23) The Grapes of Wrath

“This can’t be for fucking real right now…” you said to yourself. You had seen it in your peripheral vision as you were washing your hands. It was late. You hadn’t been able to fall asleep right away, David on the other hand, had been out for at least an hour.

You had gotten up to use the bathroom and when you were washing up, you caught it out of the corner of your eye. The flash of light was right there in the mirror… you would have sworn it before but now, turning around and catching it again through the light dimming curtains in the bathroom you were very much certain that you had seen lights in the yard.

Your yard.

The yard that no one was supposed to be in.

For a split second you thought that the red truck guy was back for another go around at the dumpster… but as you made your way to the curtain, peeling it back just enough to peek out you realized that it was not him. Unless he came back with someone else… also there was no red truck on the street, and red truck guy was tall and lanky. Neither of these figures looked the same…

It was pitch dark out but you could tell that it was a slim woman with a stoutly built man and they were walking around your backyard with flashlights. You had assumed they were getting ready to open up your rented dumpster still in the backyard, their lights sweeping across the church, the bright lights hitting the sanctuary windows and those in the bathroom… except they walked right past them, further into the backyard and towards the garden.

“Hey David?!” You walked into the bedroom rousing him out of sleep.

“Uh… HUH… Yeah? Wha… huh? What’s up?” He was in that delirious half sleep you only get when you’re dead tired and have just been woken up to some sort of emergency… usually a puking kid… but this… these were people in your yard… with flashlights.

“Hey David,” gently now… “Did you tell someone that they could come into the yard tonight to grab something or…”

“What?” He’s a little more with it now.

“I said, were you expecting someone out in the yard tonight?”

“Huh? No? What are you talking about Vaness?” He’s sitting up now and swinging his legs out of the blankets, wiping the exhaustion off his face. Once he’s up he moves more with reflex than intention.

“There’s ummm… there’s some people in the yard. With flashlights…”

“So do you want me to go talk to them then?”

“I mean unless you’d like for your wife to go confront two people with flashlights trespassing, yeah….”

“Fucking A… I’m so tired. What in the fuck is wrong with people coming into our yard at… what time is it anyhow?” He pulled on his pajama pants and he was less than pleased with the trespassers.

“It’s almost midnight.” You said, not quite as pissed as your husband, granted you’re weren’t the one about to possibly have to beat off two people attacking you with flashlights, you were though, at the very least annoyed by the entire situation.

“Son of a bitch… I’ll be right back.”

You grabbed your phone, just in case you had to call the cops… who knew where this was going and you waited. You could hear your husband making his way down the stairs, through his office, the loud thuds on the old oak treads, the way the massive spring hinged heavy wooden doors creaked and swung with a good push, and the slick clack of his rubber sandals on the cool grey stone steps into the foyer. Then there was the loud swoosh of the commercial door swinging open, the wooden doors creaking with the change in pressure and your husband’s trailing voice booming in the cool late summer air… “HEY! CAN I HELP YOU???”

You looked out the window and upon closer inspection you noticed that David was not addressing two miscreants ready to beat him to a bloody pulp with their flashlights, but rather your neighbor, that young woman Rachel that lived in the duplex on the other side of the lawn.

You hadn’t seen her in a while, ever since her husband was arrested… but now she was back with some other man. David wasn’t yelling. You assumed maybe she had come back to the house earlier and her dog got out or something like that. Knowing David was no longer in any sort of danger you slipped into bed.

You were asleep by the time he got back upstairs.

************************************************************

“So what was that all about, then? Last night…”

You were in the shower when David walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth and say, “good morning.”

“It was frickin Rachel and her dad.”

“Oh yeah? What were they doing? Looking for her dog or something?”

“I think they were getting ready to fuck over the neighbors.”

You weren’t expecting that response, “What?”

“Yeah, Mike and his roommate.”

“I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

“The plants, Vanessa.”

You didn’t answer right away because you couldn’t understand what plants he was talking about and how they’d be fucking anything over.

