built during the cold war.”
“He doesn’t know anything about that!”
“You mean it is your scintillating personality!”
“No sarcasm please.”
“Sorry, frustration got the better of me.”
“Okay, he’s come to fix the fence around my compost heap.”
“That’s what he finds so interesting?”,
“Look, over there, the wire fence, part covered in ivy, rusting out and three of the fence posts are leaning way over.”
“So that’s what it is!”
“What do you mean?”
“I have noticed that thing before and took it for the remains of an animal cage.”
“My raked leaves, grass clippings, used teabags and coffee grounds and filters, all go on there.”
“You are caffeinating the soil!”
“Only when it rains.”
“Must be a strong brew.”
“You think so?”
“Right, hyper-active worms help the composting process!”
“No comment.”
“Oh, it is just you and the earthworms then?”
“Oh, Come on! What is it with you today?”
“It’s my inner absurdist.”
“Well, don’t let him out right now, okay?”
“It’s involuntary I am afraid.”
Diddlie wanders off slowly, towards her carport.
“Come on! nothing to fear! Anyway, the mixture was too strong for the goats I guess.”
“What goats?”
“My husband, Stuart, planned to get some goats when we first came.”
“Did you ever get them?”
“Yeah, Sun and Shade only stayed for a few days.”
“Were they a couple?”
“Right, Sun was the female and Shade was the guy.”
“They hardly had time to learn the lie of the land.”
“Yes, they did. They ate most of the neighbor’s vegetable patch on the third day and then we lost them both for nearly twenty-four hours until animal rescue called us to pick them up.”
We stroll over to her carport together and look in on Mr. Liddell. He has half-buried himself in straw. His ears are lying back, and he blinks once and takes no notice.
“You should have fenced in the yard!”
Light rain has resumed, tapping lightly on Diddlie’s bright yellow ‘tent’.
“We did, but they got out by munching through a holly bush to get at the vege. next door.”
“Why was there no fence there?”
“It was about fifty years old. It was so thick you couldn’t even see through it. It was the biggest fence we had!”
“Where did you put the goats after animal rescue called?”
“We gave Sun and Shade to my friend Hank James. He has lots of grass over on the Eastern Shore.”
“What a shame, you had to get rid of your primary lawnmowers!”
“We had to compensate the neighbors with expensive produce from the farm market.”
“Sounds like a neighborly agreement, no court costs.”
We are back behind the carport, where we started. Where Diddlie can watch Mr. Fawkes at work.
“This was long before that grotesque hodgepodge of architectural styles, went up.”
Diddlie points next door. Mr. Fawkes approaches. His khaki bib overalls stained with soot and wet up to the knees. He removes his dark brown Akubra Cattleman Hat and shakes the moisture off it.
“You get taller every time I see you!”
“Haven’t grown a millimeter since I was seventeen. Left Australia at the height of one point nine meters.”
“Well, you can always volunteer as a lighthouse!”
“I prefer ornamental explosives.”
“Yeah, right! What is going on in my compost heap?”
“Diddlie, you’ve got a pond there, not a compost heap!”
“I do? Sorry, I thought it was a pile of dead leaves and the black snake I told you about.”
“No snake, it’s winter, just subsidence, Did, a whole lot of it.”
“You mean like a sinkhole?”
“Come see.”
We follow Fawkes’s long stride through ivy, past greenbrier climbing Japanese Honeysuckle, and some Wisteria winding up the trunk of a mature sweet gum in python’s coils.
“It must be the old septic tank.”
“So, what’s this doing in there?”
Mr. Fawkes holds up a large wiring harness clogged with sweet gum leaves, sticky balls and several teabags with rusty staples attached.”
“Look at those teabags! They must be made of plastic!”
“Fred, I stopped using anything but paper ones, two years ago.”
Mr. Fawkes is raking a pile of leaves, twigs, and muck with his garden fork.
