Free Curtains by Scott Nicholson

the girl said. “What
you doing with that stick?”
    “Fixing things,” he said, smiling and holding
up the picket. Maybe it wasn’t too late to pass along the concept
of respect.
    “A fence?” she asked.
    He nodded. “I like good fences.”
    “My daddy said fences are for greedy
people.”
    “You should always listen to your father.”
Herman kept smiling, his face like warm wax in the sun.
    The kid smiled back, confused, then pedaled
on past. Herman walked to the hippie’s leaning fence post. It was
cedar, a little more manageable than locust though it would rot a
lot faster. He knelt and examined the base of the post.
    He’d repaired the same post twice already
this week. Usually he fixed things right the first time, but once
in a while you got hold of a stubborn piece of wood. He leaned the
post until it was ninety degrees, then eyeballed the angle against
the corner of the hippie’s house. Satisfied, he wedged the picket
into the ground, driving it with the hammer until the dirt was
packed.
    He reached for the top of the post to test it
for sturdiness. He touched wood, and a sharp pain lanced along his
finger. At first he figured he’d drawn a splinter, but the wound
was clean. Herman bent for a closer look.
    A razor blade had been embedded in the cedar.
Its silver edge glinted in the dawn.
    “Tarnation.” Herman muttered under his
breath, sucking on his wounded finger. A closer study of the fence
revealed several more razor blades in the crosspieces.
    Herman glanced at the houses along the
street. This was a Community Watch neighborhood. He didn’t dare
trespass on the hippie’s property. But he was within his rights to
walk the perimeter of the yard. As a concerned citizen, mind you,
checking up on things.
    At one corner of the fence, the ground was
bare where animals cut through the forsythia. Herman saw a long
fishhook wedged into a crack in the fence. Bits of cat fur and a
tiny piece of shriveled flesh hung from the hook’s barb. The fur
was light gray, the color of Widow Hampton’s cat.
    Herman hadn’t seen the cat in several days.
It had a habit of spraying in Herman’s yard, stinking up the
petunias. Cat had no sense of territory and could scamper over a
fence like it wasn’t there. He grinned at the thought of the cat
yowling in pain after getting snagged by the hook.
    Herman headed back to his house with new
admiration for the hippie. You had to fight to protect what was
yours. Hell, when you come right down to it, a hippie could be just
like any normal person. All it took was a haircut and a Bible.
    The red-headed girl rode up on her bike,
stopped with a scruffing of brakes. “Sorry, mister.”
    Herman had been lost in thought. “Huh? Sorry
for what?”
    She pointed up the street. “I ran into your
fence.” She blushed beneath her freckles.
    Herman saw leaning pickets, a whole section
of them, one snapped in half. He bit back a curse. His hand went to
his back pocket for the hammer. His cut finger bumped into the
handle, and the pain drove his anger away.
    “It’s okay, honey,” he said. He resisted the
urge to pat her head, because he was afraid he might grab her hair
and jerk her off the bicycle. A curtain lifted in nosy Mrs.
Breedlove’s house. Community watch at its finest.
    He walked back to his house as the girl
pedaled away, off to her next act of trespassing and destruction.
Herman spent the rest of the morning repairing his own fence, then
went in for lunch and his daily bout of Gospel radio. He took a nap
in the afternoon, charging his batteries for the night’s
mission.
    Supper was liver mush and potatoes, plus some
pole beans grown in the garden out back. Back when Verna was alive,
they kept up with the canning, making preserves from the apples and
sauce from the tomatoes. With Verna passed on to the Lord, Herman
saw little need to stock up for the future. He grew most of what he
needed and in the winter there were grocery stores. Gas was so
high, thanks to them