“Phil—ip?” Alex asked drawing his husband’s name out into two long syllables.
“A—lex?” Philip mimicked.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked though well aware of the answer.
“Looking out the window.” Philip said matter-of-factly.
Alex looked over his glasses and over the top of the book he was trying to finish reading before his book club met. “I can see that, dear.” he said although, over the top of his glasses, all his nearly blind eyes could really see was a Philip-colored blob near the light of the open window across the room. “Why are you staring out the window?”
“I'm not staring so much as glancing in a lingering fashion.” Philip did not even cast his eyes in Alex's direction.
“You are being a Gladys.” Alex said pressing his glasses back against the bridge of his nose so that Philip came into focus.
“Not so much.” Philip paused. “I just heard something.”
“Yes, well the neighbors are going to see you 'hearing something' if you lean any closer to the screen.” Turning his attention back to his book, Alex read, for the third time, a sentence he would soon have memorized. At least he could quote that sentence at the book club meeting.
“What do you think he's doing?” Philip mused.
With a sigh, Alex stuck his book marker in place.
“I couldn't say. Which one are you watching today?”
“I'm not watching... but it's Blondie. He's pulled his van up to his front door again. He keeps walking back and forth between the van and his house.”
“So he's loading something into it.” Alex said as if he were talking to an unreasonable toddler.
“He's not carrying anything.” Philip said. He finally looked away from the window. “And each time he goes in either direction, he looks both ways like he's crossing the street...” Then with the gravity of Sherlock Holmes revealing a startling deduction, he added, “Or checking to see if anyone is watching him.”
“Someone IS watching him.”
Philip rolled his eyes. “He can't see me.”
“Don't be too sure. I think you have a waffle pattern on the end of your nose from the screen.”
Philip’s fingers touched the end of his nose self-consciously before he could stop himself. He looked daggers at Alex. “Well, this is my neighborhood. I'm being vigilant.”
Alex shook his head. “You’re being Gladys Kravitz. Someday a Samantha Stephens is going to put a whammy on you for it.”
“Do you think he's hiding drugs in his van? Maybe he's going to take them downtown to sell them; but in order to be safe if the cops stop him, he's hiding them in various places around the interior of the van.”
“I'm sure that's it.”
“Your sarcasm is far from helpful.” Philip said with a trace of testiness.
“Why would I help you surveil the neighbors?”
“We live in a neighborhood watch area.”
“Ah! And you're doing your civic duty?” Alex asked dryly.
“There's that sarcasm again. Blondie is home all day, every day. He lives in that big house alone; we think.” Philip paused and pulled a face. “He could have someone tied up in the basement!” He shook his head dismissing the thought. “When does he work? How does he make a living? It's drugs. I’d lay odds.”
“Odd is a good word, but I’d apply it to you. He probably works from home, Mrs. Kravits. Leave the poor guy alone.”
“I’m going to mosey upstairs.” Philip said as if the idea had just occurred to him. “Maybe surf the Net.” He headed for the stairs.
“Yes, the view IS better from the bedroom.” Alex called after him. “Goodluck Gladys!”
Two days later on the way home from a movie, Philip swerved the car at the last minute narrowly missing a lamppost.
“I knew I should have driven.” Alex said unclenching his hands from the sides of his seat cushion.
“Sorry.” Philip said. “Lighted windows draw my attention. I can’t help it.”
“You could just not look, Gladys,” Alex offered.
“I said I can’t help it!”
“Well, then don’t steer toward what you’re looking at!”
“I can’t help that either.”
With a healthy heaping of snark and an equal measure of emphasis, Alex said, “Then just don’t look!”
Philip changed the subject, “Speaking of being a Gladys…and I’m NOT—”
Alex rolled his eyes, but kept his counsel.
Philip continued, “I repeat: not being a Gladys…Madame Mayor—”
“I wish you wouldn’t call her that.” Alex interrupted. “Sometime I am going to slip and call her that to her face. She’s the only one of our neighbors we actually speak to on a regular basis. You know her name is Madeleine; call her Madeleine.”
Philip sighed, “She acts like the Mayor of the neighborhood. It’s more fun to call them all by nicknames.”