He uncovers a smashed flat screen, a circuit board with color-coded elements soldered all over it, resembling feasting insects. Sparkes fly as he rakes further, and he drops the fork at once.
“That’s a live cable for God’s sake!”
“I’ll call the utilities.”
“No Fred! Don’t call anyone.”
“This is dangerous.”
“I know but he will take care of it.”
Mr. Fakwes goes back to his van and steps up behind his green curtain.
Diddlie is trying to use her flip phone.
She drops it among the wet leaves. It bounces into the ivy spreading across the ground towards our feet, from the broken fence.
“This damn thing!”
“Here let me call.”
She seizes my arm.
“No, I need to use mine. Call my phone then we can hear where it is.”
We can see the screen light up a foot away, towards the fence. As Diddlie steps forward to pick it up, the phone flashes and smokes.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Mr. Fawkes is back with a device on the end of a long pole. He holds it with thick leather gauntlets like those used by the utility company technicians.
“Stand by, Did.”
He pokes the end of the pole into the heap he made with his garden fork and moves a telescoping section of the pole back and forth, near his hands. There is a low hum then a series of pops. Steam and smoke rise out of the pile.
“Ahha! Just as I thought!”
Mr. Fawkes withdraws his probe.
“That ‘ll fix them.”
“Fix whom?”
Diddlie turns back toward the driveway. We can hear the rapid clicking turnover of a heavy diesel engine.
“Who is this?”
“Oh! I didn’t even try to call them.”
“Maybe Mr. Fawkes did?”
“No way!”
Diddlie runs towards the driveway, stumbling over a broken cinderblock half-hidden in the ivy vines. An unmarked Orange truck has pulled up opposite the driveway with a cherry picker on the back, obstructing Mr. Fawkes exit. Next to them is Urban Safety and Security Solutions, in their black Chevy Suburban, blocking Bailes Lane completely. A man holding an assault rifle, waves from the front passenger window and steps out. The driver’s window cracks open.
“Hi there.”
“What is he doing in the Security truck?”
“We just gave him a ride, Mrs. Drates.”
The driver’s window hums down all the way.
“Hi, Irma Standov, Urban Safety, and Security Solutions.”
“Hi, I am Diddlie Drates, as you seem to know. I don’t remember calling anyone.”
“Ah no, we just got a signal.”
“Aha, and what made you come by my house?”
“Nothing to worry about. Thought a line might be down.”
“You did, did you? and where were you last month, when that big storm knocked out my power for forty-eight hours?”
“We were real, busy.”
“Well, my power is fine right now, thank you.”
The Rifleman strolls over towards the compost heap, weapon at the ready.
“Hey there!”
He turns around and comes back. Diddlie accosts him while he puts his assault rifle in the truck and starts again.
“Where do you think you are going?”
He looks back again.
“Just going to check things out. Wouldn’t want you to get electrocuted, now.”
“Come back here! You have no right to walk across my property!”
“Mrs. Drates, I am with the Fauxmont Militia. We are here to protect you!”
“I only see one Militia person and one rent-a-cop person. So, what’s with this, ‘We’?”
“I am a team member Ma’am.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He kicks his way out of the ivy back to the driveway.
“I have all the help I need, Mr. ah, what’s your name?”
“Rombout, Ma’am, Sargent Rombout, Fauxmont Militia, keeping you and your community safe since 2013.”
The orange truck with cherry picker revs up as if to ready escape and soon rattles down Oval Street hill, past the Trip mansion. It breaks with a screeching lurch at the stop sign on the corner.
“Why don’t you follow that truck on out of here?”
“Because Ma’am, Mr. Fawkes isn’t qualified to fix your problem, and we have the resources to help you.”
“I don’t know what this is about, but I suggest you find my neighbor Jake Trip,”
She points next door, where an orange tank truck from Dordrechts Group, appears to be pumping something out of the Trip’s garage.
“He started all this security malarkey. Talk to him.”
