The Feud: Chapter III

The Avon Incident

Marty smiled from his bed as Calvin tested the cushion on the chair to make sure it was firm before sitting down. “I’ve fallen for that trick before,” he said sitting down when he was satisfied he would not sink to the floor.

Marty chuckled, “That was a good one.”

Calvin nodded his head. If he hadn’t been the one to sink to the floor after sitting on Marty’s chair on more than one occasion, he probably would have agreed more heartily.

“Well,” Marty said. “As usual, the Doofus next door left out a few key details in his story.”

“How did you even hear him talking?” Calvin asked. He strained to hear any other sound besides Marty’s television set at a rather loud volume and the noise from out in the hall. There was no possible way Marty could have heard the conversation that had taken place next door. At least, no natural possible way.

“Eh?” Marty asked.

“Oh, that you can’t hear but you could hear your neighbor next door telling a story?” Calvin asked. Maybe the two men weren’t as paranoid as everyone believed. Maybe they had been busy spying on each other. He shook his head not wanting to spend time drifting on any tangents. “Are you going to tell me your side of the story? Because it doesn’t really need explaining. I get it. You were a teacher trying to teach. Seems simple enough.”

Marty smiled. “Exactly! Any normal thinking person can understand that.” His smile disappeared. “But the Doofus next door is not a normal thinking person.”

Calvin sighed.

“He is just sore because of an incident that happened 50 years ago.”

Calvin raised his eyebrows. Fifty years ago? Surely, this had to be origin story he thought he was going to get. “What happened 50 years ago?” he asked.

“Well, Doofus and his wife moved into the house next to us. Guess he was destined to be my life-long next-door nemesis,” he chuckled causing him to start wheezing.

“You okay?” Calvin asked.

Marty waved him off. “They were looking for a house and the realtor showed them the house next door. My wife was excited to get a new neighbor. The one selling the house was a bachelor and there had been a line of girls coming and going out of the house but no one stayed long enough to get to know my wife. So, when she heard that a couple about our age was looking into it, she did everything she could to persuade them to buy the house.” He smirked, “Of course, I had no idea who the couple were that were looking into the house. I only knew what my wife told me and she had only met Gus’s wife.” He paused for a moment.

Calvin gave him a moment and then cleared his throat to remind Marty to continue on with the story.

“My wife was the friendly type,” Marty continued. “She made plans to have them over for dinner just as soon as the papers were signed. Probably before they even had the key in their hands.” He smiled and paused again. “Imagine my surprise when I walked into my living room to meet our new neighbors and saw…him standing there.”

The thought made Calvin give a barely noticeable small grin. “So, you two were neighbors?” Calvin asked.

He nodded slowly. “Not only that, but out of some cruel twist of fate our wives became pretty good friends. Even though I did everything I could to deter them. I’m sure Doofus tried everything he could on his end. But our wives became good, good friends. At least, they were good friends for a lot of years until the incident.”

Finally. Based on his tone, this had to be the incident that started this bitter and long rift. “Incident?” Calvin asked trying to speed this along a little bit

“Yeah,” Marty nodded. “The Avon Incident.”

Calvin cleared his throat again when Marty’s pause took too long.

Marty coughed and cleared his throat. “My wife started selling Avon. A teacher’s wife, you know, didn’t exactly have the freedom to not provide a small income to contribute to the family. So, she started selling Avon to help us make ends meet. Well, if it was pure jealousy or whatever it was, Gus’s wife decided she also needed to sell Avon. Now, I happen to know Gus made very good money at his job. They didn’t need the second income. I think she just wanted to do it for the social aspect. Which is fine and all but she had a bit of a competitive streak. She couldn’t just sell, she had to be the best at selling. Which means she took a lot of my wife’s customers. Out right stole them is what she did. My wife tolerated it for quite a while for the sake of their friendship but eventually she had enough. One day, she planned one of her Avon parties and didn’t invite Gus’s wife. It was a rather small social circle so of course his wife found out about the party and that she hadn’t even been invited. It was during the summer and the Avon party was in our backyard. About midway through, it started raining. Rain from the clearest, bluest sky you ever saw. That woman,” here he glanced angrily to the wall separating his and Gus’s room, “had the gall to sabotage my wife’s party. Out of pure spite!” He was getting a little worked up and started coughing again.

Calvin went to get him some water from the faucet and again got soaked. “What? You both like this prank, don’t you?” He ripped off the nickel that was taped to the faucet and poured some water in a cup. He gave it to Marty.

After a couple of swigs Marty continued his story picking right up where he left off. “Of course, they both denied it. Typical. According to the two of them it was an accident. A pipe busted and created a mess, they claimed.”

“Did the pipe burst?” Calvin asked. That seemed like an easy enough detail to prove.

Marty looked at him. “Well, yeah, the pipe broke. It was a freak accident according to the plumber who came to fix it.” He could tell Calvin was wavering in his judgment of the incident. “But it was pretty convenient timing, don’t you think?”

Calvin wasn’t convinced. As much as the two men tried to one-up each other no sane person would mess up his own yard just to get even with his neighbor. He was almost certain of that fact but with these two he couldn’t be 100% certain.

Marty continued. “Everyone and everything at the party got soaked. My wife was so upset she wouldn’t hear an apology or anything that came from that house. That ended their friendship. Which, I’m not going to lie, made life a bit easier for me because now we had the same opinion about the neighbors. She finally saw my point. I was right.”

“A bit of a victory for you?” Calvin asked joking.

“Well, yeah,” Marty said missing the sarcastic tone.

“So that’s where this big rift came from? Your wives?” Calvin asked. He stood up because he really wanted to leave since his shift had ended. But now he was invested in this saga and also really wanted to know what could cause these two men to hate each other so much. He didn’t really think Marty and his wife had a reason to carry such a long grudge because of this accident. Sure, it wasn’t convenient but he wasn’t convinced it was planned and malicious.

Marty shrugged. “I try to let bygones be bygones at this age.”

Calvin looked at him waiting for a punch line. But judging from the look on Marty’s face, he was being serious. “All right,” Calvin said nodding his head and edging to the door. “If you say so,” he looked at Marty sitting on his chair and saw that he was about to fall asleep. Sharing the story must have wiped him out. “Sweet dreams,” he said and walked out.

As he was walking by the rec area though he saw Gus sitting on a chair. Gus looked him up and down. “What did he tell you?” Gus asked.

“He just told me about your neighborhood,” Calvin said attempting to walk by.

Gus looked at him. “He told you about the Avon incident, didn’t he?”

Calvin didn’t look him in the eye. “He might have mentioned it.”

He nodded his head. “Well, he probably didn’t tell you about graduation night, did he? I bet he left that story conveniently out.”

Calvin looked at him. He could keep walking but he was curious enough to listen some more. “This rift between you two,” he said sitting down next to Gus, “it’s like an onion, isn’t it? So many layers.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Gus said. “Now let me tell you about our graduation night 72 years ago. But I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“Didn’t you forget your name yesterday?” Calvin asked with a fleeting grin.

Gus noticed and laughed. “True! You got me there. So, I should say, I remember this better than I do yesterday!”