“VANESSA! The giant six foot tall weed plants in our garden! The ones that Rachel’s husband and Mike and his roommate were all growing together in our planter beds!” David was exasperated. He couldn’t understand how you’d forgotten about those plants.

Except that you had. When you moved into the church there was a garden. Huge vines of concord grapes clung to three, eight foot long fence panels. Eight long rectangular planter beds sat in two neat rows by the fence. They were filled with gorgeous flowers, thick bushels of herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, and… two beds dedicated exclusively to a very well tended to crop of cannabis plants, roughly two months from harvest.

Sure you had been intrigued. Interested even… when you stepped out onto your soon to be lawn, during your walkthrough less than 24 hours before closing. The real estate agent had hurried out the French doors behind you… “The ummm… the neighbors have been using the garden… but they are yours (she had motioned to the planted beds) so… you can work that out with them I guess.” No one had mentioned the cannabis plants, you and David had just nodded to one another, glancing at the plants and quietly laughing.

The very first day after you had moved in and the rain had stopped… the neighbors were over… You supposed to “work that out,” nervously asking you and David if they could have a few days to dig their crops out of the planters on account of them not knowing that anyone had bought the place. As far as you and David were concerned, sure you bought the property and technically anything on it, the garden and all of its contents included, were yours… however, the property had been vacant for nearly a decade, they had tended to the lawn, kept the flower beds planted and maintained, and those were their plants. Besides… who wanted to make enemies with the neighbors by, “Christopher Columbus-ing,” you’d later joke with David, all their pot plants and veggies?

Neither of you wanted that.

The arrangement had been that you and David weren’t going to touch shit in the flower beds until next spring. The first crop of cannabis would be harvested by them late September, early October, the second and final, probably two weeks after that; the veggies would be dead and gone come the first good frost (though no one had to say it, they obviously weren’t the real concern), which would probably be mid to late October… which was also when you planned on putting up a fence and thereby taking over your garden beds indefinitely. In the meantime the neighbors, Rachel (whom you had never even seen at that point), her husband Dwight, Mike and his roommate had permission to come onto the property to water and harvest their fruits and veggies… and cannabis whenever. Your one rule was that they respect your property and belongings.

They had been so thankful that they told you to take whatever veggies you wanted (no mention of the cannabis though) and Dwight, Rachel’s husband had even continued to mow the lawn. You and David couldn’t believe how well you all had made out in the deal… you had no intention of taking anything of your neighbor’s or starting off on a bad foot, and here these people were mowing your fucking lawn for you doing the absolute basic: not being shit humans. Which suited you both just fine and well on account of all the other shit you had to do. You chalked that up as a “W” for all parties involved.

That was… until it wasn’t. Which was where you were after last night….

“So were they not supposed to water them then?” You were still confused about how Rachel had fucked the plants up…

“WHAT?”

“The plants? How were they fucking the neighbors with the plants? Did they mess up the watering schedule and why were they doing it at night?”

“VANESSA?!” David was both dumbfounded and exasperated. “I think they stole the plants!”

“Wait???? WHAT??? They stole the plants from Mike and his roommate?? His friends??” You were shook.

“YES!” David was incredulous.

“Ohhhhhhhhh…. Well shit. That’s fucked up. How do you know?”

“Because they were taking the plants, I saw them yanking them out of the ground… shame too because they still had another two weeks to go… but that’s not the point… they were taking them and when I asked what they were doing, they gave me some bullshit story about just getting out of work and needing to harvest late and ‘sorry for the inconvenience…’ and…

“What in the absolute fuck is with people trespassing on our property after work… sorry… go on,” you interrupted.

“And they said that they were just grabbing their half and they’d be gone. I told them that they were being sketchy as fuck coming by unannounced at midnight, shining flashlights into our house and that I didn’t want them on the property anymore…”

“Oh wow…” your eyes were wide. Things had been going so well with the neighbors and now David had just told them not to step foot on your yard again… and you were kinda wondering about the whole lawn situation… you were always the one to mow the lawn… if the neighbors weren’t growing drugs on your property and mowing your yard to keep you cool with the arrangement… that chore was on you, so you kind of figured that you probably should have been consulted about the whole… no more in the yard thing, but you also didn’t think that this was the time to bring that lawn mowing thing up.

