Stone Age (9 page)

Prying Eyes

7:30 P.M.

Judas Feinstein was always leering at his neighbors.  Plying either his bi
noculars or his telescope, he searched for hours each day, often feeding his fat jowls, but never removing his eyes from his prey.  This was his Internet.  Like surfing the web, he never knew what he was searching for, until he found it, or them.  But like any skill, exercised over the years, he was expert in knowing his neighbors’ windows, terraces, and pools better than they did.  He relished invading their private lives unknowingly with his prying eyes.  His rewards were abundant, as he often found a neighbor or two without clothes or in the middle of an argument.  Occasionally, he would catch others who believed they were hidden on the beach, or in their driveways, or in their cars, doing things they shouldn’t.  His eyes searched everywhere and anywhere, hoping for some action. 

Judas also had his favorites, those whose routines he had memorized.  He pointed his prying eyes towards his two favorite dykes, Eve and Alice, who lived full-time in RP, three doors down at 20.  They often loved to sun in the nude on their terrace, feeling safe, while he would stare at their bodies.  Of the two, the youngest - he called her Eve even though she could have been Alice - was his most desired.  Judas knew every curve and blemish of Eve’s beautiful body, often glistening in the sun from sweat and tanning oil.  If he were really lucky, he would catch them in their love making.

A noise below interrupted his interlude.  He looked down and to his left and recognized his strangest neighbor, Maxwell Thompson.  He met him a couple of times and hated him from the beginning, mostly because he never told Judas what he did, and his curtains were always drawn so that he could never see in.  
Like his business is more important than everyone else’s
.  He also hated Thompson because his large inland house, next door to him, had the highest terrace on their block.  Not only did it obstruct his seeing summer sunrises, it also restricted him from seeing the terrace and most of the house of Max’s next-door neighbor, Clydeston.  Judas often wondered what kind of erotic show he was missing, especially since Clydeston always had some sort of hottie for a girlfriend.  One night last year, Clydeston bought two hotties home.  He could see them get out of Clydeston’s Ferrari convertible, but he couldn’t see anything else because of his damned neighbor Thompson. 

Thompson’s inland house next door to him at 27 was even
stranger than Thompson was, or was it even a real house.  Thompson already had his beach side home at 28, so it made no sense that he maintained an inland house that no one ever stayed in and was never rented. 
So, what’s the deal
?  Its lights would go on and off like clockwork to appear as if someone was occupying it.  Nevertheless, any idiot could tell he used timers.  Then there were the giant loads of supplies and strange hours.  Thompson would sometimes show up at odd times with one of his two vehicles.  He would park in the extra-large garage, and then disappear for hours, before reemerging out the front door and walking to this beach house across the street.  Sometimes, he would never appear to come out of his front door and then magically appear outside his beachside home hours later, as if he made himself invisible to get across the street.

Last night, he came in with his trailer full and canopied, which prevented Judas from seeing its cargo.  All evening and today, he was there.  Then, just now, right after sunset, he opened up his front door, walked to the street, turned and stared at his house, and smiled like some idiot for what seemed like five minutes.  Before going home, his whole demeanor changed, and he started looking around, and then right at Judas.  As if Thompson knew, Judas was spying on him.  But, Thompson couldn’t see him, he was sure of it, as he put a special reflective film on his windows to enable his daylight peeping.  Before sunset, Judas always made sure he wasn’t backlit, using The Clapper, so he didn’t have to move his large frame to turn off the lights.  That way, someone like Thompson couldn’t see him.  Yet, there was Thompson staring right at him, through his window, as if saying, “I see you asshole,” through his binoculars.

Then Thompson shook his head, turned his back to Judas and left.

Judas put his binoculars down on the table in front of him and grabbed his Mexican cell phone.  He held the number 2 key down until it was ringing.

“¿Qué huele carajo?” yelled out of his earpiece, which he promptly muffled by putting his oversized head against it. 

“Seenyour Rodrigo?  Ahhh…  Esta Judas,” Judas said, struggling with his broken Spanish, his flabby face turning red.

“I know who it is.  What do you want?” Rodrigo yelled back in perfect English.

