The Neighbor

Written for "Ordinary Horrors Contest" . Prompt -- a snowman.

The Neighbor

         Harry Jennings slammed the door behind him and stomped a heavy build-up of snow from his boots onto the tile of the foyer. His face glowed red, but not as a result of the biting cold.

         His wife, Cynthia, hurried from the kitchen when she heard him slamming, stomping, and cursing. "Harry! What the hell?" she asked, seeing water puddling on the freshly mopped and waxed floor.

         Dropping his coat, scarf and gloves in a careless, soggy, pile, Harry rasped through clenched teeth, "That sonuvabitch came out with his fancy snow-blower right after I finished shoveling our driveway! He's ruining my two hours of hard work!"

         Cynthia did not have to ask about whom Harry was referring. She also had no doubt about where Harry had deposited the snow from their driveway to begin with -- the yard of their neighbor, Francois Hutuma. In the six months since Hutuma bought the colonial-style next door to them, he and Harry had done nothing but argue and feud about everything from tree branches overhanging property lines to grass clippings blowing onto sidewalks and driveways. "Harry, you never had these disputes with our old neighbor. I think you're a racist," Cynthia accused, lifting the sodden clothing from the floor and marching toward the laundry room.

         Pushing his bifocals higher onto the bridge of his nose and patting down the sparse wisps of white hair on his age-spotted pate, Harry trailed behind his wife of forty years. "Am not! It don't matter to me that Hutuma's as black and shiny as a waxed eggplant, or that his Haitian accent is damned-near incomprehensible. Even those greasy deadlocks he wears don't matter. I just don't like the man."

         "Dreadlocks," Cynthia corrected. "What did you say to him when he blew the snow back over to our driveway?"

         "Didn't say nothin'," Harry began, not denying he had shoveled the snow onto Hutuma's lawn, Cynthia noticed. "I just hit him with the shovel."

         Cynthia inhaled sharply, and whirled around to face her husband. "You what?"

         Harry shrugged. "When he wasn't looking, I gave him a good whack on the back with my snow shovel."

         Hands on ample hips, and eyes narrowed, Cynthia asked, "What did he do then?"

         "He reached out and snatched my cap off my head. I didn't hang around to find out what else he might do," Harry answered.

         "You hit him, then ran . . . right? He'll probably call the police!"

         "His word against mine," Harry sulked.

         "What are you, five? That's assault, Harry!"

         Although Cynthia expected the police to come knocking on the door at any moment, they never appeared. She had no inkling that Mr. Hutuma was in the process of handling the matter in his own way.

********

         The next morning, as Cynthia retrieved the newspaper from the front porch, she saw the snowman on Mr. Hutuma's lawn. Instead of facing the street, as is the view most snowmen live and die with, this one faced her porch. It had two beady, coal-lump eyes, a carrot nose, the typical long scarf wrapped around its neck, but, the added adornment of Harry's red cap brought an amused smile to Cynthia's lips. Perhaps Mr. Hutuma possessed a sense of humor after all.

         As was her habit, Cynthia skimmed the morning paper while enjoying her first cup of coffee. Harry always came down for his coffee before she placed breakfast on the table. But this morning the plates were on the table, the eggs rapidly cooling, and she had not yet heard Harry tromping around upstairs.

         Climbing the stairs, still spry and nimble for her sixty-seven years, Cynthia found her husband huddled beneath the covers from head to toe. "Hey, old man, breakfast is getting cold," she said, pulling the blankets off Harry's face. He shivered, and his teeth clacked together in a staccato click-click-click. "Harry? What's the matter?" Cynthia asked, instinctively pressing the back of her blue-veined hand against his forehead to check for a fever. On the contrary, his skin felt like ice.

         "Fa-fa-freezing!" he answered. "So c-c-cold!"

         "I'll bring you some aspirin and your coffee. You probably made yourself sick shoveling snow yesterday. Do you want me to call the doctor?"

         He shook his head. "No. Coffee sounds g-g-good, though.

