D. Krauss is a retired USAF officer living near DC and working for various government agencies under various
government contracts. He is 53 years old, married for the last 33 of that to the same woman (despite her
efforts to escape), and has a 22-year-old son who plays bass guitar way too loud. D has been, at various
times, a picker of cotton, a sodbuster, a surgical orderly, the guy who painted the little white line down the
middle of the street, a weatherman, and a badge carrying gun-totin' lawman. Guy can't keep a job.
government contracts. He is 53 years old, married for the last 33 of that to the same woman (despite her
efforts to escape), and has a 22-year-old son who plays bass guitar way too loud. D has been, at various
times, a picker of cotton, a sodbuster, a surgical orderly, the guy who painted the little white line down the
middle of the street, a weatherman, and a badge carrying gun-totin' lawman. Guy can't keep a job.
The Flowers in Mr. Williams' Garden
They grew in a six by six plot in the middle of Mr. Williams' front yard, ornament to an already ornamental lot. Mr. Williams'
brick split-level, classically shuttered, classically front-porched, old, 75 years maybe, but well kept, was a pleasing sight in
itself, a stand-out in a quaint neighborhood filled with similarly pleasing, large yarded, brick two stories and split levels.
Great willow oaks grew randomly down the street, one especially large specimen fronting Mr. Williams' eastern boundary,
shading and greening and giving an air of settled suburban tranquility, demiurge for wearied city workers.
The flowers added to the tranquility. Clematis, or some kind of subspecies, tall and lush and thick, impenetrable. Each plant
stood at least six feet, tightly bound and facing the world with a uniform front of giant red blooms at least seven inches
across, yellow pistils waving frantically, a breathtaking sight.
They were never watered, never trimmed, never attended in any way that anyone could remember. Yet they were properly
staked, or at least seemed to be, because there was some kind of artificial support among them, glimpsed when the wind
moved the plants enough to show some depth. There was a hint of some tie that bound the plants to the strategically
placed stakes, and all of this spoke of attendance. But no one knew who attended. Certainly not Mr. Williams.
Certainly no one in the neighborhood.
So arresting a sight always attracted admirers. Cars, exploring the neighborhood for the shortcut it provided between the
two main thoroughfares that, in turn, afforded access to the Beltway, often slowed when they approached the flowers,
especially in winter when all the world was dead and the drivers expected nothing but deadness. Topping the rise, they were
confronted by a sea of red, beautiful flowers waving in the breeze and you could almost hear them exclaim as the cars
slapped to a halt, "Flowers? In January? How'd they do that?" They'd sit for awhile, the tones of pleasure and surprise
giving way to quiet as they stared, then they would glance around nervously and shift in their seats and suddenly drive
away. They never came back so, if there was one advantage to the flowers, they did hold down the traffic.
Sometimes people would actually get out of their cars to look. The ones merely obtuse, who never took counsel of their
unease, would only get as far as the curb before starting, looking about fearfully, then hastily driving away. The arrogant
actually walked up to the plot. Once, a Prius with a "Go Green!" bumper sticker and a Virginia Tech parking decal slammed to
a halt right in front and the driver, ascetic and thinly bearded with wire glasses and an assy smile, jumped right out and over
the curb, reaching for a bloom. That assy smile quickly turned to a grimace of terror and he backpedaled, tripping over the
willow oak's roots and crabbing all the way to his Ecocar before scrambling inside and peeling out. Lots of neighbors
chuckled behind curtains that day.
Mr. Williams didn't. Mr. Williams stood on his porch and watched, like he did every day, propped against the far column,
arms crossed, stance to the flowers, no expression on his face. There had never been an expression on his face in the
memory of the neighborhood and never a day he did not stand on the porch, from morning light to evening dark, facing the
flowers. Of course, before the flowers appeared, he didn't stand there looking at them. He merely stood there looking
blankly at the street as the constant sound of Mrs. Williams harangues drifted to him from the open windows, always open,
even in winter, and Mr. Williams always on the porch, also in winter, no matter how cold. That had been his escape. With
the flowers, though, there was no escape.
***
He was not on the porch the last time someone in the neighborhood had been stupid enough to approach the flowers. That
was two Halloweens ago and it was Barty Clayton Jones. Barty was not his real first name, it was Calvin, but his behavior
over the years had earned him the nickname, with his slingshots and wild skateboarding and even wilder daredevil schemes.
