The Uncanny Reader (33 page)

More voices, laughter. Raucous laughter, and braying laughter. The wife was shocked, their
neighbors-through-the-trees
had not seemed like such—well, gregarious people. Until now they had seemed like an ideal family, well-bred, private.

The husband said, “Maybe it's a political fund-raiser. It sounds
large
.”

The husband detested noisy “fund-raisers” in the neighborhood. The husband had grown so contemptuous of politicians, even “conservative” politicians for whom he felt obliged to vote, in the effort of maintaining his accumulated investments and savings, the wife avoided bringing the subject up to him.

“I don't think it's that large. I think it's just—another family or two. An outdoor barbecue, in summer. I think they're just having
fun
.”

Not just one dog was barking, but at least two. And now came amplified music, some sort of rock, or—was it “rap”?

The husband turned away in disgust, and stomped back into the house. The wife remained for a few minutes, indecisive, listening.

How loud they are. But how happy-sounding.

*   *   *

“The Jesters.”

The husband must have been thinking aloud. For he hadn't addressed the wife, who was standing a few feet away, gardening implements in her gloved hands.

“What do you mean—‘the Jesters'?”

“That's their name: ‘Jester.'”

“I don't understand. Whose name?”

“Our neighbors through the trees.”

The husband gestured in disgust, in the direction of the woods. Already, on this weekday morning, though it wasn't yet noon, there was a barrage of noise coming through the trees: lawn mower, leaf blower, chain saw.

The wife said, faltering, “But—everyone in Crescent Lake has lawn work done. We have our lawn mowed and serviced. How is this different?”

“It is different. It is God-damned
louder.
”

The wife recoiled, the husband was being irrational. Surely the decibel level of the chain saw through the trees was no higher than that of the chain saws the husband had hired to trim away dead limbs from their own trees? (Of course, when the lawn crew was working on their large, sloping lawn, the husband and the wife made certain that they weren't at home.)

In any case it was too noisy, the wife had to concede, for she was trying to avoid a migraine headache, and nausea from medication, for her to work outside in the rose garden, which had suffered an onslaught of Japanese beetles and badly needed her care. She had wanted, too, to remove those tough little tendril-weeds from the terrace that poked up between the flagstones, giving it a shabby look.

Too noisy for the sensitive husband to remain on the terrace where he'd brought some of his
home office
work—his laptop, investment accounts, sheets of yellow paper on which he penciled notes.

(When the wife asked the husband about their finances, the husband tended to reply curtly. She understood that they had “lost some money” in stocks, but then—who in Crescent Farms had not? The wife did not dare to ask more of the husband who would interpret such questions as a critique of his ability to handle their finances, thus of his manhood.)

The husband who'd been restless in his
home office
now returned to the house. The wife shut all the windows, and turned on the air conditioning. And a ceiling fan in the husband's office that made a gentle whirring sound.

“The lawn crew won't be there much longer, I'm sure. Then I'll help you move outside again.”

The husband waved her away with a look of commingled disgust and dismay that pierced the wife to the heart.

*   *   *

“Those damned Jesters! What did I tell you!”

This day, mid-morning, a lovely day in late June, there came what sounded like raw adolescent voices, boys' voices, through the trees. And barking. (Two dogs: one with a deep-throated growling bark, the other a petulant miniature, a high-pitched excruciating yipping.)

And there came too as the husband and the wife listened in fascinated horror, a harsh sound of slapping against pavement. Slap-slap-
slap
.

“A basketball? They have one of those damned portable baskets in their driveway so their sons can practice basketball.”

“So soon!”

“What do you mean, ‘so soon'?”

The wife wasn't sure what she had meant. The words had sprung from her lips. Faltering she said, “They'd just been young children, it seemed. So recently.”

She was thinking
What has happened to the croquet set?

She was thinking
We forgot entirely about it! Croquet.

No longer could the husband linger on the terrace after breakfast where it was his habit to read the newspaper that so infuriated him but which he could not seem to resist—the
New York Times.

(The wife knew, the husband sent angry emails to the
Times
editorial page, at least once a week. The subjects of the emails ranged from politics to global warming, from taxes, “earmarks,” the President and the President's wife, to “sick cultures” in the Middle East and in the Far East.)

(The wife knew, the husband had sent angry complaints to the Crescent Lake Farms Homeowners Association. He had tried to call, but there was only voice-mail, which was never answered. And the email complaints were answered automatically, with a promise of “looking into the situation.”)

Often then in the days following, intermittently and unpredictably through the day, there came the sound of teenagers practicing basketball, playing amplified rap music, exchanging shouts. It seemed clear that the Jester children had visitors—the shouts were various, at times the several young voices were quite distinct.

No words, only just sounds. Raw brash crude sounds.

And the dogs' nonstop barking, that continued after the young people left, often into the night.

(Were the dogs tied outside? Were no other neighbors disturbed? How could the
neighbors-through-the-trees
fail to hear and be disturbed, themselves?)

(Wasn't it cruelty to animals, to keep dogs tied outside? Ignoring their barking in the night?)

It was astonishing to the wife and the husband, how loud these noises were; how
close-seeming.

“It's like they're just outside our house. They couldn't be any louder if they were inside our house.”

“Maybe—we should go away. Sooner than August.”

They'd planned two weeks on Nantucket Island, in August: in a rented house on the ocean, to which they'd been returning for decades. But the husband was furious at the suggestion of being
driven out of his own house, by neighbors.

“I wouldn't want to give them the satisfaction.”

