No more smash hits

This might look like the Tree of Life, but it's actually an attempt at taking a photo of our broken window that I keep telling you about:

Dear diary,

On Monday night, something crashed into the main front window of our house and broke the outer pane of glass. I wrote about it in my 29 July 2020 entry. It’s now early Saturday, before sunrise, as I write this present entry; so not even a full week has passed after that traumatic time-nick. I haven’t been able to sleep well, since the event, because I keep expecting the crash to re-happen. There’s nothing worse than being awakened from peaceful slumber by the noise of a window breaking — it’s the cliché prelude to every murder scene that TV dramas ever dreamt.

I hope that my fear of its recurrence is absurd. When my sweetheart & I go for our daily walk around the neighborhood, we look carefully at all the windows of the other houses — so far, we’ve seen no other home with any broken windows.

But we did see one note pinned to our neighborhood’s bulletin board: a man who lives on the street behind ours posted a public service announcement where he described damage to his “storm glass” (that’s just what he called it) which he sez happened on exactly the same night. – So, when I saw this, I discarded my theory about our own break being caused by a bat, or by local wildlife: Now I believe that both windows were acts of vandalism.

& that scares me much more. For if it’s just clumsy animals bashing into one’s house because they lose themselves in the bliss of the hunt for bugs, then although it’s still frightening to be shocked awake by the noise of breakage, one can reasonably assume that there was no offense intended. Whereas with vandalism, that’s precisely the point: to offend with extreme prejudice (as they say in the military).

And then the question becomes: Did the culprit know that he was hitting Bryan Ray’s house? Or was it a random act, done without malice aforethought (as they say in the manslaughter industry)?

Cuz if it was just some stray youths roaming aimlessly and picking up rocks that they found on the roadside, and tossing them at whatever house happens to be near, then the anxiety that I feel about this deed decreases considerably — for it seems unlikely that it’ll happen again soon, if it was just an urge of feckless kids; plus it’s nice to know that you weren’t singled out from among your fellow neighbors as a person who deserves to be terrorized: instead, the misfortune just happened to land on your home residence, the way that lightning simply happens to bolt what it chars: it doesn’t choose who to strike — its only concern is that its recipient is an infidel.

But I wonder why they would have hit my house, even if they weren’t thinking much about it. What I mean is this:

If you’re just strolling along the boulevard after midnight without any plan, and you pick up a small stone, on a whim, and you hold this stone, and let it roll around in your palm while you continue to walk, because you like the feel of the stone — its coolness and contours — and then you reach the bend toward Bryan’s street and stroll a little further, pleased with life and contemplating your future possibilities; until you reach the house where Bryan happens to live, and here, just because the moment now feels right, you toss this stone at the large glass window, which expands directly before you...

What would Freud say was going on inside your mind, backstage, behind its curtains?

Freud’s report sez that you vandalized Bryan’s house because it reminded you of the house where you yourself were raised.

Further down in Freud’s report, Freud reveals that you sling-shooters who are willing to cast the first stone have a distaste for poverty; and since Bryan’s house is the dowdiest on the block, you decided that it would be good to cause it some harm, so that its owner gets the message:

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Sirrah; make your shack more presentable, lest worse come to worst…”

That’s what Freud sez you were thinking. It’s all right here in the official report, copies of which are available with a subscription to “Psycho Thots dot Fib” — just click the “Truth” button.

What I’m trying to get at is this persistent feeling I have, which keeps crying: “Why me?” For when I consider the appearance of all the houses in my area, and I envy their intact windows and their fine landscaping, I can’t help but think: If any of THESE places had got struck, there would at least be some semblance of Robin-Hood Justice about it; or it would remind society of how the members of the plebeian class resent their masters & creditors, and they wish to demolish all property and feed its owners to the guillotine. But what sense does it make to affront the poorest-looking house on the street? You might be assuming “Ah, it’s no big deal — the place is probably insured, thus the damage will get repaired easily.” Yet let me yell to inform you: I can barely pay my deductible! (And it’s hard to get glass-repair-folk to embark on a house-call during the plague.)

