Decorating for the Holidays
Geraldine and Delbert Mathers took a great deal of pride in their well-manicured front lawn and flower gardens. The elderly couple had done all the landscaping themselves, and after they both retired, gardening became a full-time venture. Wisteria trees, lilac bushes, dogwoods and forsythias added splashes of brilliant color to the already multihued flower beds and rose gardens.
Delbert combined his love of gardening with that of woodworking. Scattered among the many varieties of trees, shrubs, bushes, annuals and perennials were several handcrafted two-dimensional figures, windmills, whirligigs, wheelbarrows and trellises. Along with his wooden ornaments, there were plaster ducks, rabbits, deer, lawn gnomes and birdbaths. The only thing that was missing was the pink flamingo that so many people loved to stick in their yards.
"This is Massachusetts, not Florida, dear," Geraldine had once told him. "Stick to mallards and Canadian geese. If you want height, try a great blue heron."
Over the years, the Matherses had collected so many lawn decorations that they could not all be put on display at once. If they had been, people would no doubt have thought the homeowners were holding a giant yard sale. Instead, Geraldine and Delbert rotated the lawn ornaments every three or four weeks throughout the spring, summer and autumn months before storing them all in the backyard shed during the winter.
In addition to the couple's everyday ornamental items, they acquired a collection of holiday decorations. Delbert had made a giant wooden Cupid that he placed in the center of the snow-covered garden each February, and Geraldine would hang plastic hearts from the denuded trees that surrounded it. In March, they would bring out their plaster leprechauns, and Geraldine would hang shamrocks from the bare branches. At Easter, the inflatable rabbits graced their lawn and the brightly colored plastic eggs hung from the trees.
It was during October and December, however, that the Mathers house took on the look of a miniature Disneyland. Every Halloween they decorated the yard with scarecrows, witches and jack-o-lanterns. Each Christmas Delbert proudly displayed his handcrafted wooden snowmen, Santa Claus, reindeer and sleigh. Thousands of twinkling lights were strung from the trees, on the shrubs and along the eaves of the house, adding a magical touch to the scene.
To the holiday-loving people of Hampton Heath, Massachusetts, the Mathers house was a well-known landmark. Each October 31 brought dozens of eager trick-or-treaters to their door, and during the Christmas season, many people drove out of their way to pass the festively decorated colonial house on John Adams Boulevard.
Unfortunately, as in most small, tight-knit communities, someone from the outside occasionally moves in, someone who does not quite get along with the indigenous population. Such was the case with the Martin family—Sal, Cheryl and their teenage sons, Ben and Drew. The Martins had been accustomed to the hustle and bustle of New York City, and the two boys were not happy with life in the quiet New England town.
"It sucks here!" Ben regularly complained.
"I know," his brother, Drew, readily agreed. "There's nothing to do, and there's not one cool kid to hang around with. Everyone here is either a nerd or a hick."
Unfortunately, Ben and Drew decided to relieve their boredom by engaging in petty vandalism. Hampton Heath High School was soon plagued by graffiti written on the lockers with Sharpies, scratched into the tops of the desks or spray painted on the exterior brick walls. Although no proof linked the Martin boys to this vandalism, their unruly behavior earned them detentions and suspensions throughout the school year. Eventually, the mischievous brothers grew bored with defacing school property and searched elsewhere for entertainment. They had to look no further than the house across the street: the home of Geraldine and Delbert Mathers.
Many of the couple's flowers were trampled, their windmill was broken and two of their lawn gnomes were shattered. Geraldine, who did not want to accuse the Martin boys unjustly, went across the street to have a talk with their mother. Cheryl Martin, however, did not believe her sons were capable of misbehaving and was quite rude to Mrs. Mathers when the older woman asked if Cheryl knew who was responsible for the damage to her property.
"Don't blame my boys, Mrs. Mathers. They didn't do it," Cheryl insisted. "Furthermore, I think it's terrible the way you locals blame the New Yorkers for everything that goes wrong around here. You all think you own this town. We paid good money for our house, and we have just as much right to live here as you do."
"I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Martin," Geraldine apologized. "I didn't come over here to accuse your sons of destroying my property. I only wondered if you might know who did. I certainly didn't mean to offend you."
"Well, you have," Cheryl declared quite nastily. "So, I would appreciate it if, in the future, you would stay across the street and mind your own damned business."
When Geraldine told her husband about the unpleasant meeting that evening at dinner, he laughed at the whole affair.
"What did you expect?" he asked. "You can take the people out of New York, but you can't take New York out of the people."
* * *
Meanwhile, at the Martin dinner table, Cheryl told her husband and sons about her conversation with Mrs. Mathers.
"That old bag from across the street came over here today," she said.
"You mean the Beaver?" Ben sniggered.
"What do you mean by the Beaver?" Sal asked.
"The old lady's name is Geri Mathers, you know, like in that old TV show Leave it to Beaver," Drew explained.
"I thought it was the old man whose name was Jerry," Sal said, displaying his total lack of knowledge about his neighbors, a trait he had brought with him from New York.
"No. She's Geraldine. His name is Del-Bert," Ben said, pronouncing the man's two-syllable name with comic exaggeration.