“So… you don’t think that Mike and his roommate were actually privy to the whole harvest at midnight under the cloak of darkness thing that Rachel was up to then?”

“No. No I do not. I think they were fucking over their grow partners and hadn’t anticipated anyone being up.”

“Well they would have gotten away with it had they been smart enough not to shine the fucking flashlights in the windows. Shittiest thieves ever.”

“Yeah well, I don’t know for sure… it was dark and I couldn’t tell if they had taken all of the one crop or just half, but I’d be willing to bet that no one does an honest harvest at that hour.”

You hoped that your neighbors hadn’t just gotten taken by their friends (maybe soon to be former friends) and grow partners, but you also really hoped that David hadn’t just fired the ‘groundskeeper’ for naught… because then you would have definitely said something.

Either way, you were going to find out soon enough.

***************************************************

“Did you see that?” David asked, coming through the front door, you were inside sweeping. You had seen him talking to a man dressed in a button down shirt and tie, neatly pressed pants… a stark contrast to your husband in stained and torn work jeans and an old tshirt. They had been on the side of the lawn, right near the partial fence that separated your yard from the duplex next door where Rachel had been staying with her husband. You could see them talking for a bit, they were motioning towards the church, the bathroom windows and the garden… but you couldn’t make out a word they were saying.

“That guy you were talking to?” You asked David as soon as he came back inside. The other man got back into his car and drove off.

“Yeah. You know who that was?”

“No clue. Who?”

“It was a detective asking about the plants.”

“REALLY?” Your interest was piqued.

“Apparently Mike called the police to file charges over the stolen cannabis plants and the cop wanted to talk to us and Rachel.”

“Jesus Christ. SHE did steal them! AND she roped us into that bullshit…” you’re suddenly a bit more ok about David ending the agreement thing, though not entirely thrilled about the whole having to mow your own lawn now thing.

“She sure did. I told the cop that we had seen her and I’m pretty sure that was her father, taking the plants last night and that I told him that I told her to stay off the property.”

“So what’s going to happen now?” You’re on edge.

“Well… nothing. The plants were on our property, not Mike’s… technically they are supposed to not be visible from the street, and there’s not much that can be done. So that’s that. I guess the cop was just wanting to talk to us and Rachel regardless, but she’s not around… he knocked and no one came to the door… I haven’t seen her car either.”

“I’m pissed. We all had a nice little arrangement and she had to go fuck things up and get cops involved in our business…”

“He was interested in the church too… wanted to know what we were doing in here…”

“Did you tell him the joke about us turning it into a Spirit Halloween?” You laughed.

“I figured the joke probably wasn’t appropriate on account of being questioned about possible theft charges by the police… and also I think people definitely have a different sense of humor here.”

“That’s fair.” And it was… on both accounts.

*******************************************************

Later that night David told you that when he went back outside to work in the backyard that Mike had approached him to ask if David knew anything about the missing plants.

“And what did you tell him?” You asked, pulling your hair back into a pony tail, sweat dripping off your forehead… it was still incredibly hot, the heat had yet to break. It had been a miserably hot week.

“I told him that we saw Rachel and her father and that I confronted them and he said that he had figured it was her and not us that took the plants and I told him I was sorry that he got stiffed like that.”

“So we’re cool with Mike then?”

“I mean, I think so. I don’t see why not. We didn’t take them.”

“He must be pissed.”

“He’s upset, but he’s more upset that they harvested them two weeks too early and I told him that I had had the same exact thought.”

“Fucking pot heads.” You’re both laughing now.

*******************************************************

A few weeks passed. There was now a half section of fence propped up in front of the remaining cannabis plants. The ones that were way too early for Rachel and her dad to rip off. David had done his best to comply with the cannabis cultivation ordinance by making them less visible from the road, temporarily until they were gone and your fence could go up. David plastered the little fence section with way too many NO TRESPASSING signs - just to make his point that much more… well pointed, should Rachel have any doubts about the contractual ending of the former agreement. Mike had taken up where Rachel and her husband had left off and the lawn was still being mowed neatly and regularly… he had done that on his own and you hadn’t rejected the new arrangement.