Seventeen years old and riding around with his friends smashing pumpkins and stealing candy bags from little kids, they
came around the corner and the Accord, driven by Kelli Summers, who had been yelling "Stop it!" all night to Barty's
wandering hands, came to a halt in front of the lot.
"Spoooky," intoned Zeke Summers, Kelli's brother, and she said "Stop it!" to him because she was a nervous girl, afraid of
the dark, really.
"Phw!" Barty snorted, "nothing to it! Show ya!" and he leaped out and ran straight for the flowers swinging a stick he picked
up on the lawn. He passed though the first blooms and, according to Zeke, screamed once, although how he heard that
with Kelli screaming "Come back, you idiot!" over and over, no one could figure.
The police came and stood on the night porch with Mr. Williams, silhouetted by the streetlight, and they all stared at the plot
together as they played flashlights across it while Kelli, collapsed against her front bumper, cried "Do something!" over and
over. The police weren't stupid, though, and stayed on the porch.
About a week later, another carload of kids, former friends of Barty, drove up and hurled three or four Molotovs at the plot.
The plants caught and burned beautifully as the car sped away. Mr. Williams came out of the dark house and stood on the
porch, lit by flames, no expression, and after a moment, went back inside. The plot roared in light and heat and hissed with
boiling plant sap and, after ten minutes or so, burned down to ash. No one called the fire department. Sunrise, the flowers
were all back, as tight and blooming and wonderful as before.
Barty's family, eventually, moved away. Kelli committed suicide.
***
It was just acting out, the Molotovs. The kids in the car knew better but teenagers require a dramatic act to resolve their
frustrations. They used to throw paint balloons and rocks at Mrs. Williams when she came storming out of the house
waving a bat and screeching death at them, unperturbed by their missiles. Mr. Williams always fled around the corner of the
house on those occasions and Mrs. Williams always got the kids' bikes and slammed them against the oak, bending their
frames and grinning maliciously, or beating their dogs and cats to death when they had the temerity to cross her lawn and
soil her roses and lilacs and pansies, so carefully planted by Mr. Williams under the watchful, hateful eye of Mrs. On occasion,
she stroked him with the rake when a day lily was angled just a bit too off-center for her tastes.
She had been arrested many times, the police dragging her out of the house while she screamed and screamed, the blood
from her self inflicted wounds coursing over the porch and the lawn and the police car. Mr. Williams watched, no expression
but ashen, because she would be back and then, well. No one saw Mr. Williams for a week or so after she returned from her
various institutions and, when they did, he looked unwell, standing on the porch. But everyone saw Mrs. Williams every day
when she was home. Every single day she stalked her yard and the sidewalk, regardless of the weather, killing squirrels or
dogs, backhanding a mouthy kid, fighting the inevitable police.
***
The last time the ambulance dropped her off, three days went by and she did not appear. Neither did Mr. Williams and that
was wrong, so someone called the police, who forced the door and, this time, took him away. They searched the house for
many hours, guys in white overalls with plastic gloves and plastic visors and there were oversized black vans in the driveway
and on the street and dog teams in and out. They found nothing and, late in the evening, they left and Mr. Williams came
back.
The next morning, the plot of flowers was there, the red-bloomed clematis waving in the breeze, watching the street. Mr.
Williams came out on the porch with a cup of coffee in his hand, froze, and stared at them without expression. Thus began
his vigil.
The cops came back and had bulldozers and more guys in white coveralls and they dug up the plot, scattering the plants and
piling the base in a hill next to the broken stalks and probing with poles and some kind of electronic devices. Even dogs.
They took Mr. Williams away again. Three days later, they were done and they just left. Mr. Williams came back, going
quietly into his house. The flowers came back, too, the next morning, as if nothing had happened. Mr. Williams resumed his
vigil.
The cops didn't come back. They're not stupid.
A couple of state cops did, though. Guess they read the reports and looked at each other and went, "Come on!" and
decided they were going to be Kojaks and bust this thing wide open. They harassed Mr. Williams on his porch for a while,
getting nothing out of him but the non-expression, and then they walked over to the plot. There were a couple of screams.
The local cops came over later and quietly towed their car away.
***
And so it went. You learn to live with neighborhood problems, like the guys who insist on changing their oil on their front
lawn or the kids who like to shoot BB guns at your windows. You just deal. The years went by.
But then Mr. Williams stopped showing up on his porch and, after three days, there was this odor and the cops, reluctantly,
went back inside. An ambulance showed up and a white-sheeted gurney came out with, obviously, Mr. Williams underneath
and the local cops decided enough was enough and they tore that house apart, taking up floor boards and taking out walls,
so we heard. After three days they left, but not before pausing on the porch and staring at the plot. They looked at each
other and got in their cars and drove away.