“But they don't know anything about us—they don't know
us
.”

“They know that they have neighbors. They know that their noise must carry through the trees. And what of their neighbors on West Crescent Drive? You'd think that they would have complained by now.”

“Maybe they have. Maybe nothing came of it.”

“Listen!”—the husband lifted his hand.

For now, there was the sound of a younger child, crying. Or screaming. Sobbing, screaming, crying.

Other childish voices, shouts. The teenagers' raw-voiced shouts. Must have been a game of some kind involving physical contact.

And the dogs' barking. Louder.

The husband and the wife left their house, earlier than they'd planned for dinner in town. The husband could barely eat his food, the ignominy of being
driven away
from his own house was intolerable to him.

At least when they returned, the noise through the trees had abated.

Only nocturnal birds, bullfrogs and insects in the grass. And high overhead, a quarter-moon curved like a fingernail.

In gratitude and exhaustion, the husband and the wife slept that night, in their dreams twined in each other's arms.

*   *   *

“Listen!”—the husband threw down his newspaper, and heaved himself to his feet.

There came a child's cries, another time. Quite clearly, a girl's cries. Amid the coarser sound of boys' voices, laughter. And the barking dogs.

“But—where are you going?”

“Where do you think I'm going? Over there.”

“But—there's no way to get through. Is there?”

“It sounds like a child is being harassed. Or worse. I'm not going to just sit here on my ass, for Christ's sake.”

The wife followed close behind the husband. She had not seen him so agitated, so
activated,
in a long time.

They were descending the lawn, in the direction of the gate. The grass had been cut recently, not in horizontal rows but diagonally across the width of the lawn. The air smelled sweetly of mown grass, that had been taken away by the lawn crew.

Rarely opened, the gate was stuck in grass and dirt, and had to be shaken hard.

The husband was very excited. The wife felt light-headed with excitement, and dread.

For this was a violation of Crescent Farms protocol. No one ever approached a neighbor's house from the rear. It was rare that anyone “visited” a neighbor's house uninvited.

“There's a girl who's hurt. And that hysterical barking. Something is terribly wrong over there.”

“We should call 911.”

“We don't know their house number.”

“The police would find it. We could tell them the situation—approximately where the Jesters live…”

“‘Jesters' is not their name.”

“I
know that
. Of course, ‘Jesters' is not their name. We don't know their name.”

“And we don't know their address. We can't even describe their house.”

“But we know—”

The husband had managed to get the gate open. It was a surprise to see that, like the fence, it was badly rusted.

They made their way then into the thicket of trees, onto township property. Here were scrubby little trees and bushes and coarse weeds, thigh-high. And there was the median, where the power lines were, that looked as if it hadn't been mowed for weeks.

Somewhat hesitantly the husband and the wife made their way into the woods on the other side of the median. Here, there were many trees that appeared to be just partially alive, or wholly dead; there had been much storm damage, broken limbs and other debris heaped everywhere.

There were no paths into the woods, that they could discover. No one ever walked here. No children played here. It was not the habit of Crescent Farms children to wander in such places, as the generation of their grandparents had once done.

About fifty feet into the thicket, they encountered a fence. The six-foot fence belonging to their
neighbors-through-the-trees.

They were panting, very warm. They peered through the fence but could see nothing except trees.

The noises from their neighbors had abated, mostly. The girl had ceased crying. The other voices had vanished. Only a dog continued to bark, less hysterically.

“Maybe we'd better go back? We don't want to get lost.”

“
Lost!
We can't possibly get lost.”

The husband laughed incredulously. A swarm of gnats circled his damp face, his eyes glared at the wife like the eyes of a man sinking in quicksand.

“The fence is like our own. Unless we've gone in a circle, and it is our own fence.…”

“This isn't our fence, don't be ridiculous. Our property is behind us, on the other side of the median.”

“Yes, but…”

The fence did resemble their own fence. It was (possibly) not so old as their fence but it was rusted in places and had become loose and probably, if they could locate the gate, they could force the gate open, and step inside.

Hello! We are your neighbors on East Crescent Drive.

We don't want to disturb you but … We are concerned …

The husband held back now. The husband was having second thoughts about his mission now that the alarming noises seemed to have ceased.

Again the wife said maybe they should turn back?

It seemed an extreme measure, to approach their neighbors' house from the rear, like trespassers. To come up to their neighbors' house from the rear, uninvited.

For this would be
trespassing
and Crescent Lake Farms expressly forbade
trespassing.

*   *   *

The children called. One by one, in sequence.

As if the calls were planned.

First, Carrie. Then Tim. Then Ellen.

The husband told them that things were fine, more or less. Except for the God-damned
neighbors-through-the-trees.

The wife told them that things were fine, more or less. Except for the neighbors they'd never met, across the median on West Crescent Drive.

“For God's sake—Mom, Dad! Don't you have anything else to talk about except the neighbors?”

Their children were exasperated with them. Laughed at them. The husband was furious, and the wife was deeply wounded.

“But—you don't know what it's like, with these people. Your father is under such strain, I'm worried about his health.”

“What about your health, Mom? We're worried about
you
.”

And: “If you're unhappy there, you can move. The house is much too large for two people. The maintenance must be out of sight, especially in the winter … Mom? Are you listening?”

No. She wasn't listening.

Yes. She was listening, politely.

Into one of those retirement villages? Your father would never survive.

They explained that they were not unhappy in their house, which they loved. In fact they were
very happy
.

Only just upset, at times. By their
neighbors-through-the-trees
.