Just Plain Weird

Just Plain Weird

Amazon Edition

Copyright 2008 Tom Upton

All characters in this book are imaginary. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely co-incidental.

Just

Plain Weird

I. ELIZA

         
Raffles was probably right. It wasn’t human nature to leave things alone. It was normal for people to try to fix things that didn’t need to be fixed; or, infinitely worse, trying to fix things that were broken, because some things are meant to be broken-- and that is all there is to it.
 
Raffles also said that half the time when you didn’t leave things alone it led to some kind of trouble. I wasn’t convinced of that, though, because if that were true, then it would seem you’d be hearing about trouble all the time-- unless, of course, most of the trouble in the world were kept hidden in closets, or something, and the public in general never finds out about it all.

         
Raffles had always been acknowledged as the smartest kid in school, and when we let out of school last June, he announced that he wouldn’t be returning to public high school in the fall. He would be going to Thomas Edison Academy, which was a private school that accepted only very smart kids. It was a very hoity-toity institution. You had to be about as smart as Albert Einstein to get into the place (which left me out of the running from the get-go); also, it was very expensive, which led me to believe Raffles had got some kind of scholarship, since his parents were by no means rich.

         
I couldn’t say exactly when Raffles became my best friend. I only knew it had nothing to do with me. It seemed as though he’d shown up at my house one day, and assumed the position of my best friend. I’d often think, Buddy, if I’m your best friend, you got problems. Still, throughout my middle school years I somehow managed to tolerate his presence while we did mainly normal things, although I believed Raffles was far from normal.

         
We would spend endless hours each summer in the tree house my father built a few years ago. I hadn’t asked him for a tree house, but he’d built it out of some belief it was his parental duty. His job required him to go on the road for long periods of time, so guilt, too, might have been involved in his decision to build the tree house. It was a trade-off for all the times he wasn’t around, all designed to make him feel better, as though he had said to himself, “Sure, I’m not home as much as I’d like to be, but at least the kid has a tree house to play in, right?”
 
For weeks I’d watched as he grunted and groaned, lugging lumber on his back up the ladder and into the tree. What I remembered most about him building the tree house was how he seemed to lose one of his tools every three or four minutes. That was the way it had always been with him; his tools seemed to vanish magically now and then, and he could never figure out how. Then, about two minutes after the tree house was finished, he magically vanished.

         
Now, in the waning summer before I began high school, I was hunkered down in the tree house and doing some harmless spying on our new next-door neighbors. That was when Raffles came along, climbed up into the tree house with me, and began spewing his insights into human nature. It was at this time that I formed one of my own insights: it was strange how intelligent people, like Raffles, without being asked, freely spout off their insights and actually expect less intelligent people, like me, to be interested.

         
“You’re not actually looking into their windows, are you?” he was now demanding.

         
It was true I was spying on the house with my telescope, but in no way was I looking through their windows.

         
“No, of course not,” I said, as if the thought was absurd, trying my best not even to look at him. In recent months, Raffles didn’t even look normal. He had grown so much. He was nearly six feet tall and weighed only about a hundred pounds. He had developed a creepy hunched way of walking, like an old man who had worked in a shoe store for many years.

         
“I can’t believe you’re actually up here,” he said.

         
“Why? What’s wrong with that?”

         
“It’s so unseemly-- that’s what wrong with it,” he said. I was sure he was sitting there, folded in the corner, with his arms wrapped round his knees.

         
“We’ve been doing this for years,” I pointed out. “Now, all of a sudden, it’s unseemly.”

         
“Yeah, it’s like you read in books-- you do read books?”

         
“Sure, but they have to have pictures in them.”

         
“When they say, ‘Then one day, everything changed…’” I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read that had that sentence, or something close to it. Well, buddy, for us, that one day was two months ago. That’s what makes what you’re doing unseemly.”

         
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

         
“Is not,” he said, and I was certain his huge Adam’s apple bobbed in protest.

         
“Just because things change, doesn’t make a person less curious.”

         
“Curious about what? What’s so curious about your neighbors?”

         
“They moved in nearly a month ago, and you never see anybody. Nobody going in or out, nothing. They never even leave their draperies open.”

         
“Their draperies? Ohmigod, you are looking in their windows! You’re like a stalker or something,” he said as if alarmed.

         
“How can I be looking into their windows, if their draperies are shut?”

         
“That’s not the point,” he said. “You’re trying to look in their windows, and that’s just as bad as looking in their windows. It’s all in the intent.”

         
“Raffles,” I said, exasperated. “Just shut up.”

         
He was quiet then, but for only a moment.

         
“Don’t tell me,” he said, finally. “These new neighbors wouldn’t happen to have a daughter?”

         
“What difference would that make?”

         
“Oh, it would make a huge difference. It would make what your doing perverted.”

         
“Perverted?”

         
“As though you were a peeping tom.”

         
“Well, I haven’t been able to see anybody so far. What does that make me?”

         
“I don’t know,” he said gravely. “But you ought to have your father tear this tree house down.”

         
“Tear it down?” I said. “That’s not happening. I saw what he went through to put it up. You know, there should be a law against certain people handling power tools, and he’s one of them. Tear it down? I think not. I think this tree house will be here long after we move out.”

         
“Well, something has to be done, before you turn yourself into a mass murderer or somebody.”

         
“Mass murderer!” I was appalled. “Now I’m turning into John Wayne Gacy?”

         
“Yeah, that’s how it all starts, and then it evolves over the years. Next thing you know you’re biggest problem in life is wondering where to bury bodies. You know, come to think of it, I recall reading somewhere that John Wayne Gacy did have a tree house as a child, and he went off and spent hours in it every day until he was in his twenties.”

         
“You did not. You’re just making that up.”

         
“No, I swear, really,” he insisted.

         
“Look, I’m not turning into a mass murderer. I just want to get a better look at her.”

         
“Ah-hah!” he cried, triumphant. “So there is a girl involved!”

         
“Yeah, all right,” I confessed, “You happy now?”

         
“Well, what does she look like?”

         
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I didn’t get too good a look at her the day they moved in. She’s blond, sort of skinny. I didn’t get a good look at her face.”

         
“Yeah, yeah, right,” he scoffed. “You’ve probably already seen her naked through the bathroom window, lathering up her body in the shower.”

         
“I’m just trying to get a look at her face,” I said. “Is there anything wrong with that? If there’s some hot chick moved in next door to me, I’d like to know-- you know what I mean? I wouldn’t want to miss anything. Is there any law against that?”

         
“Well-- I don’t know-- the cops might not respond to well to you looking through their windows with a telescope.”

         
“Besides,” I said. “It’s not just her. I’m sort of curious about her mother, too.”

         
“Oh, you have turned into a sick puppy, haven’t you?” he gasped.

         
I finally looked at him, at his bloated eyes behind the thick lens of his glasses. He was looking at me with amazement and disgust.

         
“Look, it’s all just too weird,” I said. I wondered why it was, why it had always been, that I could have no private thoughts when Raffles was around; in the end, no matter what I was thinking, I would have to tell him, and then have to explain to him why I was thinking whatever it was. “Well, see for yourself,” I said, and swung the telescope in his direction.”

         
He eagerly grabbed it, got to his knees, and began peering down into the viewer.

         
“What?” he asked after a moment. “I don’t see anything.”

         
“Which is what I’ve been telling you,” I said. “I’ve been looking for weeks.”