Another fret that continues popping up in my mind is shamefully paranoid:

I keep wondering if maybe a team of federal law enforcement officers might have gathered round their spy radio, tuned its frequency to The Bryan Ray Show, and overheard me say something like:

“If only we would structure the economy so that ALL people’s basic needs are met, no matter what, then we would see violent crime go extinct, for people are naturally peaceful when they’re physically secure.”

For, at this point, the team of Feds who are listening to me would collectively gasp, having all drawn the same conclusion from my radio speech – they would think:

“Ay me! If those who are physically secure are naturally peaceful, then meeting people’s basic needs will lead to a world that no longer desires a heavily militarized police force!”

Now I imagine all these federal officers will stand upright from their seats at the round-table, at the very same instant; then finish their coffee (they’re all drinking coffee out of those little white styrofoam cups), and slide down the fire-pole, one at a time (why does a police station have a fireman’s pole? — is it cuz the budgets are now so small that all these agencies must share supplies?) & finally exit the building and march in the direction of my house:

The Feds hide behind the big maple tree in my front yard and wait until dusk. Then, under cover of darkness, they sneak over to the mulch-bed near my main front window, and they cast lots to see which one of them gets to do the dirty deed: “Let us deliver a HINT about how important law enforcement IS; cuz if you REALLY don’t need us policemen, then WHO are you gonna come CRYING to when your window gets SMASHED by a potential murderous THIEF who comes in the night like CHRIST to steal your SOUL!” — Or actually their exact words were “Let’s send this little punk a nonverbal message, loud & clear”.

So they cast lots, and the lot falls upon Officer Jonah, whose badge number is 1:7.

Thus Officer Jonah labors down to his knees and rummages thru all the interestingly shaped chips of wood in the mulch-bed at Bryan’s house, until he finds a silver ball-bearing, which he places in his pocket as a souvenir, and then he digs a little more amid the mulch and eventually unearths a GLORIOUS, GLITTERING SWORD; then he labors back up to his feet, with the help of Officer Tarshish and Officer Joppa, each of whom hold one of Jonah’s arms to heft his bulk and help him balance (Officer Jonah is as big as a whale; and he happens to be pale white — practically an albino). And Jonah now lifts up his glittering sword unto the heavens, at the crack of 1:20 a.m., and exclaims in a loud voice: “My son, my son! Why have you escaped from me!” & then Officer Jonah thrusts the hilt against the front window of Bryan’s house, and it makes a hole in the outermost pane of glass. Then the Federal agents skedaddle.

[Sic: I really did mean “hilt”. Selah.]

Now, as they flee from the scene, Officer Tarshish yells over his shoulder:

“Take THAT, Bryan — you can run, but you cannot hide, from the Powers that Be!”

& Officer Joppa adds: “Yes! Beware the Prince of the Air, who is the God of this World!!!”

But I don’t hear either of these last two remarks, because I’m busy sleuthing around my house, trying to figure out what made that crashing noise.

II:
What if it really was a catburglar?

[Now I wanna end this entry by imagining what would have happened if the being who broke my exterior pane had not stopped there but actually proceeded to break the inner part of the house’s main window as well, because she was trying to get rich quick by robbing me blind.]

So, after hearing the crash, I climb out of bed and cautiously begin to scour my house for clues. I’m down on all fours (just like Officer Jonah, in Part I of this entry, when he was trespassing thru my mulch-bed); suddenly my head bonks into a wooden pole. I look up: it’s the coat rack. “Ah!” I say, “Good idea.” So I stand up and retrieve my trench coat and fedora, so that I look like an official detective. This helps me to search better. I head into the front room and see glass shards all over the floor.

“Hello there,” sez Mrs. Evilman.

“Bat Woman? Is that you?” I ask, perplexed.

“No, this black suit signifies that I am a cat-burglar,” she sez. “But that’s a good guess. I take it as a compliment.”

“Are you here to steal my stuff?” I say. “If so, you’re out of luck, for I don’t have many possessions. Mostly books and a few DVDs of old films that I like. I’m really sorry about this — I would’ve bought more luxuries and had some containers of jewelry set out, if I had known that you were coming...”

