My father once told me, “Robert, life begins at forty.” Unfortunately, Hank Weston died at fifty, soon after imparting that information—so I was unable to circle back for specifics. At present, I’m heading fast toward fifty-nine. Time is limited; there is no happily ever after, no forever stretching to the horizon. So roughly ten years of youthful activity lie ahead. My best life? I don’t expect fireworks. I’ll settle for a decent span of time with all original body parts. To visit restaurants and bars, to walk around foreign cities on my own two feet—alongside my wife.
“His name is Dudley Cragmile?” I asked Emma as we sipped a local Pinot Noir on our patio while surveying the vacant neighboring property. Crickets chirped at dusk, the sky lay streaked with pink.
“From near Phoenix,” she replied. “Bought the place sight unseen, beyond Internet photos.” She stretched her legs on the recliner. “Dudley sounds like a librarian or an accountant.”
“Perfect,” I said. “The whole point of us buying on Paseo Tranquillo was for the peace and quiet.”
Emma held out her wine glass. “Another splash, Rob?”
In 2016, before real estate prices skyrocketed, we found our two-bedroom home in Santa Valeria on California’s south coast. Paseo Tranquillo is a quiet lane, lush with palm trees and tall pines. Our quarter-acre sits in a neighborhood of nice old cottages. Days are sunny, then sea breezes waft in to cool down the afternoon heat at night.
“Rob? Robert?” Emma prodded me after midnight in bed. “I think he’s arrived.”
“What? Oh.” I rolled off the mattress half-awake then peered through our upstairs window. Due to tree branches and fencing, my view was limited. But a long car, like a Suburban, sat idling on the neighboring driveway. A man in a cap and sweatpants trundled back and forth, carrying boxes.
“Can’t make out his features, but he’s alone.”
“No kids. Good,” she mumbled. “Is he…?”
“White? Yes, I think so.”
Emma kicked me from the bed. “That’s not what I meant. Is he young or old?”
“A bit hunched with a wide stance,” I replied. “I’d guess seventyish.”
“Great,” she said, then rolled over into immediate sleep.
Though Emma is fifty, through good genes, retaining baby fat in her cheeks, and monthly visits to a hair colorist, she’s often mistaken for early forties. While I come from Irish and Welsh ancestry, where by middle age our lined faces mirror the craggy isles and jagged cliffs of the homelands. I just nod whenever someone announces how lucky I am to have such a young, vibrant wife. Only when I overheard her speaking by phone, “Well you know, I married a much older man,” did I become slightly vexed.
#
At eight the next morning, I heard scraping, banging. I squinted across to see a U-Haul trailer and one of those metal storage PODS jutting into the street. After coffee and a muffin, I went to welcome Dudley to the community. Ignoring new neighbors is what slowly causes tensions that can eventually rise to disputes. Emma slept late since her shift at Santa Valeria Library began at eleven. I brought a croissant along as a housewarming gift.
“Good morning,” I said loudly, in case he was hard of hearing. My bathrobe over pajama bottoms would peg me as a nearby resident.
“No reason to shout.” He craned his neck, scowling, then continued unloading long slim boxes. Fishing rods?
“I’m Robert Weston, from next-door. Heard you arrive last night.” I paused. Nothing. “Are you Dudley Cragmile?”
A heavy crate dropped to the asphalt. “Dutch,” he said. “Dutch Cragmire.” He winced. “Only Ma called me Dudley. She’s long dead.”
“Okay, Dutch.” I extended the croissant, smiling.
His nose wrinkled as if I’d proffered a turd. “No thanks, Bobby.”
“Uh, Robert is fine.”
“Bobert.”
“Do you need help moving any—”
“Nope.”
“Well, I wanted to invite you to dinner sometime, as a welcome.”
“You and me?” Dutch’s face soured.
Then Emma strolled over in shorts and a white blouse. She looked much better than anyone had a right to after waking just fifteen minutes earlier. “Howdy, neighbor,” she said, in the way only guileless people can pull off.
Dutch wiped sweat from his brow with the gaiter tied around his neck, and grinned wide. “Aren’t you pretty,” he said. “You Bobby’s daughter?”
Emma laughed, then I laughed—cringing inside. “No, Robert’s my husband.” She crooked an arm through mine in a very satisfactory manner. “From Arizona, right?”
“Tell you at dinner. Bobert kindly invited me over.” He glanced at me. “You meant tonight, right?”
I froze. Emma and I always pre-cleared dinner guests with each other.
“Yes, he did,” she replied, discreetly elbowing me. “Come by at seven for a drink first.”