“Mr. Trip is not available right now, but you can be sure we shall get with him as soon as possible.”
Mr. Fawkes walks over to his van. Puts away his pole, closes the back door and tries to pull out of the driveway. Finding the SUV in his way he blasts his horn and
leans out of his window.
“You mind moving over?”
Irma Standov, pulls forward to let him pass.
“Diddlie, you won’t have any more trouble today. I’ll call you about the rest tomorrow.”
“What about my phone?”
“Tomorrow!”
Fawkes drives off down Oval Street. Doesn’t stop at the corner stop sign and speeds out of sight along Wickett Street.
“If you must know, Mr. Fawkes and Stuart were going to start a business.”
“So, you go back a long way.”
“Yes, Guy has always been there for me since Stuart’s death. See, I am wearing his old slicker!”
Summary
Fred finds Diddlie standing outside her house watching Mr. Fawkes at work in her garden. She points out her compost heap with broken fence and goes on to tell Fred about two goats, Sun and Shade. Her husband Stuart brought them in, but they ate most of the neighbor’s vegetables, then disappeared. Stuart had to give them to Hank James, after Animal Rescue found them. Fawkes finds Diddlie’s compost heap has subsided. It is full of water and old electronics. Then he finds a live power line in the heap and probes it with a special tool. Diddlie drops her phone and it catches fire when Fred calls the number to help find it in the ivy leaves. Fred offers to call the power co. but D. stops him. Insisting on making the call herself. Urban Safety and Security Solutions arrive in a black Chevy Suburban with Sargent Rombout of the Fauxmont Militia in the passenger seat. There is no explanation for their arrival or the arrival of an unmarked orange truck with Cherry Picker. A tank truck from Dordrechts Group is parked by the Trip’s garage. Irma Standov only says they got a signal. Diddlie gets contentious and tells them to leave. Fawkes packs up his probe and askes Irma to move out of his way so he can drive off. He tells Diddlie he will be back, and she won’t have any more trouble. D. tells fred Stuart and Gay were planning to start a business when Stuart died, and Guy has “been there for her ever since”.
Red letters along each side read, “FAWKES, Expert Pyrotechnician available for hire at GuyPyro1605@sparkler.com” in an eccentric font designed to look like Elizabethan script. Underneath, in smaller Helvetica, “Alternative INTERESTING jobs accepted”.
Diddlie’s yellow slicker hangs off her like a tent. She folds her flip phone.
“What makes your yard work so interesting to Mr. Fawkes?”
“It’s not the work, sweetie, it’s me. If I do say so myself.”
“Oh, has a crush, does he?”
“Well, I hope NOT!”
“So, what then?”
“Just certain things, you know, sweetie.”
“I don’t know.”
We both look up as the unexpected sun cast our shadows on the moss and leaves at our feet.
“Glad it stopped raining”
Diddlie pulls on my sleeve.
“I think you have an idea, honey.”
“Honey, sweetie, you are trying to distract me with endearments.”
“Not at all, Fred.”
“Well, you are not telling me much.”
“We have been friends for what? ten years or more. You know what I do.”
“You somehow gather goldenrod, in full bloom, throughout the year and store it in that bomb shelter your husband built during the cold war.”
“He doesn’t know anything about that!”
“You mean it is your scintillating personality!”
“No sarcasm please.”
“Sorry, frustration got the better of me.”
“Okay, he’s come to fix the fence around my compost heap.”
“That’s what he finds so interesting?”,
“Look, over there, the wire fence, part covered in ivy, rusting out and three of the fence posts are leaning way over.”
“So that’s what it is!”
“What do you mean?”
“I have noticed that thing before and took it for the remains of an animal cage.”
“My raked leaves, grass clippings, used teabags and coffee grounds and filters, all go on there.”
“You are caffeinating the soil!”
“Only when it rains.”
“Must be a strong brew.”
“You think so?”
“Right, hyper-active worms help the composting process!”
“No comment.”