The grapes had just begun to ripen on the vine. When the sun was out and not too strong you’d sit out on the edge of one of the planters and pick grapes, one by one, examining them for the occasional ant before popping them into your mouth and unceremoniously spitting out the seeds. Later you’d just pop the grape’s skin in your mouth, savoring the sweet inside before swallowing the whole thing, seeds and all… you figured it was a lot less barbaric than hawking mouthfuls of seeds onto the lawn.

You’d pluck tomatoes and peppers and green beans. You hadn’t felt any entitlement to the fruit and veggies before Rachel pulled her little stunt. But when she theft-ed and was officially disbarred from the property, your former agreement null and void on account of her being a slippery little snake… “If she’s going to fuck her friends over like that, she’d think nothing of stealing from us… I mean fuck… they all used to hang out together… what a shit thing to do…” you had said to David and he had wholeheartedly agreed, “I don’t want her over here,” you decided that the garden was now, albeit a bit earlier than anticipated, officially yours, fruit and veggies included.

Mike had said that he didn’t give a shit about the vegetables and fruit, not his exact words but close enough. He said that Rachel had wanted the garden planted and that he and her husband had planted everything, showed it to her when the planting was done, took care of it all and she never once stepped foot in there after… except to steal the pot plants… So on account of her being no longer allowed on your property and her husband out of the picture and that Mike really didn’t care what you did with the whole lot of fruit and vegetables, you picked and ate as you pleased. These were your delicious things now. Guilt free.

Which was why you were caught off guard when you happened across a young woman whom you didn’t immediately recognize, and two older adults, a man and woman, with a massive plastic Tupperware tote, picking your grapes… off your fence… in your yard.

You were so taken aback when you realized that it was Rachel and her father, and whom you presumed to be her mother too in your yard, that you assumed that there had to be some sort of logical explanation.

You looked at the trio of trespassers on your lawn as you had just walked out the laundry room French doors and into the yard, you shook your head then turned and walked back into the kitchen where David was taking a quick break to eat lunch.

“Hey. Did you tell Rachel that she could be on the property?‘ David’s back was to you, he was sitting at the table hunched over, scrolling on his phone as he ate a sandwich.

“The fuck I did not. Why?” He replied, turning around slowly.

“Because she’s here with whom I believe are her parents, with a giant tote, picking the grapes in our yard.”

“Do you need me to go say something to them, then.” He began getting up, wiping his mouth, but you stopped him.

“No you know what, I’ve got this. I can take care of this one.”

He looked surprised, but then shrugged and sat back down to finish his lunch.

“Hey.” You called out to Rachel when you walked back outside.

At first she ignored you, just walked by with a second massive empty tote heading towards the grape vines.

“Hey!”

Then again, louder.

“HEY!”

This time she stopped. Her parents heard you, but they kept their backs toward you and continued peeling grapes off the vines and tossing them into the bins.

“Yeah, hey… why are you here right now on our property? You were explicitly told NOT to step foot on our property again,” and then pointing at the temporary fence panel, erected for privacy but adorned with an ugly array of NO TRESPASSING signs specifically for her, you added, “Hence all the signs. Those are because of you.”

She gave you a huge smile, “Uh, Dave… I talked to him and we smoothed things out. It’s ok.”

“Ha!’ You scoffed, annoyed with her blatant lie, “I just spoke with him two seconds ago and he did no such thing. You were told to not step so much as a foot on this property. So I will ask you again Rachel, why are you here?”

“Because I planted these grapes and they’re mi…”

But you didn’t let her finish…

“No Rachel, that’s not how this works. We had a little agreement, you respect our property and our things and you were welcome to come and go and…”

Now she cut you off, “I planted these grapes. So I am getting my grapes.”

“That’s not how this works. I bought the house Rachel. They’re mine now. I’m asking you to leave and I’m not going to ask again.”