Dutch came to our patio that evening, gripping a bunch of flowers he presented to Emma. Dressed in military fatigues, he sprouted a bristly, grown-out crew-cut.
Inside, I showed him my vinyl collection.
“Rolling Stones, The Clash, Bowie, The Pretenders. First rate shit, Bobby.”
Emma smiled and we both relaxed. She set the flowers inside a vase then poured him a glass of red wine outside. “Your outfit. Were you in—”
“Vietnam,” he said. “Fifty years ago.”
“Thank you for your service,” Emma said.
“Yes, thanks,” I added. “Must have been a nightmare there.”
Dutch scowled. “I regret that all the hippie protesters and politicians here didn’t let us finish our job. We could have nuked North Vietnam, set an example to show China we meant business.”
Emma appeared stunned into silence.
“Interesting,” I said. “Hey, there’s a hummingbird by the feeder.”
Thankfully, Emma and I agreed on politics, bolstering each other through previous monstrous presidents and backward-leaning religious extremists who’d commandeered the Supreme Court.
Dutch took a mouthful of wine until his cheeks bulged out, then spit it just off the patio. He eyed our startled faces. “That’s what you’re supposed to do at a wine tasting, right?”
“Right,” I said, “at a tasting.”
Emma took a swig from her glass and spit it out with the gusto of a lumberjack on a payday bender. She winked at me, apparently trying to normalize it.
“I usually hate wine but this is kinda fun.” Dutch raised his glass for a refill.
“Yes, yes.” I tried to maintain control. “But we have dinner waiting.”
“I brought a bottle of Early Times.” He carried a liquor store’s brown bag.
“Whiskey?” Emma said.
“Yup. Helps burn through the food.” He smiled.
“Uh, Emma only drinks beer and wine, and I’m recovering…” I struggled to fabricate something plausible.
“He’s recovering from liver damage last year,” Emma quickly said, squeezing my hand.
“Yeah, you do look a bit pale and sickly, Bobert.” Dutch pressed his knuckles together. “Well, more for me then.”
When he ate our fried chicken with his hands, Emma quickly picked up hers. So I joined in the caveman ritual too. “Are you a doctor, Dutch? This neighborhood has become so pricey to buy in.”
“I’m retired,” he said while chewing. “Pretty damn tasty.” Dutch rubbed greasy fingers over his face. “Almost as good as Chick-fil-A.”
Emma studied her plate.
“You guys go to that local one?” he said.
“Not so much.” I gripped Emma’s knee under the table.
Dutch leaned back. “Retirement gives me more time for research.”
Our dinner eventually ended and by nine Dutch staggered back toward his property.
“Well, that was…something,” Emma announced.
“We needed to break the ice,” I replied. “Now we just wave in passing, say hi, and go on with our life.” I picked a small print off the floor. “Is this your photo of Gavin Newsom?”
She shook her head.
“Maybe Dutch dropped it. That’s weird.”
“He seemed to be staring at you during dinner, Rob.”
“I know, and he was ogling you,” I said. “I mean, his mouth was practically hanging open.”
Emma blushed. “He was in really good shape for a man in his seventies.” She gazed off into the middle distance. “Too bad he’s so raw and unfiltered. So January 6th. My friend Nancy loves well-toned, older men.”
I kept silent, one hand resting on my burgeoning paunch. Part of what’s called a “dad bod,” though I’m not a father. Soon after marriage we decided the world was going to hell and maybe we weren’t cut out to be parents.
“The way he kept calling you Bobert, and pronouncing it like Lauren Boebert.” Emma winced. “Almost goading you.” She massaged my tense shoulders.
“I need a cleanse for the whole evening.”
Emma nodded. “You mean, Rachel Maddow?”
“Yes.” I kissed her, then we nestled together on the living room couch to watch MSNBC.
Later in bed, while Emma hovered above me, she let her fingers play across my belly. “Have you thought about lifting weights again, doing sit-ups like you used to?”
“What?” I tried to maintain concentration.
“I like when you’re in shape.” She smiled, but the magic spell was broken. We soon rolled over to separate sides of the mattress.
As a mediator who has negotiated many settlements, I’m happy to serve as a problem-solver on Paseo Tranquillo. I talk to neighbors respectfully. If there’s an issue, I imagine a solution that makes them feel it was their own idea. Emma claims it’s charm, but I just detach myself from emotional investment, nod my head, listen, and don’t immediately disagree or argue.
#
Dutch’s empty whiskey bottle lay discarded on our lawn the next morning. I went to politely suggest not depositing detritus on a neighbor’s property. Perhaps a brief reminder on local recycling policies. Wildflowers had been torn from the little beds we’d planted by the curb. Dutch’s bouquet?