“Seenyour Thompson brought back another big load of something last night.  I don’t know what it was, because it was covered, but there was a lot of it.   I think it might have been drugs or something.”

“I don’t pay you to think.  Is that all?”

“Si...  I mean yes.”

“Fine, call me when you have something useful to report.”   With that, he hung up.

“But, should I…”  Judas moved the phone away from his ear and looked at it to confirm that Rodrigo hung up on him.

“Bloody fucking drug dealers,” he yelled at his phone, slamming it down on the table in front of him.  The flabby folds of his arm, absorbing the blow, swayed back and forth.  His wispy white eyebrows were furrowed in fury, and the blood vessels under the pale skin of his forehead popped out.

He wished he could check out Thompson’s house further and see what he was up to.  However, all his windows were tinted or mirrored so that you couldn’t look in them.  It looked like he had security cameras, so he couldn’t very well stick his face up against the window.

“Bloody hell,” Judas shouted again. 

He had other work to do.  He stuck his bloodshot right eye into his telescope and swung it around to the Smith’s residence at 24, who as luck would have it were barbequing in their swimsuits on their terrace.  Mrs. Smith was
hot and was wearing a nice bikini. 

Judas forgot about Thompson and stared intently in his telescope, licking his lips at what was unfolding before his eyes.

~~~

Rodrigo didn’t have time for this now.  He knew he would have to deal with Max soon, but he had been avoiding it for years, ever since his father Felix “El Chorro” Menendez put him in charge of their Sonora Mexico operations.   Max was a friend of the family since the day he kicked their asses in the streets of Puerto Penasco when they were picking on that maricon Miguel.  He knew Max was up to something and was probably hording some contraband, but he didn’t want to anger his father, as much as he would like to take down Max once and for all.  Maybe it would be soon.  He took in the last draw of his Dos Equis and put it down loudly, purposely interrupting the only two men in the room, who were focused intently on their own beers, their game of dominos, and the older one regaling with bravado to the younger one about his sexual exploits.   Rodrigo only had two esclavos at the compound to check on this lead. The rest of his ascinos were already at their homes, ready when he needed them for something important.

“¡Cabrónes
,” he yelled, enjoying the fear his power created.

“Averiguáis la casa de Señor Max.  That maricon Judas called and said Max brought back another shipment.  Park a block away, and watch what happens tonight and tomorrow and report to me.  Stay in your car and wait for my call, unless you see something.  If you do, report to me first.  Do not engage him.”

“No problema, Rodrigo,” one of the two replied.

“And be
careful,” Rodrigo continued, “We know he has weapons and how to use them.  So tread lightly, or you might end up muertos from your stupidity.”

“No problema, Rodrigo,” they said in unison, stood up and left without asking another question.

The Party

9:30 P.M.

"This is not science fiction, Clyde.  This is fact."  Max was very animated at the challenge laid out before him by Clyde, saying in so many alcohol-flavored words that he was just another
“George-Noory-listening fool” who believed in any crazy scenario and that this most recent one didn’t have even a remote element of truth.  Game on. 

The debate started when Clyde said he could run his whole house on his new iPad. Max said it wouldn’t matter when the next big CME wiped out all his electronic toys, what would he have to show for himself?

Bill was going to enjoy this, mostly because Clyde was such a pompous SOB, who was due for a tongue-lashing.  Max was just the man to do it.

"Every one hundred years, the Earth experiences massive solar storms like the one that hit in September 1859.

"The whole world as far south as Cuba witnessed auroras in the skies for several days.  All telegraph communications went down.  Telegraph lines exploded, raining sparks and fire on terrified witnesses, even electrocuting some.  There were no other electric gadgets then and no computers with circuit boards. Nothing else for the EMPs to fry.

"Now imagine if this were to happen today.  Anything that could have conducted electrical current did, because of the massive magnetic waves that pummeled the Earth then.  You think your iPhones, iPads, TV's, & and other useless things would survive?  No, computers run everything we have now: cars, appliances, pacemakers, games.  Everything we depend on runs on electric and would be fried in an instant with a large 1859-sized EMP.  Power grids would go down permanently, and would take ten to twenty or more years to replace.  No power for twenty years.  All sectors of society would collapse: banking, medicine, factories, transportation, farming.  All wiped out.  It would be the end of our world as we know it."  Max had his prey cornered, and he wasn't going to let up.