“Oh, it is just you and the earthworms then?”
“Oh, Come on! What is it with you today?”
“It’s my inner absurdist.”
“Well, don’t let him out right now, okay?”
“It’s involuntary I am afraid.”
Diddlie wanders off slowly, towards her carport.
“Come on! nothing to fear! Anyway, the mixture was too strong for the goats I guess.”
“What goats?”
“My husband, Stuart, planned to get some goats when we first came.”
“Did you ever get them?”
“Yeah, Sun and Shade only stayed for a few days.”
“Were they a couple?”
“Right, Sun was the female and Shade was the guy.”
“They hardly had time to learn the lie of the land.”
“Yes, they did. They ate most of the neighbor’s vegetable patch on the third day and then we lost them both for nearly twenty-four hours until animal rescue called us to pick them up.”
We stroll over to her carport together and look in on Mr. Liddell. He has half-buried himself in straw. His ears are lying back, and he blinks once and takes no notice.
“You should have fenced in the yard!”
Light rain has resumed, tapping lightly on Diddlie’s bright yellow ‘tent’.
“We did, but they got out by munching through a holly bush to get at the vege. next door.”
“Why was there no fence there?”
“It was about fifty years old. It was so thick you couldn’t even see through it. It was the biggest fence we had!”
“Where did you put the goats after animal rescue called?”
“We gave Sun and Shade to my friend Hank James. He has lots of grass over on the Eastern Shore.”
“What a shame, you had to get rid of your primary lawnmowers!”
“We had to compensate the neighbors with expensive produce from the farm market.”
“Sounds like a neighborly agreement, no court costs.”
We are back behind the carport, where we started. Where Diddlie can watch Mr. Fawkes at work.
“This was long before that grotesque hodgepodge of architectural styles, went up.”
Diddlie points next door. Mr. Fawkes approaches. His khaki bib overalls stained with soot and wet up to the knees. He removes his dark brown Akubra Cattleman Hat and shakes the moisture off it.
“You get taller every time I see you!”
“Haven’t grown a millimeter since I was seventeen. Left Australia at the height of one point nine meters.”
“Well, you can always volunteer as a lighthouse!”
“I prefer ornamental explosives.”
“Yeah, right! What is going on in my compost heap?”
“Diddlie, you’ve got a pond there, not a compost heap!”
“I do? Sorry, I thought it was a pile of dead leaves and the black snake I told you about.”
“No snake, it’s winter, just subsidence, Did, a whole lot of it.”
“You mean like a sinkhole?”
“Come see.”
We follow Fawkes’s long stride through ivy, past greenbrier climbing Japanese Honeysuckle, and some Wisteria winding up the trunk of a mature sweet gum in python’s coils.
“It must be the old septic tank.”
“So, what’s this doing in there?”
Mr. Fawkes holds up a large wiring harness clogged with sweet gum leaves, sticky balls and several teabags with rusty staples attached.”
“Look at those teabags! They must be made of plastic!”
“Fred, I stopped using anything but paper ones, two years ago.”
Mr. Fawkes is raking a pile of leaves, twigs, and muck with his garden fork.
He uncovers a smashed flat screen, a circuit board with color-coded elements soldered all over it, resembling feasting insects. Sparkes fly as he rakes further, and he drops the fork at once.
“That’s a live cable for God’s sake!”
“I’ll call the utilities.”
“No Fred! Don’t call anyone.”
“This is dangerous.”
“I know but he will take care of it.”
Mr. Fakwes goes back to his van and steps up behind his green curtain.
Diddlie is trying to use her flip phone.
She drops it among the wet leaves. It bounces into the ivy spreading across the ground towards our feet, from the broken fence.
“This damn thing!”
“Here let me call.”
She seizes my arm.
“No, I need to use mine. Call my phone then we can hear where it is.”