He busied himself moving long cylindrical packages from the U-Haul into his garage. Over the scant days of his residence, Dutch had already boarded-up the windows facing the street.
“Looks like a bunker now,” I joked. “Expecting trouble?”
“Heh. Pretty busy here, Bobster. Something on your mind?”
I displayed the Early Times bottle. “Found this dumped on my grass.”
He smirked. “Okay, then. Put it in the blue bin. I’m all about recycling.” Dutch returned to transporting the suspicious tubes.
I noticed tall speakers near the garage door. “Setting up a stereo inside?”
“Nope,” Dutch shouted. “I’m an outdoors guy. Sound keeps me pumped.” He squinted toward me. “Glad you like classic rock.”
I gave a thumb’s up before saying, “Remember, neighborhood quiet hours are 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.”
“Noted!”
#
The next afternoon, driving home from mediating at Finkleberg Law Associates, something seemed different. More sky than usual showed as I turned on Paseo Tranquillo. Two trucks sat parked awkwardly near Dutch’s driveway. The old fifty-foot Bishop pine tree that grew from his yard but shaded both of our entrances with its widespread branches had been chopped down. Chainsawed sections of the thick trunk lay scattered about; young Latino men tossed pieces into an industrial wood chipper that whined and buzzed. Elderly neighbors looked on agog.
Amid the noise and wood dust, I found Dutch. “Why? Those pines are the pride of the neighborhood.”
He acted cold, indifferent. “Too much shade. Being from Arizona, I crave sunlight, warmth.” His mouth curdled. “I’m within my legal rights. Feel free to plant one—on your property.”
No reasoning with the man, and the tree had already been felled. Dutch must have noticed me studying his torn-up lawn.
“Doing a Southwestern-style garden,” he said. “You Left Coasters should be happy. Much less water use. Irrigation is a pain in my ass.” He scowled. “You work for the money changers.”
“Who told you that?”
“I Bingled you.”
“You…use…Bing?”
Dutch walked away. “I done my research.”
#
When Emma returned home from Bikram yoga, her face paled immediately. She soon lay crying on the sofa, inconsolable. “I loved our tree.”
“Sweetie, legally it wasn’t ours.”
“Screw legality. What kind of monster does that?”
I stroked Emma’s hair. “Told Dutch about our quiet hours. We’ll get through this.” That didn’t soothe her. “I’ll speak to David Garner at tomorrow’s neighborhood meeting. We can vote to preserve all historic trees on Paseo Tranquillo.”
“I’m getting the worst migraine.” Emma retreated to the guest room; a signal that she desired solitude.
The following days passed without major incident. A shirtless, sweaty Dutch did trim the hedge between our properties, but the alley fencing would prevent him from staring into our downstairs rooms. What went on inside that windowless bunker where a generator hummed and air conditioning ran nonstop?
It took a few mornings to adjust to hearing Quiet Riot, Metallica, and Ozzy at concert volume just after eight a.m., but I soldiered through. Emma instinctively departed for our quieter guest room at dawn. Noise canceling headphones helped.
The cumulative result, according to David Garner, my wife, and work associates, was that I’d become edgy and temperamental. Not detached and calm. Just Dutch’s influence, or did the daily gym workouts and my new steroid regimen contribute? I had developed muscle tone and slimmed my belly, which made Emma more amorous.
The next week, I sat in a meeting room mediating between two attorneys. After some angry thoughts flashed through my head, I noticed both lawyers looking concerned. Had I been speaking aloud? Sheldon Knopf asked me in my Bluetooth earpiece to step into the hallway.
“Robert…” He placed a hand on my shoulder. Never good in a work situation. “We’ve witnessed your mood-swings, your outbursts, the nasty comments.” He sighed. “Please go home, and forget about Friday.”
“But the case?”
“We’ve got other mediators.” Knopf smiled. “Hey, I get it,” he whispered. “Every marriage encounters bedroom problems at some point.”
“Not. Bedroom. Problems.” I tried not to explode.
“Think about counseling, Rob.” He waved. “Cheers.”
After the gym, I went home. Dutch had positioned a large trampoline at the center of his transformed yard. Dirt ground showed pebbled pathways, with small swaths of buffalo grass, while large cactus trees and a variety of succulents grew. Everything sharp, prickly, spiny. Unwelcoming.
Though the following morning was a day-off, I rose early. Something about “Cat Scratch Fever” blasting outside didn’t encourage sleeping-in. I shaved and brushed my teeth while Emma showered. When she emerged, wrapped in a towel, she wiped the condensation fog off the window.
