A Dark and Stormy Night originally appeared in Eureka Literary Magazine, Fall 2003*

A Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night. No really, it was a dark and stormy night. Floorboards were creaking, shadows were skulking, strange things were going bump in the night, and that's just the people next door. But I'm not really concerned with that. Right now, I'm more concerned with what happened to my neighbors across the street, or at least one neighbor in particular.

            You see, as a small boy I stayed up late one night and watched Rear Window. I had no idea a movie would be such a defining moment in my life, but lo and behold, thirty some odd years later, I'm an experienced voyeur! I sit in my window and watch people. Sometimes I sit outside other people's windows and watch them from there; I like the change of scenery. At one time I even thought about becoming a respectable peeping tom, but I couldn't pass the private investigator's exam. Well, and then there is that restraining order. Admittedly, a real low point.

            But anyway, back to the dark and stormy night. I was sitting in my window. (I like to use a rocking chair - a la Norman Bates' mother. He's a personal hero, for his voyeuristic predilections, not his raging homicidal, oedipal ones.) So I'm rocking back and forth, watching, using my state of the art night vision goggles I got from Sharper Image about three weeks ago. I got them because my neighbor, Mary Jane, she undresses in the dark. It was a wise investment, indeed, and the only flaw I've found is that during electrical storms when there is a great deal of lightning, I can't see as well as I'd like to. I consider this a hazard of the trade. That and Officer Wilson, who prowls my neighborhood nightly, my probation officer, Steve, who's a good guy, but repressed, and oh yeah, that registered sex offender law, which doesn't pertain to me yet, but my therapist, I feel, thinks it's not so much an option as it is a destination. But for the most part, I just keep to myself.

            At any rate, I was watching Mary Jane during the storm when I saw some homeless looking guy scale the fence at old Harold Grafton's place. Now, Harold's a crabby old bastard, but he grows a mean, green pepper. I considered giving Harold a call, but if he's not wearing his hearing aid, he won't hear the phone ring, plus shouting into a telephone sort of blows my cover. So calling Harold was pointless; I just figured I'd keep an eye open. In hindsight, I should have called Harold, what with Harold being in prison now, but the choices we make are the choices we live with, and nobody forced Harold to pull out a .45 and pop some homeless guy three times in the head. (Which I, personally, found to be excessive.)

            Of course, no one heard the gunshots because of the thunder. This should have been lucky for Harold, but sometimes these things just don't work out. I mean, this was one of the worst thunderstorms I can remember. I also remember it being particularly distracting on the lightning front, but that's another story. And like I said, no one, more specifically me, heard the gunshots. But while I was watching Mary Jane, I did happen to see old Harold dragging something cumbersome, limp, and human out into the yard.

Now, it's pouring down rain and Harold barely exits his house on an ordinary day, so this struck me as odd. Since Mary Jane had closed her curtains, I watched Harold, and remembered how Jimmy Stewart busted open that murder case when he was cooped up in that apartment. It's selfish, I know, but all I could think was “Local Citizen Makes Good.” After that little incident at the campgrounds, I needed some good press. So I shifted my attention to Harold's backyard activities, and frankly my interest was more than peeked when old Harold whipped (not exactly whipped, Harold hasn't whipped anything out in a very, long time,) the shovel out of the garage and decided on a little late-night, ground breaking.

            So there I was watching this withered, old man digging up his petunias in the pouring rain, and I realized I had something of a moral dilemma brewing. I mean, I'd put two and two together and figured that something tragic happened to the guy who scaled Harold's fence. After all, this wasn’t Harold’s first intruder to meet with a bullet. He shot and killed an armed robber six years ago. He also shot a Jehovah’s Witness, but he lived. As a result, the police have been keeping a close eye on Harold Grafton, which is good for me. It provides a nice source of distraction. Voyeurs don’t register as high on the judicial scale as gun-wielding geriatrics.

Since I hadn’t seen Harold’s intruder exit the property, and Harold proudly displays a “Trespassers will be shot!” sign, I knew Harold was out in the rain burying a body. And sure, most people would call the police, but since I'm not one to call attention to myself, what with my late-night activities and all, my options consisted of the following: 1) watch Harold Grafton give himself a heart-attack while digging an impromptu grave, or 2) go over and help the poor bastard. As you can tell, I was in quite a pickle.

            I thought about it, rocking methodically in my rickety old chair. To me, my options seemed logical, particularly the second one, because I have grave-digging experience. I used to work in the cemetery over on Danforth Street as a grave-digger. I only worked there for six weeks. I got fired after what I call the “exhumation fiasco.”