Clyde was looking a little ashen.  Everyone else was silent, listening intently.  "This was Max at his finest," Bill thought.

He continued the assault.

"Worse yet, I've only mentioned a rather common solar event that happens every two to four generations and the next one will happen during this very one, while we are alive.  In fact, scientists estimate better than a fifty-percent chance it will happen before your next girlfriend’s boob job.”

Clyde just glared at him.  His girlfriend, awaking from her catatonic state, realized some attention was on her, but didn’t know why.

Max, smiling continued, “But there is the potential for an event which is so much worse than this.”

"Every few thousand years or so, the Earth gets pummeled by solar super storms that are hundreds of times worse than what it experienced in 1859.  We're talking months of fire and brimstone, the likes of which the Bible talks about
with the destruction of evil Sodom & Gomorrah.  Know this; when that happens, your ass is toast.  You will not survive.”  He was speaking to all the guests now.

"But, I just may.  Not because I'm smarter than any of you...  aside from Clyde here."  A few chuckles erupted around the room. "It's because I have planned for the end of the world.  I've hedged my bets, while you, Clyde sit on your lazy butt watching MSNBC on your satellite TV, worrying about such trivial issues as what politician sex'd pictures of his lower anatomy to some young intern.  I'll be ready Clyde when our world comes to an end.  What will you do?"  Max ended confidently.

"Mmmm.  What about all those preparations for the coming Zombie Apocalypse, Max?  I seem to recall a similar tone of certainty emanating from you about five years ago.  How'd that work out for you?"  Clyde’s rebuttal was quick and damning, to be sure.

"Come on, Clyde, I vanna go now.  Dis talk is boring,” Clyde’s very pretty Slavic sounding girlfriend said, while tugging his arm towards the door.
  "I vanna go dancing at On The Beach."

"Okay, fine.  Thanks, Bill and Lisa, for the wonderful party."  He leaned over to kiss Lisa. 

"Bye Sally,” waving across the room to her. 

“Both your women get sexier each time I see them," to Bill while shaking his hand. 

They were gone just as suddenly.

Not long after everyone left, Max did his best to stay awake while Bill & Lisa cleaned up.  It would have been a good time to tell the Kings what was coming, but he was in no shape to do it now.  After two days of no sleep, rigorous manual labor, worry about the end of the world, and now the alcohol from Bill’s margaritas, Max was done.

“Family, I need to call it a night,” Max said, looking somewhat pale.  He arose from the loveseat in the open den and walked into the kitchen to offer his goodbyes.

“No,
Uncle Max,” Sally stood up from one of the kitchen bar seats and pleaded, “You can’t go yet.  I’ve been trying all night to speak to you about what you said to Mr. Clydeston, and the solar storms we’re having.”

His head felt like it was about to pop like an overripe grape in the sun.  He turned to her, “I’m sorry.   I’m just a little too tired right now.  Let’s try tomorrow?”  He gave Sally a hug and kiss on the cheek.

“Yeah, sure.  Sleep well, Uncle Max,” Sally conceded, for now.

"Tired from the Clyde Clydeston throw-down?”  Lisa couldn’t help but goad him a little before he left.  She handed Bill the last dish to dry, both of them standing behind the kitchen island.

"Ha.  That damned Clydeston is a pretentious asshole.” Max then gave his puppy dog look, “Lisa, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you.  I’m just tired and shouldn’t have said what I did.  Especially when it’s obvious in the coming da…” He stopped himself.  “Truth is, I really hate that guy.  What he needs is a good physical ass kicking, or better yet, a 50 cal round to the skull.”

Bill was imagining Max on the roof of his house taking Clyde out from a mile away, having difficulty repressing his smile.

“Max, enough,” Lisa insisted.  "You never embarrass me.  I just thought you were a little heavy, considering the otherwise festive occasion,” Lisa rebutted.  “What did you mean when you said
when it’s obvious
?”

“Tomorrow.  Now sleep,” Max said, kissing Lisa on the check and then hugging Max.  “Thanks, Bill,” he offered upon releasing him, quietly exiting out the patio door before he said anything else he shouldn’t.