“Oh my god,” she said. “He’s jumping on the trampoline—naked.” But she kept watching. “Got to say, his shoulders are strong and his ass is firm for what, seventy-two?” She laughed as I continued brushing. “Oh no, he’s turning around.” Emma gasped. “I’ve never seen one that big before.”
Really?” I said after spitting out. First the jerkwater jack-off had impressed her with his toned physique and now… For some reason I added, “So you like that?”
“What?” She punched my shoulder. “Jesus, Rob. I meant his sack. He doesn’t need a golf bag to carry his clubs.” Emma shoved me toward the window.
I shuddered but couldn’t look away. Like a freeway car accident or a grandmother’s mustache.
Apparently, neighbors voiced concerns about children walking home after school, because by Saturday evening when I returned from errands, high bamboo fencing blocked Dutch’s front yard. Strolling outside, I lingered by the new gate. David Garner’s bulletin had been posted (which I co-authored) stating that Bishop pines and all rare trees were now protected on Paseo Tranquillo.
As if psychic, or employing a hidden camera, Dutch emerged to glower at me. “You been complaining?”
“Not me.” I grinned, something in the steroids making me unafraid. “But local kids don’t like seeing an old man bouncing butt-naked on a trampoline.”
Dutch allowed the tiniest curve of a smile. “You’re acting tough. Nice. Thought you were a snowflake libtard when we first met.” He stared up at my bathroom window. “Saw your wife checking me out. She looked mighty pleased.” He tore the bulletin off his gate then threw it at me. “I’m an American. Don’t mess with my personal freedoms.”
I stood with arms folded. “How you treat your neighbors is how we’ll treat you.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He waved dismissively. “Anyway, you hear about your governor coming to town next week for a fundraiser?”
“Sure. Why are you interested?” Here was an Arizona transplant, whose paramilitary clothing and stubbled, raw beef face practically screamed, “January 6th insurrectionist!”
“I kinda like that ‘Frisco pretty boy,” he replied. “Someone should get up close, maybe give him some free advice.”
“Okay. I’m heading back to my house on Planet Earth now.”
As Emma and I watched the final season of Succession, I pondered Dutch’s parting words. He’d been ultra-secretive with those cylinders in his garage. Could they be rifles, tiki torches, Javelin missile shells? What the hell was this backwoods bozo doing in our liberal enclave anyway?
On Sunday afternoon we heard louder than usual trampolining, with the addition of feminine laughter.
Emma peeked out. “How funny. His cleaning lady Yolanda joined him. She worked for the Talbots. I didn’t recognize her without clothes.”
“I better see this.”
Emma squeezed my forearm. “It’s good. Maybe he’s loosening up.”
I soon retreated, but that spectacle somehow led to us grappling undressed on the upstairs carpeting. An event only marred at its climax when Emma muttered “Justin.”
“Who’s Justin?”
“Sorry. I read Justin Bieber had temporary paralysis of his face. Poor guy. Guess it was on my mind.”
Emma had never been a fan, “a Belieber,” and if Justin’s career had ended, was music and life as we knew it irrevocably altered?
#
Late Tuesday night, I patrolled outdoors using night-vision goggles a friend loaned me. Emma attended her women’s yoga class followed by a wine bar deal afterwards. Earlier, a barber had cropped my hair close, leaving it spiky on top. I wore a green cap, camouflage fatigues, and black face paint. Dutch had become my very own Kurtz to vanquish.
I wedged between my alleyway fencing and his bamboo curtain. A security light flashed on, so I crawled until I lay invisible under Dutch’s trampoline. The light switched off. Twenty feet ahead, the sliding garage door hung halfway open. I could see him within, hunched over a work table. Dutch attached wires to tubes and metal boxes then threaded a long string. A fuse. Either rocket shells or explosives. Meet your new neighbor: the fucking Unabomber!
I crawled out the same way and rushed into my dark house. When I collided with Emma in the kitchen, she screamed.
“Shhh!” I said.
“For a moment I thought you were Dutch.” She flicked on the overheads. “You cut your hair like his. Why the camouflage and black makeup?”
“I had to meet the enemy on his own terms.”
“What?” She acted fearful, nervous. “Dressed as…a Proud Boy?”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s building weapons in there, maybe bombs. I have to stop him.”
Upon calling the Santa Valeria Police Department, a robot asked if it was a 911 emergency or a police complaint? To summon an ambulance or fire engine meant paying a hefty fee, so I chose the latter, leaving a detailed voicemail.