The next morning, there was another plot. Six by six, adjacent to the first one, filled with beautiful tall clematis all strong
and tightly bound, all blue blooms, six to seven inches across, but not facing the world. Facing the red ones.
The house stands empty. And you just deal.
They grew in a six by six plot in the middle of Mr. Williams' front yard, ornament to an already ornamental lot. Mr. Williams'
brick split-level, classically shuttered, classically front-porched, old, 75 years maybe, but well kept, was a pleasing sight in
itself, a stand-out in a quaint neighborhood filled with similarly pleasing, large yarded, brick two stories and split levels.
Great willow oaks grew randomly down the street, one especially large specimen fronting Mr. Williams' eastern boundary,
shading and greening and giving an air of settled suburban tranquility, demiurge for wearied city workers.
The flowers added to the tranquility. Clematis, or some kind of subspecies, tall and lush and thick, impenetrable. Each plant
stood at least six feet, tightly bound and facing the world with a uniform front of giant red blooms at least seven inches
across, yellow pistils waving frantically, a breathtaking sight.
They were never watered, never trimmed, never attended in any way that anyone could remember. Yet they were properly
staked, or at least seemed to be, because there was some kind of artificial support among them, glimpsed when the wind
moved the plants enough to show some depth. There was a hint of some tie that bound the plants to the strategically
placed stakes, and all of this spoke of attendance. But no one knew who attended. Certainly not Mr. Williams.
Certainly no one in the neighborhood.
So arresting a sight always attracted admirers. Cars, exploring the neighborhood for the shortcut it provided between the
two main thoroughfares that, in turn, afforded access to the Beltway, often slowed when they approached the flowers,
especially in winter when all the world was dead and the drivers expected nothing but deadness. Topping the rise, they were
confronted by a sea of red, beautiful flowers waving in the breeze and you could almost hear them exclaim as the cars
slapped to a halt, "Flowers? In January? How'd they do that?" They'd sit for awhile, the tones of pleasure and surprise
giving way to quiet as they stared, then they would glance around nervously and shift in their seats and suddenly drive
away. They never came back so, if there was one advantage to the flowers, they did hold down the traffic.
Sometimes people would actually get out of their cars to look. The ones merely obtuse, who never took counsel of their
unease, would only get as far as the curb before starting, looking about fearfully, then hastily driving away. The arrogant
actually walked up to the plot. Once, a Prius with a "Go Green!" bumper sticker and a Virginia Tech parking decal slammed to
a halt right in front and the driver, ascetic and thinly bearded with wire glasses and an assy smile, jumped right out and over
the curb, reaching for a bloom. That assy smile quickly turned to a grimace of terror and he backpedaled, tripping over the
willow oak's roots and crabbing all the way to his Ecocar before scrambling inside and peeling out. Lots of neighbors
chuckled behind curtains that day.
Mr. Williams didn't. Mr. Williams stood on his porch and watched, like he did every day, propped against the far column,
arms crossed, stance to the flowers, no expression on his face. There had never been an expression on his face in the
memory of the neighborhood and never a day he did not stand on the porch, from morning light to evening dark, facing the
flowers. Of course, before the flowers appeared, he didn't stand there looking at them. He merely stood there looking
blankly at the street as the constant sound of Mrs. Williams harangues drifted to him from the open windows, always open,
even in winter, and Mr. Williams always on the porch, also in winter, no matter how cold. That had been his escape. With
the flowers, though, there was no escape.
***
He was not on the porch the last time someone in the neighborhood had been stupid enough to approach the flowers. That
was two Halloweens ago and it was Barty Clayton Jones. Barty was not his real first name, it was Calvin, but his behavior
over the years had earned him the nickname, with his slingshots and wild skateboarding and even wilder daredevil schemes.
Seventeen years old and riding around with his friends smashing pumpkins and stealing candy bags from little kids, they
came around the corner and the Accord, driven by Kelli Summers, who had been yelling "Stop it!" all night to Barty's
wandering hands, came to a halt in front of the lot.
"Spoooky," intoned Zeke Summers, Kelli's brother, and she said "Stop it!" to him because she was a nervous girl, afraid of
the dark, really.