         Taking the electric blanket controller from the nightstand, Cynthia turned the knob to the highest setting. "I'll be right back."

         Moments later she returned and handed Harry two aspirin and a glass of water. He pushed the water away. "Coffee." Cynthia watched, amazed, as Harry gulped the still steaming coffee in one long swallow. He always let his coffee cool nearly to room temperature before drinking.

         At that moment a sliver of light cut through the narrow opening in the curtains. "Oh, the sun is coming out, Harry. First time in days," she said, walking to the window and opening the curtains all the way. Sure enough, the sun found a break in the gray, cloudy sky and shone bright. She felt the reflected heat upon her face.

         When she turned back to her husband she saw him kicking and struggling to get out from beneath the blankets. Sweat rolled from his forehead. And, thinking it a trick of the sunlight, she blinked her eyes twice, then shut them tight for a moment before opening them again. No. What she saw was real! Harry's usually heavy jowls now drooped down over both sides of his cheeks. The dark bags beneath his eyes hung almost to the level of his nose. And his double chin was increased by a factor of three, the skin hanging far down upon his chest. He looked like a man in the process of melting. "Harry! Your face!"

         He brought his fingers up and felt the folds and rolls of skin. Fear filled his rheumy, blue eyes. He attempted to speak, but his lips, loose and puffy, would not form words. "God," Cynthia, said, "you must be having an allergic reaction to the aspirin or something you ate last night. Let's get you to the doctor. Try to sit up, dear."

         Harry struggled to a sitting position, his legs draped over the side of the bed. Cynthia grasped him beneath his arms and, straining, managed to get him to his feet. The flesh beneath his pajamas rippled. Staggering and shuffling, Cynthia got him to the top of the staircase and was trying to figure out the best way to get down without both of them taking a nasty tumble when Harry moaned. Then an obvious sound of pain escaped his blubbery lips and his hands tightened painfully upon her arm. As Cynthia's eyes met his, his nose fell off. The dark, cavernous cavity above his upper lip gushed blood.

         "Jesus, sweet Jesus!" Cynthia cried as Harry slumped to the floor, held upright only by the wall. "I'll call nine-one-one, Harry. Here, hold this," she said, pulling her favorite sweater over her head and pressing it to the hole where Harry's nose should be. He raised a feeble hand and pressed the sweater to his face in an attempt to staunch the flow of crimson.

         A white hot splinter of pain shot through Cynthia's ankle as it twisted beneath her, but she caught herself on the stair railing and got to the bottom of the stairs without falling. She limped to the telephone in the living room, snatched it up and stabbed 9-1-1. She heard it ring once -- twice. "Come on, pick up, dammit!"

         As she waited, her eyes were drawn to the window, and to Hutuma's snowman. The snow dripped and slid in the glare of the sun. Three neighborhood children ran in circles around the snowman. One, she saw, carried a carrot in his mittened hand. An empty, black hole stood out in sharp relief against the snowman's white face. Just like Harry she thought. Melting . . . and his nose . . .

         The telephone rang for a fourth time. When Cynthia saw two of the children grab opposite ends of the snowman's scarf, she gasped. When they ran, drawing the scarf tight around the snowman's soft throat, she screamed. But the scream wasn't loud enough to cover the sound of something cracking against the floor upstairs, or the heavy thump-thump-thump as it bounced down the staircase.

         Outside, the snowman's head rolled from his shoulders and the red cap tumbled away down the street, caught by a gust of wind. The wispy hairs inserted into the snowman's head were invisible against the wintry white.

         Mr. Hutuma sipped tea in his parlor, watching from the window as the children decapitated his creation. He was glad that he listened to the teachings of his grandfather about the "old ways". They seemed to work as well in the United States as they had in his native Haiti. He recalled fondly the ragged little dolls his grandfather fashioned from bits of cloth and string, and adorned with hair or fingernails from the person the doll was made to represent.

         He poured another cup of tea and smiled as he wondered if he was the first to create a voodoo snowman.