“I just Googled him,” Emma said. “Dudley Cragmire died in 2005. Who is that guy?” She held up her iPhone, hand shaking.
“Maybe Dudley’s brother, or son. He couldn’t buy a place in California with a fake last name.”
Emma soon vanished into the guest room; I lay awake for hours, just listening.
No police came that night or the next day. Maybe they assumed it was a crank call. Birds sang, children played, and regular life went on across Paseo Tranquillo.
The following morning at dawn, two vans arrived with men dressed in body armor. They raided his house, searched the garage, dug ditches in the yard. We could hear Dutch protesting, angry and defiant, then whining, pleading. By that point, neighbors had been roused from their slumbers to watch. Clearly, he was resisting, fighting back. “Please don’t make us do this, sir,” one man said. When a pained howl more animal than human sounded, I knew Dutch had been tased. And again. Emma joined me upstairs in her pajamas to observe. Two big men shoved him into a van. He shook his fist at our window. “I’ll destroy you, Bobby!”
Police detectives spoke to me downtown later. “Darren Cragmire had a seizure after being detained,” Detective Johnson said. “He’s in a coma at Santa Valeria Memorial.”
“From the taser?” Neither detective answered me. “Darren?”
“A doctor from Phoenix claimed Cragmire was in poor health, suffered from PTSD since Vietnam.” Detective Garcia eyeballed me. “While he possessed an enormous cache of illegal fireworks, we did not find explosive devices or weaponry consistent with domestic terrorism.”
“I’m sure I saw—”
“Partially our fault for rushing in, partially yours.”
“But his obsession with the Governor of California?”
“We found Cragmire’s explicit love letters to Governor Newsom,” Johnson said. “Wanted to meet him in-person.”
“You can go now,” Garcia told me. “We’ll be in touch.”
#
During our late pizza dinner, Emma seemed in shock, unable to face me.
“I win.” I raised my Busch beer in victory. “No more neighbor hassles.”
“I’m leaving, Rob.”
“What?”
“I can’t handle it. You’re wearing a gaiter.” Her head slumped. “Kid Rock is playing on your Pandora feed. You’ve changed into someone like him.”
“I did it for us.” I chewed on my slice, thinking. “There’s a Justin who works on the library’s third floor. Is it him?”
She sighed. “No, it’s Justine, my class instructor. We bonded through Bikram yoga.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t know where it’s going, but regardless, I can’t live here anymore.” She packed a bag.
Detective Johnson called: “Cragmire’s brain activity has ceased. Relatives will decide whether to keep him alive in a vegetative state.”
#
The following weeks felt like my funeral. No firms requested my mediation. Not Finkleberg Law Associates nor Johnson Legal, not even Merkin & Gherkin. Silence. I eventually called Sheldon Knopf. “We’ll, uh, get back to you, Robert,” he said. David Garner visited, wondering aloud if I should sell my place during its market value peak, allowing Paseo Tranquillo to put our stressful neighbors’ feud behind it and once again become…tranquil.
#
Two months later, the house sold for nearly twice what I paid for it. Sitting in my new jeep on the parking strip, I pondered my future. Northern California? Oregon?
Two men in suits exited a black SUV, smiling. They flashed their FBI credentials. “Wanted to thank you,” one said. “After investigation, we found parts for a sharpshooter rifle hidden in Darren Cragmire’s Suburban. Antisemitic stuff on his hard drive. Cragmire’s group believed a conspiracy theory that the Governor would replace Biden as the Democratic candidate this summer. Cragmire planned to eliminate him before that.”
“Whoa.” I thought a moment. “His group?”
“He was a member of the Scottsdale Saviors,” the other man said. “Reason we came today, is we heard you’re unemployed, newly single, and just sold your home. You could work for us.”
“I’m a little old for the FBI.”
“Deep cover informant. To join a militia group in Arizona or Nevada. You fit the angry loner profile: clothing, hair, age, race. We expect incidents at state capitols and voting facilities in November. Mob violence. You’d contact us beforehand.”
It sounded absolutely insane. Was I even myself anymore? Or had Emma been right about me transforming into him?
I glanced beyond the driveway at Dutch’s abandoned trampoline and back at our dark empty house. Then I said, “Yeah, sure.”
Max Talley was born in New York City and lives in Southern California. His writing has appeared in Vol.1 Brooklyn, Santa Fe Literary Review, Litro, Atticus Review, and The Saturday Evening Post. Talley has two published novels. His literary fiction collection, My Secret Place, was published in 2022 by Main Street Rag Books and his genre collection, When The Night Breathes Electric, debuted from Borda Books in 2023. https://maxdevoetalley.com/
