by David Thorne
Carl,
Do you think you could tell your tomatoes from Janice’s tomotes in a line-up? Janice, do you mind if Carl and I come over to inspect your patch? What time would suit? Carl’s an early riser but he won’t be able to make it before noon if he decides to drive. You don’t have to provide lunch or anything. Unless you want to.
While I’ve little doubt the FBI will be stepping in at any moment to take over the investigation, I’m sure they’d be thankful for any evidence we can procure in the meantime to help with their case against Janice.
Regards, David
................................................................................................
From: Carl Mishler
Date: Wednesday 15 July 2015 9.20am
To: Janice Roberts
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, David Thorne, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tresspassing
I know it wasnt you Janice I know exactly who it was. Im planting more vines today and if there stolen again Ill have more than enough evidence to press charges.
Carl Mishler
................................................................................................
From: Carl Mishler
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 3.36pm
To: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, David Thorne, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, Janice Roberts
Subject: Neighborhood watch
Dear Residents of the Forest Hill Subdivision,
Yesterday I planted 4 tomato vines to replace the ones that were stolen last night they were stolen again A trail camera that cost $79.99 was stolen as well and our wheelbarrow was found in Janices front yard. I reported the theft and an officer spoke to the person I believe is responsible I wont name any names you know who you are.
He also recommended setting up a neighborhood watch among residents to report suspicious activity. If youd be interested in participating let me know by email or call me on (540) 740 8354.
Carl Mishler
................................................................................................
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 3.59pm
To: Carl Mishler
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Neighborhood watch
Hello Carl,
An officer also spoke to me, I told him it was probably a bear or something.
Regardless, I’d be more than happy to participate in a neighbourhood watch program. I would, however, prefer the term ‘vigilante team’ as ‘neighborhood watch’ makes it sound like it’s just going to be a bunch of sad old farts gossiping. It’s your call though; I’m not the boss of our vigilante team.
I took it upon myself to whip up a quick logo. I can have t-shirts made up before our first meeting if everyone sends me their sizes. I’m guessing you’re a child’s medium? They’re $25 each but if everyone could put in an extra $10 for my trouble it would be appreciated.
Regards, David
................................................................................................
From: Carl Mishler
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 4.17pm
To: David Thorne
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
That wont be necessary because your not invited. Ive been polite to you since you moved here but your definitely not welcome in my house.
Carl Mishler
................................................................................................
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 4.20pm
To: Carl Mishler
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Because I’m black?
................................................................................................
From: Carl Mishler
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 4.31pm
To: David Thorne
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Your not black.
................................................................................................
From: Rob Ellis
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 4.42pm
To: Carl Mishler, David Thorne
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
My phone gives me a notification every time you send an email. Everyone’s forwarding the emails to everyone else and my email address is in the list. I’ve received 20 notifications in the last hour. I haven’t got time to go to team meetings and nobody gives a fuck about missing tomatoes.
Please take me off this email list.
Rob
................................................................................................
From: Rob Ellis
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 4.46pm
To: Carl Mishler, David Thorne, Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Sorry for the language. I didn’t mean to include everyone in that email.
Rob
................................................................................................
From: Carl Mishler
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 5.09pm
To: Rob Ellis
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, David Thorne, Sue Knowles, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
It’s not a team Rob just communication between residents for everybodies benefit and safety. Ill make a neighborhood watch mailing list that everybody will be included on and send updates once or twice a week Wed only meet at my house once a month for about 30 minutes.
Carl Mishler
................................................................................................
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 5.37pm
To: Rob Ellis
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Carl Mishler, Sue Knowles, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Hello Rob,
Would you be interested in starting our own vigilante team? This way we could organize meetings around your schedule. Every second Wednesday at Janice’s house around dinnertime works for me but I’m flexible.
As Carl’s group appears to add little to the system already in place - apart from the threat of even more emails devoid of grammar, punctuation, correct spelling or point - I propose our group’s rules consist only of regularly not attending meetings and keeping all communication to a wave as we drive past. It doesn’t have to be a big wave, the one where you raise a few fingers off the steering wheel and nod is fine. Or one finger for Carl. With or without the nod.
The main benefit of our group would be not having to visit Carl’s tiny house of sadness. I looked though his window recently and it was like having two syringes of pure beige injected directly into my corneas. I actually staggered home and had to flick through Pantone color swatches to stop shaking. Carl wasn’t home at the time - unless he was wearing his Sunday morning beige suit and I simply didn’t notice him. Given the choice between thirty minutes in Carl’s house or thirty hours in a cardboard box, I’d pick the less beige and roomier option. Any meeting at Carl’s house involving more than two people will have to be held st
anding in a tight circle and thirty minutes is far too long to have to stare at Carl’s head that close. It’s like a shaved pug that’s been dragged behind a car for several miles then left in the sun.
The one and only benefit I can see to attending Carl’s neighborhood watch meetings is that he’s probably less likely to beat his wife with witnesses present.
Regards, David
................................................................................................
From: Rob Ellis
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 6.01pm
To: David Thorne
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Carl Mishler, Sue Knowles, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Sounds good to me.
................................................................................................
From: Carl Mishler
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 6.13pm
To: David Thorne
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
I’m blocking your email and removing you and Rob from my mailing list. We’ll let the man deal with theft and defamation charges.
Carl Mishler
................................................................................................