            About six years ago this man was murdered and the case remained unsolved. Well, after about seven, eight years, some crack-fiend hoping to score some reward money, decides he witnessed the murder. Of course the cops thought he was a half-baked lunatic, “Pavlovian crack-fiend, psychopath!” was what one officer called him, but even as whacked out as his story seemed, it sort of checked out, and what with all the advances in forensic science, the detectives got a court order to exhume the body, which meant I got a call to show up at the cemetery just before dawn. We got the casket out of the ground and one of the cops told me to pull the hearse around. (The coroner's van was in the shop, something about the air conditioning not cooling properly — big trouble.) Anyway, I brought the hearse around, and I'm not even sure how this happened, but as a point of reference, backing a hearse over an exhumed coffin is something people tend to frown upon. So, I got fired. But you know what, all things considered, I did dig a mean grave; it only made sense that I help old Harold out.

            Now, why is it that those who need the most help don't want it? I showed up over at Harold's and he comes at me, brandishing his gun, hobbling on his brittle, warped, stick legs, calling me names I'd just as soon not repeat. The way he freaked out, it was like I was the one threatening to kill him, but I tried to explain.

            “Look, Harold, you old coot, can't you see I'm trying to help you?”

            “Bleep off, you no good bleeping, bleep-face, mother bleeper!”

            That's the censored version, anyway. And with the gun flying in his decrepit, skeletal hand, it was quite a sight to see, and when he slipped in the fresh mud and landed flat on his bony butt, I busted out laughing. As usual, Harold opted to miss the humor. But while he was prone on the sloppy ground, I explained to him that I'd seen everything, that I wanted to help, and that I personally found burying a body in the backyard a supreme lapse in judgement. I never asked him how or why he killed the man. I figured if we did get caught, and with my luck we would, the less I knew the better.

            I helped Harold to his feet and we went inside to discuss my plan of action. I told him that I used to be a grave-digger and that if we buried the body in the cemetery, the cops would be less apt to find the body.

            “You're a bleeping idiot, you know that?”

            “Just hear me out. Tomorrow is Mrs. Hooper's funeral right?”

            “Never did like that old bat. When'd she die?”

            “Thursday. Wait, we're getting off the subject. Here's my plan. If they're burying her tomorrow, then they dug the grave today. All we have to do is go to the cemetery, dig a little deeper into her grave, bury the body, backfill it, and no one's the wiser.”

            “Well, let me go put some pants on.”

            Harold wandered off to the back bedroom. Then a huge crash of thunder ricocheted throughout the night. Turned out my idea wasn't quite as brilliant as I thought it was.

            But we loaded the body in the trunk of Harold's 1965 Olds Cutlass F85, that hasn't yet cracked the 50,000 mark on the odometer. Harold's not much of a driver. I grabbed the shovel and Harold planted himself behind the wheel and through the thunder, and the lightning, and the rain, and the wind, we headed over to Danforth Street at a whopping 25 mph!

            As will happen in any law-breaking adventure, an obstacle will have to be hurdled. We figured our biggest obstacle would be getting a dead body and a frail, old man over the gates of the cemetery, but considering my past employment and my deep-seeded desire to get into places where I'm not wanted, I had a spare set of keys made prior to being fired from the cemetery, so our luck wasn't so bad. Harold drove us through the cemetery gates at roughly 8 mph; I couldn’t stand it.

            “I’d like to find the grave before the body decomposes.”

            “Shut the bleep up.”

            Finding Mrs. Hooper's soon-to-be resting place was something of a challenge, but after about an hour, we did locate it. And it seemed like things were looking up. It was still three hours until dawn and the storm was finally subsiding. I stole the wheelbarrow from the tool shed and grabbed Harold's shovel and took my six-foot leap into the grave that, unfortunately, just happened to be filled with two feet of water.

            Now, I've never bailed a grave before, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to do it again. But a stolen bucket and a couple wheelbarrows full of water later, I was able to start digging. It took me about an hour, because it was a soppy mess, but I dug down a couple feet. We went and got the body from the trunk and dragged it over to the grave and dumped it. Harold stared at the body with what I think was remorse, but in all honesty, the man's brow has been furrowed since 1948, so it could have just been the shadows. At any rate, Harold looked like he was sorry he killed the guy.

            Since neither of us was the praying type, we didn't hold much of a vigil, plus we knew we needed to get the hell out of the cemetery. I started to backfill the grave when Harold stopped me. In an act of what I thought was compassion, Harold took off his overcoat and threw it down to cover the body. I finished backfilling the hole and headed for the car.

            Harold stood silently over the grave for the longest time. He rubbed his chin, scratched himself, and looked up at the parting clouds above him. Moonlight started to pierce through the separating thunder heads.

            “You coming, old man?” I asked.

            But he didn't answer. He just stood perfectly still. I half expected him to fall face-forward into the grave and die of a heart attack anyway, but he didn't wobble, or waiver, or anything. He just stood there like any other statue in the graveyard.

            “Everything alright?”

            “My bleeping keys were in that coat.”

            Needless to say, by the time I was able to dig down far enough to get Harold’s keys, the sun was up and the caretaker caught us. I am currently serving three to five years for aiding, abetting, and accessory after the fact. Harold got life, but I think the old man got the better deal. But prison’s not so bad. I get to watch a lot of people from my cell, but I miss Mary Jane, my night-vision goggles, and my rocking chair.

*Nominated Best American Mystery Stories