“No, that’s OK,” sez Mrs. Evilman the cat-burglar. “I had heard of you, thru rumors that are spreading around town right now — people say that you’re an old eccentric buffon & a mad scientist who reads poetry all day — but now that I’ve seen you with my eyes, I’m really more interested in murdering you. Cuz true scientists would never read poetry: Science Itself despises poetry; the two are natural rivals.”

“No! science is a subsection of poetry,” I try to explain.

“Subsection, subsection — everything’s a subsection with you,” sez Mrs. Evilman. “You overuse that word, as you do with the words ‘particular’ and ‘obviously’. And somehow everything always neatly works out to be a piece of poetry’s pie. Why not math? or some other type of symbolic logic that I’m not smart enough to know the word for?”

“Poetry’s humane,” I begin to sermonize; “it’s an essentially human endeavor that is—”

“I’ll show you a ‘humane’ endeavor,” interrupts Mrs. Evilman, and she leaps in the air and spins head-over-heels multiple times before she lands on top of me with her glittering sword piercing into my heart.

“Hey, is this that same sword that Officer Jonah discovered recently, in his archaeological dig?” I ask, seriously glad to see the object. “I was just writing about this thing, in the above passage! I haven’t seen this in many moments!”

Then I grip the cat-burglar by her shoulders and push her back until her sword slides out from my chest; & I run to my bedroom & grab the crowbar from under my pillow, so that I have a weapon to fight with.

“You aren’t seriously trying to threaten me with a crowbar, are you?” sez Mrs. Evilman, paraphrasing a line from Wrong Cops (2013).

“Yeah, I could really do some damage with this thing,” I answer, “if you let me get close enough. Or alternately I could throw it at you, like a javelin. But then I’d only have one shot at striking you down, because, once it’s gone, I’m blunt-object-less; unless you allow me to scamper over to the place where it lands, & retrieve it, & try again.”

Now Mrs. Evilman swings her sword at me, but I dodge back.

Then I throw my crowbar at her head, but she tilts aside & it misses her & thuds against the wall. It leaves a dent in the gypsum board.

“I’ll have to patch that up, later,” I remark.

“Yes, you will. If you live.”

Then the cat-burglar chases me into the kitchen, so I dash away into the bathroom, & she chases me around the bathroom for a spell; then I escape thru the air vent & head down the hallway & open the door to the basement & step gingerly down the stairs; & I hide in the pantry.

Mrs. Evilman’s form now appears lit from behind at the top of the stairway, holding the great sword that glitters loudly even when it’s in silhouette.

“Fee fie foe fum. Monsieur Bryan, I can tell that you’re cowering in the pantry,” announces the cat-burglar, phoning in her performance.

My breath gets tighter and shorter. I’m now certain that my arch-nemesis is going to win this battle. Beads of sweat begin to streak down my forehead like rain on the windscreen of a van that’s driving thru London on a weekday.

I hear footsteps slowly pound... pound... pound down the staircase, until they reach the basement. Now my adversary appears in the entryway of the pantry.

I grab a box of cereal from the shelf at my right. I toss it directly at Mrs. Evilman. It hits her square in the face.

“Ow!” she sez. “You little BRAT.”

Then I throw another cereal box, and it hits her again.

“You’re fucking making this scene too much like the climax of Rear Window (1954 thriller/mystery),” complains the cat-burglar.

“I wouldn’t know that,” I quip defiantly. “I’m no fan of Hitchcock.”

When I toss the third box of cereal at her face, Mrs. Evilman raises her hands up to rub her eyes, because they are irritated from all the dust that was on the cardboard packaging. When doing so, she drops her glittering sword on the floor.