We can see the screen light up a foot away, towards the fence. As Diddlie steps forward to pick it up, the phone flashes and smokes.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Mr. Fawkes is back with a device on the end of a long pole. He holds it with thick leather gauntlets like those used by the utility company technicians.
“Stand by, Did.”
He pokes the end of the pole into the heap he made with his garden fork and moves a telescoping section of the pole back and forth, near his hands. There is a low hum then a series of pops. Steam and smoke rise out of the pile.
“Ahha! Just as I thought!”
Mr. Fawkes withdraws his probe.
“That ‘ll fix them.”
“Fix whom?”
Diddlie turns back toward the driveway. We can hear the rapid clicking turnover of a heavy diesel engine.
“Who is this?”
“Oh! I didn’t even try to call them.”
“Maybe Mr. Fawkes did?”
“No way!”
Diddlie runs towards the driveway, stumbling over a broken cinderblock half-hidden in the ivy vines. An unmarked Orange truck has pulled up opposite the driveway with a cherry picker on the back, obstructing Mr. Fawkes exit. Next to them is Urban Safety and Security Solutions, in their black Chevy Suburban, blocking Bailes Lane completely. A man holding an assault rifle, waves from the front passenger window and steps out. The driver’s window cracks open.
“Hi there.”
“What is he doing in the Security truck?”
“We just gave him a ride, Mrs. Drates.”
The driver’s window hums down all the way.
“Hi, Irma Standov, Urban Safety, and Security Solutions.”
“Hi, I am Diddlie Drates, as you seem to know. I don’t remember calling anyone.”
“Ah no, we just got a signal.”
“Aha, and what made you come by my house?”
“Nothing to worry about. Thought a line might be down.”
“You did, did you? and where were you last month, when that big storm knocked out my power for forty-eight hours?”
“We were real, busy.”
“Well, my power is fine right now, thank you.”
The Rifleman strolls over towards the compost heap, weapon at the ready.
“Hey there!”
He turns around and comes back. Diddlie accosts him while he puts his assault rifle in the truck and starts again.
“Where do you think you are going?”
He looks back again.
“Just going to check things out. Wouldn’t want you to get electrocuted, now.”
“Come back here! You have no right to walk across my property!”
“Mrs. Drates, I am with the Fauxmont Militia. We are here to protect you!”
“I only see one Militia person and one rent-a-cop person. So, what’s with this, ‘We’?”
“I am a team member Mam.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He kicks his way out of the ivy back to the driveway.
“I have all the help I need, Mr. ah, what’s your name?”
“Rombout, Mam, Sargent Rombout, Fauxmont Militia, keeping you and your community safe since 2013.”
The orange truck with cherry picker revs up as if to ready escape and soon rattles down Oval Street hill, past the Trip mansion. It breaks with a screeching lurch at the stop sign on the corner.
“Why don’t you follow that truck on out of here?”
“Because Mam, Mr. Fawkes isn’t qualified to fix your problem, and we have the resources to help you.”
“I don’t know what this is about, but I suggest you find my neighbor Jake Trip,”
She points next door, where an orange tank truck from Dordrechts Group, appears to be pumping something out of the Trip’s garage.
“He started all this security malarkey. Talk to him.”
“Mr. Trip is not available right now, but you can be sure we shall get with him as soon as possible.”
Mr. Fawkes walks over to his van. Puts away his pole, closes the back door and tries to pull out of the driveway. Finding the SUV in his way he blasts his horn and
leans out of his window.
“You mind moving over?”
Irma Standov, pulls forward to let him pass.
“Diddlie, you won’t have any more trouble today. I’ll call you about the rest tomorrow.”
“What about my phone?”
“Tomorrow!”
Fawkes drives off down Oval Street. Doesn’t stop at the corner stop sign and speeds out of sight along Wickett Street.
“If you must know, Mr. Fawkes and Stuart were going to start a business.”
“So, you go back a long way.”
“Yes, Guy has always been there for me since Stuart’s death. See, I am wearing his old slicker!”