From: Ben and Shirley Goertz
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 6.30pm
To: Carl Mishler
CC: Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, David Thorne, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Hello Carl, can you remove us from your list too please?
Thank you, Ben and Shirley
................................................................................................
From: Carol McKensie
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 7.04pm
To: Carl Mishler
CC: Ben and Shirley Goertz, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis, David Thorne, Janice Roberts
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
Hi Carl,
Kate moved over a year ago and I don’t think that email works anymore. Its her old work one.
Would you mind also taking mine and Joe’s off of the mailing list?
We get a lot of spam and we’re with Hughesnet so we can only check our email when it’s sunny.
Carol
................................................................................................
From: Janice Roberts
Date: Friday 17 July 2015 10.23am
To: Carl Mishler, David Thorne, Ben and Shirley Goertz, Carol McKensie, Joe McKensie, Sue Knowles, Rob Ellis
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Neighborhood watch
I have my kaffeeklatsch on Wednesdays.
Encarta 95
It’s an easy joke to declare, “Lol, old people and computers” and then shrug and shake your head while giving a helpless knowing smile as if to say ‘whatcha gonna do?’ Maybe make a noise with your nose by blowing out quick. You could also hold your arms out with your palms up but that’s pushing the whole thing a bit.
Holly and I purchased her parents a laptop for their anniversary. They owned a computer but it had passed its use-by date somewhere around the turn of the century. I’m not exaggerating; it had a yellowed sticker on it stating it was Y2K ready. Somehow it still ran. It didn’t need to do much and Tom and Marie were happy to “go and watch a bit of TV while it reboots.” We should have left good enough alone.
“We’ve already got a computer.”
“I know Tom, but this one is a lot newer. There have been a few advances since manufacturers switched over from vacuum-tube technology.”
“Ours still works. I used it last week.”
“What for?”
“To see if it still works.”
“Yes, but what did you use it for?
“Nothing. I just turned it back off. Never had a problem with it.”
Holly and I spent an hour or so showing them how to use their new Chromebook. Tom wasn’t that interested, Marie commented on how shiny it was several times and seemed more concerned about what to use to clean it than the features it offered. The absence of a CD drive caused Tom some concern, as they owned a copy of Encarta 95.
“When was the last time you used the Encarta 95 disks?”
“Doesn’t matter. We own them.”
Approximately two hours after Tom and Marie packed the laptop carefully back in its box and left for home, the phone calls began. Holly fended off the first couple of calls but quickly switched to saying, “Hang on, I’ll pass you to David” as if on autopilot. The following twelve transcripts are from that evening’s calls alone:
Marie, 5.20pm
“Tom had it on his lap and his knees got hot so we turned it off and packed it back in the box. Do you still have the receipt?”
Marie, 5.42pm
“Tom opened the program that records your voice to try it exactly how you showed him but now every time the computer has a problem it says, “Hello, this is Tom and I am recording my voice.”
Tom, 6.17pm
“How do we take a photo of the cat?”
Marie, 6.21pm
“Can everyone on the internet see us? Tom wants to stick a piece of tape over the camera but I told him it might leave a mark.”
Tom, 6.40pm
“Where do you put the batteries? I took the four screws out of the bottom panel but that wasn’t it. ”
Tom, 7.04pm
“Marie did something and now the pointer looks different.”
Tom, 7.09pm
“It’s ok now. I fixed it.”
Marie, 7.16pm
“Tom changed the password to round dots.”
Marie, 7.53pm
“Every time Tom clicks something in Google, do we get charged twenty-five cents?”
Marie, 8.10pm
“How do we delete the Internet? We just want the photo of the cat. ”
Marie, 8.35pm
“How long does it need to sleep?”
Marie, 9.20pm
“I uploaded a photo to Facebook. Have a look at it, it’s hilarious. I’ll wait. It’s of the cat.”
Marie, 9.55pm
“Tom forgot the computer was on his lap and got up to let the cat out. Now it’s in Spanish.”
The Ride of the Valkyries
My father watched a lot of football and cricket on television when I was young. It’s always either football or cricket season in Australia. I followed neither. He was watching the cricket the day my mother took my sister and I to the pool, the day he left. When my offspring Seb was six or seven, my father emailed me and wrote, “I know I wasn’t a very good father but I’d like to try to be a good grandfather.”
I suppose it was a turning point in his life. The woman he had left my mother for had left him to move in with a security guard named Gary after nearly two decades of marriage. They owned a house together, a large ranch-style home with a tennis court and swimming pool, no kids of their own. There was a large sign on the entry gate that read For Sale, Price Reduced.
I stopped the car for a moment, considered reversing back and driving home. I don’t know why I’d said, “Okay, that sounds good,” when he’d invited us to visit, because it hadn’t. It sounded uncomfortable and weird. Not because I had any animosity or ‘daddy left me’ issues, but because I simply didn’t know him. I glanced over at Seb in the passenger seat; he was playing a game on his phone. I sighed and drove up the long gravel driveway, parking alongside a half-loaded Budget rental truck.
It was uncomfortable and weird. Seb had no idea who the old man asking for a hug was. I had no idea who the old man I was shaking hands with was. He was thinner than I remembered, pinker and greyer. The last time I had seen him I w
as eleven and he must have been in his thirties. He had a moustache back then, a large one the same as his favorite cricketer.
“Did you find the place okay?”