This brought a round of laughter from the entire Martin family.
"Anyway," Cheryl continued her story, "do you know that old biddy had the nerve to suggest that Ben and Drew destroyed some of their ridiculous lawn ornaments?"
"Us?" Ben asked with convincing innocence.
"Yes. But I set her straight. I don't think she'll be coming back any time soon."
"They always blame the New Yorkers, don't they?" Sal asked.
"I know," Cheryl agreed. "These hicks stick together. What about all the times my car has been egged since we moved here? I know it wasn't Ben and Drew that did that."
The boys' gullible mother was at least correct in assuming her two sons were innocent of desecrating her Ford Focus. The culprit—or culprits—could have been any one of more than several hundred adolescents. Cheryl Martin, you see, worked as a nurse at Hampton Heath Middle School where she dealt with the students and their parents with the same rudeness she had shown to Geraldine Mathers. Consequently, she was not well-liked in the small Massachusetts town.
* * *
"We've got to do something," Delbert said one morning when he awoke to the sight of his finest windmill smashed to pieces.
"Maybe we should get a fence," his wife suggested.
"A fence may keep animals out, but unless we electrify it, I doubt it will do much to deter teenage boys."
"You still think it's those Martin kids doing the damage?"
"Yes. Don't you?"
Geraldine nodded.
"I was thinking something more along the lines of going to the police and filing a complaint," Delbert explained.
"But don't you need some kind of evidence to prove that they're responsible?"
"That's exactly what I intend to do. I'm going to stay up tonight and every night until I catch them in the act."
Three nights later Delbert spied Ben and Drew creeping into his yard. He immediately went to the kitchen and telephoned the police. Ten minutes later a squad car pulled up in front of the house on John Adams Boulevard. The two boys ran off at the sight of the cruiser.
"Hello, Mr. Mathers," Officer Harvey Brigham amiably called. "You phoned the station about a prowler?"
"It's those boys across the street. They must have run away when they saw your car."
"Good. You go get some sleep then, Mr. Mathers. It's getting late."
"Don't you have to take my statement or something?" Delbert asked.
"What for? No crime has been committed, no laws broken."
"But those kids have been vandalizing my property for months."
"In all fairness, you don't know that as a fact, sir. Granted, you may have seen the boys in your yard tonight, but did you actually see them destroy anything?"
"I can't believe this! Why else would they sneak into my yard at this time of the night, if not to destroy things?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mathers, but there's nothing I can do. I suggest you hang some PRIVATE PROPERTY signs on your trees. Then if we catch them in your yard, we can get them for trespassing."
"Trespassing? But what about the destruction of my property?"
"There's nothing the police can do without some kind of proof."
Delbert and Geraldine, although not poor by any stretch of the imagination, were living on a fixed income and could not afford an expensive home security system. Still, they managed to save a few dollars out of their household budget and installed motion-detector lights around their house. Unfortunately, that did little to deter the vandals, for the Martin boys routinely shot out the light bulbs with their BB guns.
"I can't keep replacing these bulbs," Delbert complained to the police.
"Did you actually see who shot the lights?" Brigham asked.
"No. But I know that the Martin boys have BB guns. My wife and I have seen them shooting cans in their backyard."
"I can go have a talk with them, but as I've told you before, Mr. Mathers, I can't take any action without proof."
* * *
Despite a friendly, non-threatening warning from the police, Ben and Drew Martin relentlessly continued to destroy the Matherses' property. At Halloween, their jack-o-lanterns were crushed and their scarecrows were set on fire. In December the boys spray-painted profanities on Delbert's wooden nativity figures and stole bulbs from the Christmas light sets. At Easter, every one of the Matherses' inflatable rabbits was punctured, and the plastic color eggs were tossed at the aluminum siding of their house.
"I had hoped those boys would get tired of harassing us," Geraldine cried as she picked up the remains of her tulips that had been yanked out of the ground. "But it's been almost a year already, and they're still at it."
"I don't suppose it would do any good if I were to talk to their parents again. The last time I went over there, they threatened to call the cops on me! Can you imagine that?" Delbert asked indignantly. "They accused me of harassment!"
"As much as I've always liked Harvey Brigham, we've learned from experience that calling the cops is an effort in futility. And I don't want to have anything further to do with that Cheryl Martin. I swear that woman is a direct descendent of Medusa!"
"I guess we'll just have to keep hoping we can catch those little bastards in the act. When we do, I'll snap their picture with the old Polaroid camera. Then let the police tell me there's nothing they can do about it!"
"Maybe we shouldn't decorate this Halloween," Geraldine suggested.
"No! I'm not going to let those juvenile delinquents intimidate me. We've decorated our front yard every Halloween for the past fifty years. I'm not about to stop because of Nurse Ratched's misbegotten progeny."
The following day Geraldine and Delbert placed cornstalks, pumpkins and gourds around their front door. Then Delbert took some old jeans and flannel shirts and turned them into scarecrows, which he placed in his garden while his wife hung white linen ghosts and black rubber bats from the trees.