Then I spring forth from where I had been hiding (all coiled up and shivering, in the fetal position), and I land on the linoleum before my enemy: I drop and tumble head-over-heels, deftly clutch the glittering sword, & rise to my full height. Then I lift my arm to heaven & say:

“He who was vanquished is now become THE VANQUISHER: for the last shall be first, and peacemakers morph into warmongers: God Bless America!” [thunder & lightning] “Lo: watch close, while I take hold on judgment—”

I then point the tip of the sword at the neck of Mrs. Evilman, the cat-burglar; and histrionically raise my voice as I continue my speech:

“AND NOW I will render vengeance unto MINE ENEMY, and will REWARD the one who HATES ME. I will make this lethal weapon DRUNK WITH BLOOD!!! — Now’s the time, O thou glittering whetted MacGuffin, to devour MUCH FLESH.”

Here Mrs. Evilman answers proudly:

“Fine, you stole my sword, by way of your trickery. Therefore, go on: invest your strength into it, and thrust me through. For I’d rather be slain by the one whom I was attempting to rob blind, than to get caught by the police. For the Feds shall abuse me, and my death shall have no honor. Either that or I shall fall in love with one of them, because opposites attract, but also since they and I basically do the same thing for a living, we’d have enough in common to spend a long life together in happiness and prosperity. I can imagine us producing a litter of very confused children, who cannot discern between their right hand and their left — that is, they could not tell good from bad.”

But, at this moment, when I had gained the upper hand, and I could have struck my enemy down with a single stroke, for some reason I couldn’t go thru with it. I was afraid; and also I’d fallen in love with this cat-burglar, during our death-match. It’s not easy to admit this. I am ashamed. – But you should have seen the expression on her face, when she delivered that line: “Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith!” It just melted my heart. There was genuine emotion in her acting. I sensed that I was in the presence of genius.

Therefore I turned the glittering sword around, and set it upon the linoleum, fixing it firmly against the corner where the floor of my pantry joins the wall of the court, in the LORD’s sanctuary — and I fell upon the blade.

Now when Mrs. Evilman drew her hands away from her eyes, and peeked out and saw that I was asleep, she fell likewise upon the sword, and died along with me.

Thus we skewered ourselves, like a human shishkebab. [“Shish” = “spear”. “Kebab” = “raw meat”.]

So I died, and Mrs. Evilman the cat-burglar died, along with all the three sons that we might’ve produced; and the armourbearer that we would’ve hired to care for our children, and all his maidservants: we all died that same day together.

EPILOGUE

And the federal law enforcement officers who had paid Bryan a visit earlier in this entry were now in the bad side of town, listening to the electronic eavesdropping device on Officer Jonah’s laptop computer. And when they saw that the potential offspring of Bryan and Mrs. Evilman had absconded into some faraway alt-dimension, and that Bryan and his cat-burglar were deceased, they forsook their seats at the table, and finished their coffee, and fled. And they found investors who were able to restore their funding.

Then it came to pass on the morrow, when the Feds showed up to strip the slain, that they found Bryan and Mrs. Evilman run thru upon the same glittering sword. And Officer Jonah recognized the weapon as the one that he had found on the previous evening. So he walked over and removed the kebab from the shish with his dirty shoe. And the bodies fell down upon the linoleum, and Jonah lifted the sword up to heaven. And there was blood everywhere.

And Jonah cut off Bryan’s head, and stripped off his armour, which consisted of one collared shirt (a synthetic blend of cotton and polyester) and one pair of cargo shorts (khaki) — the unfashionable kind that they sell cheap at any convenience store.

& they gave Mrs. Evilman the cat-burglar a proper Christian burial.

Then Officer Jonah hung up Bryan’s armour and displayed it in the lunchroom of the police station, for all to enjoy: & they fastened his body to the wall of the third precinct, between the trophy case and the contraband.

And when the inhabitants of Thief River Falls heard of that which the Feds had done to Bryan their neighbor, they blamed it on outside agitators.

So all the valiant women who lived in that city arose, and they spent all night taking the body of Bryan and his “armor” down from the walls of the lunchroom and precinct. And they dug up Mrs. Evilman. And they placed their bodies on the wagon and wheeled them south, into the suburb of Eagan, and burnt them there.

And they took their bones and dumped them in the river, near the intersection of Pilot Knob & Cliff Road, where the couple’s children would’ve been killed if they had been conceived. Then they fasted for roughly three hours.