Free Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta Page B

Ketchell stood on his back stoop in slippers and shorty pajamas, holding a bulky cardboard box and staring uncertainly at his next-door neighbors’ garage.
    Come on, he told himself. You can do this.
    No one would ever know. Th e Simmonses’ house was dark, the old air conditioner wheezing away in the second- fl oor bedroom window. He pictured Peggy alone on the bed, snoring heavily, nearly comatose from the industrial-strength sleeping pills she’d been taking since Lonny’s sudden death a month ago. Gus could probably break down the front door with a sledgehammer, turn on every light in the house, and make himself a ham sandwich without disturbing her.
    Gus’s own wife, Martha, was also asleep, but even awake she wouldn’t have registered his absence at this ungodly hour; aside from the occasional hotel room, they hadn’t shared a bed in years. Th ere were no longer any dogs in the immediate neighborhood to sound an alarm, either, not since Fred DiMello had been forced to put down his ancient, slobbering basset hound last October. Fred had buried Sadsack in his backyard, and Gus o ft en saw him staring forlornly at the circle of rocks he’d placed in the ground to mark the gravesite.
    So the coast was clear. But still Gus hesitated.
    He just didn’t like the idea of trespassing — breaking and entering, to be precise — even in a place so close to home, where he’d once been welcome. It would have been so much easier — so much more civilized — if he could just have rung the Simmonses’ doorbell in the morning and said, Hey, Peg, sorry to bother you, but I need a favor. And Peggy would have said, Sure, Gus, you name it. But why don’t you sit down and have a cup of co ff ee fi rst?
    Once upon a time, the Ketchells and the Simmonses had been those kinds of neighbors, back when everyone was young and their kids moved between the two yards as if they were all part of one big family. Lonny Simmons sometimes borrowed Gus’s wheelbarrow and extension ladder without asking; Gus did the same with Lonny’s ratchet set and Weedwacker. Th e Ketchells had an open invitation to swim in the Simmonses’ built-in pool, a bona fi de luxury when it was installed in the early seventies, one of maybe a half dozen in the whole town. Th e two families barbecued together, went on camping trips, swapped babysitting, and took turns shoveling each other’s sidewalk when it snowed.
    Somewhere along the way, though, it all went sour. Th e kids grew up and went away. Lonny fi lled his swimming pool with concrete, said the damn thing was too much trouble. Peggy got fat and haughty; she made some remarks that Martha hadn’t appreciated. Th ere were grievances — a missing drill bit, a motion light that shined into a bedroom window. Gus and Lonny fell out of the habit of shouting jocular greetings to each other when they were both out in their yards. A ft er a while, they stopped waving.
    Nonetheless, relations between the two households had remained reasonably civil until about three years ago, when the Simmonses got a bee in their bonnet about the old oak tree in the Ketchells’ yard, which overhung both properties. Lonny and Peggy thought it was diseased and demanded that it be cut down before falling limbs damaged their precious garage. A ft er a couple of tense discussions, Gus and Martha reluctantly agreed to get some estimates. Th ey hadn’t even had time to make their initial calls when the mail carrier arrived with a registered letter containing vague threats of legal action if the tree was not cut down “with all due dispatch.”
    A registered letter! From their next-door neighbors! Gus went ballistic. He scribbled a choice obscenity on the envelope and shoved it under the Simmonses’ front door, right back where it came from. From then on, it was War.
    OF ALL the unpleasant memories, one particular episode still rankled. Last July, Gus’s three-year-old twin granddaughters had come for a visit during a wicked heat