“You mean it makes it easier for you to imagine our neighbors are engaged in outlandish behavior if we don’t call them by their real names.”
Philip pouted, “Have you always been this un-fun?” After a micro-pause he continued with his story, “Anyway, Madame Mayor Madeleine had some type of meeting at her place yesterday after you left for work.”
“I should never leave you alone in the house.” Alex massaged the bridge of his nose and considered ways he could change his work schedule to always be able to run interference between his nosy husband and their innocent neighbors.
“Quiet.” Philip admonished. “I have to keep you abreast of events in the neighborhood.”
“By all means.” Alex said with a flip of his wrist. “Breast me.”
“So I was putting out the mail when a car pulled up across the street from Madame Mayor’s house. Three grey-haired women got out and seemed to sneak up to the house—”
“'Seemed to sneak'?” Alex broke in.
“Yeah, they were moving all slow and cautious, looking every which way.”
“Well if they were older ladies, they would move slowly and cautiously crossing the street.” Alex offered sensibly. “Especially our street; people drive like their tailpipes are on fire.”
“Yeah, well several of these ladies were carrying long, thin boxes. The window was open and I know I heard them muttering to each other.” Philip turned to look at Alex and the car headed for the roadside drainage ditch.
“The road! The road!” Alex pointed in a panic.
Philip corrected and then continued meaningfully, “I know I heard one of them say ‘Mafia’. I bet they had guns in those boxes.”
Alex stared disbelievingly at Philip.
Philip nodded sagely and the car swerved again.
Alex corrected the car’s trajectory himself with a nudge to the steering wheel, pointed to the road with a jab of his forefinger, and said, “Oh YES! I’ve heard of them. The Blue Hair Mafia!”
“Really?” Philip asked believing for only a second. “Oh, you’re joking.”
“No. No. No.” Alex said facetiously. “Surely you’ve heard of Cosa Bonviva!”
“You’ve really perfected this sarcasm thing.”
“You inspire me.” Alex crossed his arms and turned toward his hubbie. “All kidding and sarcasm aside, one day one of our neighbors is going to catch you. They may not take too kindly to your prying into their business… or making up outlandish stories about them.”
“How do you KNOW the stories are so far off the mark?”
“Dayton might have its share of crime… but the odds are against there being Mafia, white slavers, a serial killer, kidnappers, and drug runners operating out of the one block radius around our house.”
“You don’t watch the news do you?”
Alex patted Philip’s shoulder. “Thank you. You are the most amusing person I have ever known.” He smiled and pointed to the road once more.
The next morning Alex knelt over the remains of a diseased rose plant in the side yard. Its stems were brown and brittle but no less prickly. He was trying to figure out how to get it out of the flowerbed without disturbing the healthy plants on either side of it when he heard the back door open and close.
“Hey.” Philip said as he walked by. “I think I’m going for a short stroll.”
Alex dug around a mesh of roots trying to figure which belonged to the dead rose. “Ehh.” he said not totally registering what Philip had said.
“Back before too long.”
“K,” Alex grabbed the garden shears and snipped. He heard the gate clang… and then the word stroll connected to the word exercise in his head, and neither of those connected with Philip in any meaningful way. Philip, who had the metabolism of a hummingbird, thought of exercise as something that happened to other people. “Crap!” Alex tossed the shears aside. “Philip!” he yelled. When he got no answer, he called again, gave up, and headed for the gate.
By the time Alex made it to the front yard, Philip was making his way down the sidewalk with the studied nonchalance of a four year-old approaching an unguarded birthday cake. “Hey! Where are you going?”
“For a little walk.” Philip said innocently. “Is there anything wrong with that?”
“Cut the bologna and come home,” Alex stopped planting his feet with some finality, but Philip continued down the street.
“I saw something…” Philip said quietly without turning.
“Well, you shouldn’t have been looking, AND I’m sure whatever you saw is, in actuality, nothing like what you have formulated in your head.”
Philip stopped behind a tall hedge which straddled the property line between their next-door neighbor’s, who Philip unkindly called “the Joads” after the Grapes of Wrath family, and Madeleine’s. He peered through a break in the foliage.
