These Children Who Come at You with Knives, and Other Fairy Tales by Jim Knipfel

Author:Jim Knipfel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tubercular Bells

Like all obsessions, Milton Fernhull’s began quietly. Milton was an assistant manager at an upscale housewares store who discovered the hard way that one of his neighbors had neglected (again) to pick up after his or her dog. It was the third time that week, and Milton had about had enough.

“I’ve about had enough of this crap,” he told his wife. “And I’m going to find out who’s responsible. The sidewalks around here are like minefields, and it’s getting worse every day.”

Since he usually stepped in dog poop in the mornings, he figured whoever the responsible party was must be walking the dog (or dogs, from the looks of it) at night. So that evening he set a chair in front of the window overlooking the street and waited.

For hours he waited and stared out the window before at last giving up and going to bed. Yet the next morning, sure enough, there was more dog poop than ever on the sidewalk. Beyond that, there were several splattered gobs of spit and a few splashes of vomit.

“This is insanity,” he told his wife that night. “It’s no way for people to live. If I’m going to catch this person, I’m going to have to stay up all night.”

His patient wife put on a pot of coffee. Milton took his seat by the window and waited all night, his ears straining to catch the tiniest jingle of a dog collar or click of dog nails on the concrete, the sound of someone retching or spitting—anything at all that would signal his sidewalk was about to be sullied. Come sunrise, he had neither heard nor seen anything. Yet an hour later, as he left for work bleary eyed and fuzzy headed, he found himself standing ankle deep in the biggest pile of dog poop he had ever seen.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the entire sidewalk in both directions had become a river of bodily fluids. Snot and puke and pus and bile and piss all flowed together in a thick noxious stream dotted with islands of shit. Great clouds of fat blackflies hung low over the flood, and even in the chill autumn air the unimaginable stench made Milton’s own gorge rise.

Confronted with such a nightmarish landscape, most men would have screamed or called the police or written a strong letter of complaint to the EPA. Not Milton, who had almost expected this.

He didn’t simply want to identify the culprit anymore. He wanted revenge. This was a malicious premeditated attack aimed at him

personally. He knew that. And whoever was responsible would pay.

That night, instead of waiting by the window, Milton stepped outside, crossed the street, and hid in a darkened, recessed doorway. From that vantage point he could see a good stretch of sidewalk in either direction. He would hide in that doorway as long as it took.

The streets were silent. Even the cars were asleep.

At the stroke of four, as Milton’s eyelids began to grow quite heavy, he caught a quick movement across the street to his left.

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