Sandhill Street: The Loss of Gentleness Read online

Chapter 2 The Loose Board in the Fence

  Running, still carrying his bag of candy, he was among the first to reach the site of Sluggard House. The Leasing kids were already there, and the group led by Wittily ran up within a minute. Adult neighbors began to show up or to look out windows. The Halloweeners stood and stared while Wittily played her flashlight back and forth over the ruin of what had been a two-story building and was now compacted into less than one story, a tilted shambles. The exposed ends of rafters jutted out over the front yard like so many ribs of a whale skeleton; the front doorway opening, still just visible, was compressed into a trapezoid, the door itself lying far out on the lawn; broken glass was everywhere; and the air was full of dust.

  “Slothie!” Wittily yelled. “Slothie, are you in there?”

  “We’re here,” the girl’s voice called from inside. “Don’t come in, it’s dangerous. We’re coming.”

  In a moment, Lag Sluggard appeared, half supporting his fat wife Diva and helping her to pick a way through the rubble on the narrow porch. Slothie came next, carrying her terrier in her arms. When they reached the sidewalk, she put down the dog and hugged her friend Wittily with stout arms.

  Before long members of Wisdom’s household arrived, including his parents, but he was not made to go home as he expected. Everyone was too busy talking, seeing to a cut on Diva Sluggard’s forehead, and getting the little kids out of the way. He, Quake, and Prevarica formed a threesome; and at Prevarica’s suggestion, went into Dread House, which was next door to the Sluggards, and upstairs into Quake’s bedroom, to watch events from his window. They soon saw the arrival of emergency vehicles from the police and fire departments. These authorities took control, ordering everyone but the Sluggards to go home, cordoning off the house, and closing Sandhill street to traffic on the block. Not even foot traffic was allowed. They were ordered to stay in their houses until an ‘all clear’ was announced.

  As a result, Mr. and Mrs. Dread had to tell Wisdom and Prevarica that they could not go home yet (news which they accepted with gleeful fortitude). For the same reason, Wittily was trapped across the street in Leasing House where she had taken Prevarica’s brothers. The Sluggards’ terrier was there too. The police had assured everyone that the lockdown was routine and would be over in a few hours.

  After the elder Dreads had communicated all this and had gone downstairs, the children resumed watching from Quake’s window. They were in time to see policemen lead the five Sluggards around to the alley and in by a gate to their own back yard. There the family was left standing in the dark for some time. Things began to get dull.

  “They’re going to take them away soon,” Prevarica said to the boys. “They’ll go someplace where there’s complete rest and no worries—that’s what my mom told me—and they’ll never be seen again.”

  “Why don’t they get another house?” Quake asked. “Or they could come live with us.”

  “Don’t you know anything? There’s a housing shortage in the City. And they can't live with you because there’s laws about what happens to homeless people.”

  Wisdom was munching on a Snickers bar from his bag and looking down into the backyard, though it was too dark to see the Sluggards. “Could we go down and talk to them?” he asked Prevarica.

  Her credit had gone up since she had turned out to be right about this disaster (though wrong about the timing, for it was still far from midnight), and he was almost thinking of her as an authority.

  She hesitated. “Sure we could, but aren’t you scared?”

  “Black people are not scared,” he answered stoutly. “Are you?”

  “I am,” Quake said. “Let’s stay here.”

  “We could say goodby to them,” Prevarica said. “We could talk to them through the loose board in the fence. But—I’m not sure I want to. The police don’t want people outside their houses now.”

  Wisdom put on his Darth Vader mask. “In this costume the police can’t see me,” he announced. “Anyhow, I don’t think they count backyards.”

  “Sure they do!” said Quake.

  “Maybe not,” Prevarica said. “Would your mom and dad know it if we snuck out there?"

  It was very dark in Quake’s backyard. The fence was high, but as Prevarica had remembered, one of its vertical boards was no longer firmly nailed in place. Quake removed it expertly, and with their masks on for disguise, they arranged themselves so that all could see through the gap.

  “What’s that?” they heard Lag Sluggard say from the next yard, for he apparently had heard them.

  “I don’t want to go,” his wife Diva said, ignoring his question. She was crying. “I won’t go. We could still live here, I know it. Look at what the Leasings do.”

  “It’s different for them. They only lost their roof in that storm. Honey, you’ve got to accept it. It’s Relocation for us.”

  “No, I won’t go!”

  Now Wisdom could hear Muddy crying too and repeating the name of her terrier.

  The back gate creaked and a policeman entered the Sluggards’ yard carrying one of those long black flashlights that look as if they could double as billy clubs. He shined it on the Sluggard family.

  “The truck’s here,” he said roughly. “They’re pulling up in the alley. It’s time to go.”

  Wisdom not only heard the truck but saw its tall side above the back fence.

  “Officer, we can’t go just yet,” Lag said. “My wife’s in an emotional state, and the kids aren’t much better. Just give us a few minutes.”

  “Now!” shouted the policemen. “You come now!” He actually grabbed Lag by the upper arm and pulled. “All of you, move it.”

  Lag began to struggle against the policeman, who shouted for help. Two more policemen came running in through the gate, each with a similar flashlight, and the scene became chaotic. Lag actually knocked down the policeman he was struggling with, Diva and Slothie were scratching at the other two, and Muddy and Nap escaped across the yard screaming. The two children could be heard near the back of the house, but apparently there was no way in anymore, for they soon careened back toward the one-board gap in the fence. In the meantime, the three policemen had each caught a Sluggard and were forcing them out the back gate with arms twisted behind their backs. Near the gate Diva went down on the grass and had to be dragged out.

  Yelling and crying, Nap tried to get through the fence’s narrow opening but wouldn’t fit. Then he got a further scare when Quake, so close to him on the other side, said, “No, Nappy, you’ve got to climb!”

  “Quake! Help us. They’re mean. They’re bad cops!”

  “We know,” Wisdom said. “Climb the fence.”

  “We can’t,” said Muddy, right behind Nap. “It’s too high.”

  “Give Nap a leg up,” Quake said to her.

  Dark figures came through the alley gate, and Muddy and Nap ran screaming again, flashlight beams pursuing them. Wisdom could now hear that the older Sluggards’ yells were more muffled, as if they were in the back of the truck but with its door still open. Soon Muddy and Nap were cornered. They were grabbed. When the one who had caught Nap turned his flashlight on his own face, the three watchers collapsed down onto each other. What they saw wasn’t human. The thing was of human height and walked on two legs but had the face and body of a giant lizard: red eyes, forked tongue, fangs, claws, scales. It was something from Hell. As Nap began to blubber at a frenzied, higher pitch, it occurred to Wisdom that the thing had lighted its face just to frighten the boy.

  When Wisdom brought his face back to the gap and forced himself to look again, another such monster, the one who had Muddy, lighted its face for her benefit, and the girl seemed to pass out. Nap must have been scared quiet too, for the screaming had stopped. The two things carried the children out the back gate, long sinuous tails waving behind them.

  “Damn! About time!” one of the policemen said from beyond the ba
ck fence. “Throw them in the back, and make sure none of the others get out while you’re doing it. Let’s move. We’ve been here too long, and there’s been way too much noise.”

  The back door of the truck could be heard opening, and for a few seconds they could hear Slothie crying for help. Then it crashed shut again, and a moment later the truck’s cab doors slammed and it roared off. Then all was quiet. The three children lay by the fence in the grass, drawing shuddering breaths. None of them wanted to say anything. After a couple of minutes, Prevarica staggered up and made for the Dreads’ back door. The boys followed.