The Best Summer Yet - Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE
At the end of another week of fun the boys all had to go back home. I had to go to swimming lessons every day for the next three weeks but as soon as I came home, I ran to the fort to see if anything new had turned up.
On this particular afternoon I was tired and fell asleep and it was just getting dark when I saw a movement on the side of Mr. Cumming’s house. I ran for my binoculars and got back in time to see him standing there with a cup in his hand and he was zipping up his pants. He walked over to the neighbor’s air conditioner unit and threw the cup of liquid right into the too of it. The motor was running, so whatever it was, it splattered all over the side of the house. I made a mental note to remember to tell this to the guys.
For the next two weeks I watched this take place about the same time every day. Then one day I saw him.
He was actually urinating in the cup and then throwing it on their air-conditioner!
I saw the lady, Mrs. Hastings, working in her flower bed one day, so I walked over to say hello. She kept working as we talked so I pitched in to help her. We were moving right along when we came to the corner of her house and she put her gloved hand up to her nose and made a terrible face. I asked her what was wrong.
“That smell!” she said. “Oh! It smells like an outhouse!”
I sort of laughed and asked her what made her say that.
“Urine!” She exclaimed. “It smells like urine!” She got up and walked along the side of the house and it smelled really strong.
“Maybe it’s a cat,” I said.
“Oh my gosh, look at this!” she said. “The whole top of our unit is rusting. This thing is less than six months old!”
Mr. Cummings came out on his carport and was hanging up a humming bird feeder.
“Hey there, Mac.” he said. “Oh hi, Mr. C. Come and have a look at this,” I said.
He walked over and said hello to Mrs. Hastings and she showed him the a/c unit and how it was rusting.
He leaned over to have a look and drew back quickly and looked at Mrs. Hastings. “Er, Ma’am, ya smell that?”
“Yes indeed I do!” said Mrs. Hastings.
“Smells like cat spray if ya ask me,” he said.
“Could it rust my a/c top that way?” asked Mrs. Hastings.
“Oh most likely it could. Pity.” he said. I just looked the other way!
The next evening Mr. Hastings came home from work and Mr. Cummings waved him over. “Yes, Mr. Cummings, what is it?” he asked.
“Ya see that big tabby over across the street? He just sprayed you’re a/c unit. Awful mess he made. Come. I’ll show ya.” They walked over to the side of the house and he showed Mr. Hastings where the “cat” had sprayed. His bedroom windows were dripping with urine! The smell was disgusting!
“Did you see that cat do it?” asked Mr. Hastings.
　
“As sure as I’m standing here,” said Mr. C. “ I were you, I’m just sayin’ mind ya, I’d kill me a cat.” Mr. Hastings was really upset and thanked him for letting him know.
“I couldn’t kill a cat though,” he said. He shook hands with Mr. Cummings and went inside.
I watched Mr. C fill another cup and toss it just as the unit kicked on again, spraying his awful urine everywhere. This time however, someone else saw him do it, and he had him arrested.
Mr. Cummings spent a week in jail. A deputy just happened to pass by and saw what he did. While he was in jail, Mr. Hastings had an 8 ft. fence put up along that side of the yard. It had to be lower in the front yard, but it went all the way to the sidewalk.
By the time he was released from jail, Mr. C’s grass was 23 inches tall. Notices were posted all over his house from the various neighborhood committees.
They demanded that he cut his grass and weed his flower beds. His fountain was disgusting and they told him to clean it or do away with it. They also wanted him to clean up his house, get rid of the paint and then put the proper numbers on his house. The last demand was that he get rid of the mailbox.
　
As soon as I saw him I ran over to see about him. He seemed to be glad to see me.
“Hello, Mr. C. Good to have you back,” I said.
“Good to be back young man. I’m gonna be busy for a bit though. Things to do.” He waded up all of those notices as he said it.
“I can help if you need me,” I volunteered.
“I’ll let you know Mac,” he said. “You’re a good kid.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re pretty cool yourself.”
The next day Mr. C worked in his shed a lot. No one saw him but he was cutting wood with his saw and hammering. Some time during the night, he sneaked over to the Hastings’ yard and buried some long strips of wood along the fence line. He had hammered some long nails through the boards and spaced them as far apart as the lawn mower tires.
The first time Mr. Hastings cut the grass, it blew out all four tires. Mr. Hastings was furious and called the police. They came out to talk to him but Mr. C denied it and they couldn’t prove he did it.
It wasn’t very long before the Hastings’ yard smelled like dead rotting fish. Mr. Cummings had taken up a new hobby. He went fishing every day.
He brought those fish home and chopped them up in his food processor and poured it into a bucket. Every morning around 4:00, he would take his bucket of liquefied fish and he would carefully dip a large paint brush in it and he would paint it onto the bottom of their house, at least 8 inches up. They couldn’t see it, but they could smell it. The more it heated up, the worse it smelled.
He didn’t stop there. He poured buckets of the stuff all over her flower beds. It made the plants and flowers grow like crazy, but it also attracted every cat in the neighborhood, and they dug up all the beds and pooped and peed all over them, making it impossible for Mrs. Hastings to work in her beds. I really felt sorry for her.
One thing that sort of went unnoticed was the death of the beautiful well manicured lawn and flower beds belonging to Mr. C. M. Cummings. He was using a very strong weed killer and had repeatedly sprayed everything in his entire yard. It was a heart-breaking thing to see. Mr. and Mrs. Gentry would be horrified if they knew.
In order to save some of her yard’s beauty, Mrs. Hastings bought some beautiful plant hangers and some very pretty pots and colorful plants and flowers and she painstakingly measured her fence and spaced them out in a quite appealing manner.
I’m sure it looked good from her yard, but when I looked out at it from my fort, it took my breath away.
I slid down the pole and ran right over to get her and told her she had to come with me. We climbed up and I led her to the balcony and she looked over at her beautiful flowers. She turned to me and hugged me and thanked me for showing her how truly beautiful it is. She was wiping tears away as she asked me why he was such a mean old man.
“Why don’t you ask him?” I suggested. “We made friends with him and he seems to like us. He never complains about Jack, and so far, he hasn’t done anything to us.”
She said, “Maybe you’ve got something there, Mac.”
She went back across the street with her head raised a little higher. She went straight inside and took a cherry pie from her freezer and she set about baking it and when it was done, she put it on a beautiful tray and took it right over to Mr. Cummings. He did not see her approaching so he stepped out the door just in time for her to hand the pie to him.
“Hello, sir. I baked a cherry pie for you and I wanted to bring it over to you myself while it is still hot. I hope you enjoy it.” Mr. Cummings was so surprised he was speechless. She put the tray in his hands and said, “Well then. Goodbye, Mr. Cummings.”
“Goodbye,” he said as she walked away. As she reached the edge of her yard, she thought she heard him say a very feeble thank you.
Mr. Cummings went back inside and sat there for a few minutes wondering what to do. Should he cop out and eat some of this beautiful pie or should he be his usual crusty old self and toss it in the trash! The smell of the pie and the hunger in his belly won. He sat at his table and ate almost half of that pie. Mrs. Hastings had earned a higher notch on his totem pole!
He didn’t know what he would do with his day tomorrow. He had planned to take a bat and break every last one of her beautiful flower pots hanging on the fence, but now, he was having second thoughts about it. “Blasted pie!” he muttered as he shuffled off to bed.