On the night of October 29, Ben and Drew Martin struck again. The Matherses woke on the morning of October 30 to find their pumpkins smashed in the road and their scarecrows missing from the garden.
"I wonder what they've got in store for us tonight," Geraldine said with tears in her eyes as she started cleaning up the mess.
"What do you mean?" her husband asked.
"Tonight is Mischief Night. Somehow I don't think the Martin boys will be content with putting toilet paper in the trees."
Delbert didn't reply. An idea had suddenly come to him, one that might finally end their problem with the spawn of hell living across the street. After lunch, he took a long nap, waking just before Geraldine served dinner. At 11:00 p.m., he donned black pants, a black sweatshirt and a black ski cap. Then, wide awake, he turned off the outdoor lights, went outside and manned a post in the shadows of the trees.
Three hours later he saw the Martins' front door open and the two boys sneak outside. Under cover of darkness, they cautiously made their way across the street toward the Matherses' property, careful not to make any sounds. Ben looked over at Drew and pointed to the pumpkins Delbert had put out earlier in the day to replace those that had been smashed the previous night. Drew crept up the driveway toward the front stoop. Meanwhile, Ben headed toward the wooded area on the side of the house in which Delbert had put a hastily constructed scarecrow. As the vandal neared the trees, the homeowner stepped out of the shadows behind him.
In his youth, Delbert Mathers had been a marine and served during the final months of the Vietnam War, so immobilizing a teenager was child's play to him. One quick blow knocked Ben senseless. Silently, he dragged the boy into the copse of trees. He moved swiftly for someone of his advanced years, pulling a pair of dirty, ripped jeans and an old flannel shirt over the young man's clothing and topping his head with a large straw hat that hid the hair and face. Then he placed the boy's unconscious body in the garden next to a genuine scarecrow. Finally, he returned to his house where he quickly exchanged his black clothing for pajamas.
Geraldine woke up and came out into the living room. She was wearing her nightgown and had her hair in curlers.
"Should I go get the Polaroid?" she whispered to her husband.
"I don't think we'll need it," Delbert replied, peering through a narrow opening in the living room drapes.
His wife joined him, and the two watched as Drew Martin took the pumpkins into the road and smashed them on the macadam.
"Aren't you going to do anything?" Geraldine asked.
"Shhh! Just wait a minute."
The elderly couple watched in silence as Drew, looking around for his younger brother, crossed the front yard. He stopped when he saw what he believed were two scarecrows sitting on the rocks that bordered the garden. Delbert held his breath as Drew walked closer.
The errant teenager reached into his jacket pocket and took out a plastic container of lighter fluid. He unscrewed the top and poured the contents over the two scarecrows. Then his hand dipped into his pocket again and pulled out a pack of matches. Delbert closed his eyes and gripped his wife's hand tightly. Several moments after Drew Martin threw the lighted match, the larger of the two scarecrows, now engulfed in flames, jumped to its feet, screaming and writhing in agony.
"Ben!" Drew howled with terror.
Upon viewing the horrendous sight, Geraldine fainted in her husband's arms.
Across the street, Cheryl and Sal Martin came out of their house at the sound of their son's shrieks. Still wearing their bedclothes, they ran across the road to the Mathers' house. Seeing there was nothing she could do for Ben, Nurse Martin fell to her knees and wept hysterically. Then she spotted the empty can of lighter fluid in Drew's hand.
"Oh, my God! How could this have happened?" she sobbed.
Inside the house, Delbert sat his wife's limp body in a chair and went to the kitchen to phone the police. Then he went outside where the sickening odor of burned flesh nearly made him gag.
"I've phoned the police. They should be ...."
Cheryl Martin ran toward him, her fists flailing, beating the old man like a virago.
"It's all your fault!" she yelled. "You and your wife have had it in for my two boys since we moved to this godforsaken town."
With some effort, Sal finally managed to restrain his wife.
"That can wait," he said, glaring at Delbert. "The police will be here soon."
When Officer Brigham got out of his squad car, Cheryl began hurling accusations at Delbert and Geraldine Mathers.
"It was them!" she wailed disconsolately. "They killed my baby!"
Brigham then noticed Drew.
"What's that you've got, son?"
He took the empty can of lighter fluid and the pack of matches from him.
"I thought it was just another scarecrow," the boy whimpered.
* * *
Ben Martin's death was ruled a tragic accident. In light of Drew Martin's traumatic experience, the Matherses chose not to press charges, even though they finally had undeniable proof that the brothers had destroyed their property. Just days after the teenager's burial, the house across the street from the Mathers home was put up for sale, and the three remaining Martins moved back to New York.
Geraldine finally worked up the courage to ask her husband a question that had been bothering her for some time.
"Del, what was that boy doing in our garden dressed up as a scarecrow?"
"How should I know?" Delbert innocently replied. "It was Mischief Night. Perhaps he wanted to play a prank on his brother."
"Are you sure you didn't have anything to do with it?" she asked suspiciously.
"Did you see me do anything?" he asked, trying to suppress a smile. "I've learned one valuable lesson from this tragic experience: the police won't do a damned thing unless you've got proof."
Salem decorates for every holiday--with black cats naturally!