"Phw!" Barty snorted, "nothing to it! Show ya!" and he leaped out and ran straight for the flowers swinging a stick he picked
up on the lawn. He passed though the first blooms and, according to Zeke, screamed once, although how he heard that
with Kelli screaming "Come back, you idiot!" over and over, no one could figure.
The police came and stood on the night porch with Mr. Williams, silhouetted by the streetlight, and they all stared at the plot
together as they played flashlights across it while Kelli, collapsed against her front bumper, cried "Do something!" over and
over. The police weren't stupid, though, and stayed on the porch.
About a week later, another carload of kids, former friends of Barty, drove up and hurled three or four Molotovs at the plot.
The plants caught and burned beautifully as the car sped away. Mr. Williams came out of the dark house and stood on the
porch, lit by flames, no expression, and after a moment, went back inside. The plot roared in light and heat and hissed with
boiling plant sap and, after ten minutes or so, burned down to ash. No one called the fire department. Sunrise, the flowers
were all back, as tight and blooming and wonderful as before.
Barty's family, eventually, moved away. Kelli committed suicide.
***
It was just acting out, the Molotovs. The kids in the car knew better but teenagers require a dramatic act to resolve their
frustrations. They used to throw paint balloons and rocks at Mrs. Williams when she came storming out of the house
waving a bat and screeching death at them, unperturbed by their missiles. Mr. Williams always fled around the corner of the
house on those occasions and Mrs. Williams always got the kids' bikes and slammed them against the oak, bending their
frames and grinning maliciously, or beating their dogs and cats to death when they had the temerity to cross her lawn and
soil her roses and lilacs and pansies, so carefully planted by Mr. Williams under the watchful, hateful eye of Mrs. On occasion,
she stroked him with the rake when a day lily was angled just a bit too off-center for her tastes.
She had been arrested many times, the police dragging her out of the house while she screamed and screamed, the blood
from her self inflicted wounds coursing over the porch and the lawn and the police car. Mr. Williams watched, no expression
but ashen, because she would be back and then, well. No one saw Mr. Williams for a week or so after she returned from her
various institutions and, when they did, he looked unwell, standing on the porch. But everyone saw Mrs. Williams every day
when she was home. Every single day she stalked her yard and the sidewalk, regardless of the weather, killing squirrels or
dogs, backhanding a mouthy kid, fighting the inevitable police.
***
The last time the ambulance dropped her off, three days went by and she did not appear. Neither did Mr. Williams and that
was wrong, so someone called the police, who forced the door and, this time, took him away. They searched the house for
many hours, guys in white overalls with plastic gloves and plastic visors and there were oversized black vans in the driveway
and on the street and dog teams in and out. They found nothing and, late in the evening, they left and Mr. Williams came
back.
The next morning, the plot of flowers was there, the red-bloomed clematis waving in the breeze, watching the street. Mr.
Williams came out on the porch with a cup of coffee in his hand, froze, and stared at them without expression. Thus began
his vigil.
The cops came back and had bulldozers and more guys in white coveralls and they dug up the plot, scattering the plants and
piling the base in a hill next to the broken stalks and probing with poles and some kind of electronic devices. Even dogs.
They took Mr. Williams away again. Three days later, they were done and they just left. Mr. Williams came back, going
quietly into his house. The flowers came back, too, the next morning, as if nothing had happened. Mr. Williams resumed his
vigil.
The cops didn't come back. They're not stupid.
A couple of state cops did, though. Guess they read the reports and looked at each other and went, "Come on!" and
decided they were going to be Kojaks and bust this thing wide open. They harassed Mr. Williams on his porch for a while,
getting nothing out of him but the non-expression, and then they walked over to the plot. There were a couple of screams.
The local cops came over later and quietly towed their car away.
***
And so it went. You learn to live with neighborhood problems, like the guys who insist on changing their oil on their front
lawn or the kids who like to shoot BB guns at your windows. You just deal. The years went by.
But then Mr. Williams stopped showing up on his porch and, after three days, there was this odor and the cops, reluctantly,
went back inside. An ambulance showed up and a white-sheeted gurney came out with, obviously, Mr. Williams underneath
and the local cops decided enough was enough and they tore that house apart, taking up floor boards and taking out walls,
so we heard. After three days they left, but not before pausing on the porch and staring at the plot. They looked at each
other and got in their cars and drove away.
The next morning, there was another plot. Six by six, adjacent to the first one, filled with beautiful tall clematis all strong
and tightly bound, all blue blooms, six to seven inches across, but not facing the world. Facing the red ones.
The house stands empty. And you just deal.
D. Krauss