Alex scanned the street behind them praying none of the other neighbors were out and witnessing this blatant act of domestic spying. “Will you stop peeping at Madeleine’s house and come home with me before someone sees you and calls the cops.” Alex crept forward and looked over Philip’s shoulder in time to see Madeleine’s front door slam closed. “Was that her?” Alex said grabbing Philip’s shoulder. “Did she see you out here?”
“Hush!” Philip said. “I told you I saw something. I just want to check it out.” He bent over so that he wouldn’t be visible from Madeleine’s house and made his way along the hedge row.
“Where are you going?” Alex whispered urgently. When Philip didn't answer, he bent double himself and followed his husband up the hill. He got to the top just in time to see Philip slip through the hedge. Alex dove in after him and was further shocked, though he would not have thought it possible, to see Philip crouching just under one of Madeleine’s downstairs windows. “Philip, get back here!” he hissed.
Philip made a shooing motion behind his back with one of his hands, and slowly stood to peer over the sill and into Madeleine’s window.
Alex crab-crawled forward and yanked Philip to the ground. “I am going to make sure you are placed in psychiatric care as soon as I get you home.” He turned to see Philip had one finger of his right hand raised commanding quiet. His left hand cupped his cell phone against his ear.
Alex could hear one ring through the cell line. Then Philip nodded curtly and said, “I’d like to report a home invasion.”
“Is that 911?” Alex shouted while trying desperately to also whisper. “Hang up! Hang up!”
Philip ignored him. “5562 Downeybrooke Road. Hurry please.”
“Don’t give them your—”
“Philip Varley. Yes, ma’am, I live just up the street.”
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe YOU.”
As he closed the connection, Philip said, “Will you stow it for once?”
“It’s one thing for you to make these stories up in our house, but to call the police? How are we going to explain this to them? To Madeleine?” At the sound of approaching sirens, Alex buried his head in his cupped hands. Without warning, an ear numbing bang shook the house at his back. Alex looked up. Two large men scrambled along Madeleine’s front walk nearly tripping down her stone steps. They threw themselves into a van at the curb that Alex hadn’t noticed on his approach.
The tires squealed and smoked before the van shot off up the street. It didn’t get a chance to turn the corner, a police car rounded on to Downeybrooke. The van slammed into reverse, but the cars parked on either side of the street didn’t allow for easy turn-arounds. Both doors flew open, and the two burley men hopped out before the vehicle had even stopped. They headed for the bushes up near Philip and Alex’s house.
Alex became aware that his mouth was hanging open, and he closed it with a quiet snap. “How—” was all he could manage.
The right side of Philip’s mouth quirked up as did his right eyebrow. “I was passing the window in the upstairs hall when I happened to notice the van in the street. It sat there for a long time before the guys got out. They didn’t look familiar nor did they like people Madam Mayor would be chummy with. I didn’t actually know anything until I looked in her window.” With a flick of his thumb, he indicated the one he’d just peeked in. “I saw one of them restraining Madam Mayor while the other pounded his fist into his palm.”
There was some distant cursing. They peeked through the hedge to see the two guys face down on their lawn with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Philip smiled. “I better go talk to the police. You want to check on Madam Mayor?”
Alex pursed his lips and squinted his hardest stare at his husband.
“Madeleine.” Philip conceded. “Do you want to go make sure Madeleine is all right?”
“Thank you.” Alex said. “And yes; I’ll see how Madeleine is. You go talk to the officers before they start pounding on our front door looking for you. That would terrify the cats.”
With the widest of smiles, Philip said, “See. No Gladys. Just Helpful Neighbor.”
Alex smiled back and clapped Philip on the shoulder as Philip turned toward their house. “Yes, ok. You were definitely a helpful neighbor today, but you, sir, are absolutely POSITIVELY Gladys every day!”
“Do you think this attack is in retaliation for something the Blue Hair Mafia did last—”
“GO!” Alex said with a smile; he pointed up the street. As he rounded the corner of Madeleine’s house, he shook his head. He knew he would never live this down; and, for good or bad, Gladys was here to stay.