Her mom and dad stiffened.

Rachel walked over to the fence near her mom and dad and began trying to remove the grape vines from your side of the fence and push them over onto the other side. It was in vain, the vines were thick and deeply rooted in your yard.

“Rachel, I am telling you right now, do not touch the plants.”

That was when her mom and dad muttered something and they grabbed their totes and started to walk off.

“You know not for nothing Rachel, but if you had just knocked on the door and spoken to me, asked me for the grapes, told me that ‘you had planned on harvesting them or whatever and would it be ok for you to grab them,’ I’d have given you every last one of them, no hesitation. So… do with that information what you choose. I don’t want to see you in my yard again.” And you turned back around and walked inside.

“She was cleaning out the grapes I guess. Not now though.” You said coming into the kitchen.

“Well thanks for taking care of that…” David said from the sink, he was clearing off his dish from lunch.

“Yeah no problem. You know I told her that had she just asked for the grapes, that I’d have given them to her. I think that bothered me more than her even just walking into the yard… the fact that I would have picked em myself and given her every last one, just on fucking principle and she came over here so entitled after that whole sketchy flashlight heist getting us questioned by the fucking police thing… I’m kind of just over her bullshit at this point.”

“I’m right there with you, Vaness.”

“Ok… well good… we’re on the same page then.”

And then you pulled the largest bowl you owned off the top shelf and began walking back outside, you almost didn’t hear David ask what you were doing…

You were on a mission.

“Huh?”

“Where are you going with the bowl?”

“Oh… this… yeah… Well I know that Rachel is going to come back. I’d place bets on it and I don’t even bet. So I’m going to be petty and beat her to the punch. The weather is delightful, the grapes are ripe and plentiful…” and then you smiled, “I will see you when every grape on those fucking vines is in our kitchen.” And you did. Two hours had passed and you had picked every single grape off those vines.

Even the rotten ones that you flicked off and stubbed into the ground to further enrich the dark soil.

The sun felt wonderfully warm on your back, there was just the slightest hint of a crisp cool in the air, the summer humidity gone, fall would be creeping in soon. But for now… you were in your yard, picking your grapes, next to your church. And you couldn’t help but smile.

Later that day you’d bag up bushels of grapes and walk them over to the neighbors’ homes, leaving them on doorsteps with little notes. You’d experiment making grape jam, that never jelled (maybe your penance for your petty harvesting?), and you’d eat grapes until you were so sick of them that you couldn’t eat another; thick clusters eventually going bad in the bottom of the bowl… were dumped in the compost pile.

The day after the incident you found $15 cash in the mailbox, a crumpled up ten and five. You had wondered out loud, laughing at the thought, if someone had assumed that you were re-opening as a church and wanted to make a donation… “wouldn’t that be something…?” You had said to David.

“It was Rachel’s dad, Vaness. He probably didn’t want another neighbor calling the cops on his daugther. He paid you for grapes.”

“Huh… well I liked my explanation better. Anyway… I’m not calling the cops over fucking grapes, I just don’t want her and her issues spilling into our thing here…”

“My guess is that they’re done. That’s why the money was there, he paid you off and they’re not coming back.”

*******************************************

Which you’d tell your mother on the phone a week later, that you “never believed for a second that she wasn’t coming back. I knew she’d be back,” you were laughing now, “and what do you know… last night Elliot said that he heard car doors slam, saw flashlights in the yard again, and someone talking about all the grapes. He said it was just around midnight.”

“You gotta be kidding me?” Your mother said aghast on the other end of the phone. “Did she take all the grapes?”

“Nope. I knew she’d be back so I spent an afternoon harvesting every single fucking grape out there…. My grapes of wrath if you will…,”

Your mother was laughing now.

You continued, “and I made grape jelly that still hasn’t jelled, doled out sacks of grapes to neighbors, then ate myself sick of grapes for the foreseeable future… BUT… I did get to out-sneak the snake… so… I don’t think she’ll be back again after that.”

And you’re happy to report that you haven’t had a single sketchy midnight flashlight episode since.