The Gnomes’ Conspiracy

by Brent R. King

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

The next morning, I was standing on the front porch, waiting for the paper and pondering the gnomes. I stared across the street at the frolicking little bastards and knew they had to die. There was no other choice. The integrity of the neighborhood demanded someone take action, and that someone was going to be me.

Brooke had told me to “man up,” so this time I was going to be the “take charge kind of guy.” A guy who could win my wife’s admiration, a better man than Chad Campbell. I just needed to figure out how to destroy them.

But after a week of pondering the problem, I was no closer to a solution. Oddly, my savior, or so it seemed at the time, proved to be none other than Chad himself. We had finished our usual round of golf and were sitting in the club bar. After both of us were on our third Scotch, he started in on the gnomes.

“So, Wes, what are you going to do about them? They’re ugly as sin.”

I was still stymied, and, I’ll admit, over the week, my resolve had weakened, so I shrugged.

He punched me in the arm, sloshing part of my drink on the bar. “That’s your problem, Wes. You’re too passive. It’s why I’m the COO of your father-in-law’s company and you’re a lowly VP. You can’t just bend over and take it. You need to do something.”

“I know, but what? I have wracked my brain, but I can’t think of anything short of going over there with a hammer, and I’m not exactly trying to get myself arrested.”

“I think I can help you there,” he said.

He reached into his wallet, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me. The card read The Second Amendment. An address and phone number were printed on the reverse side.

“Those guys can take care of you. Trust me.”

The next morning, I made a show of loading my golf bag into the car, and then followed the GPS to The Second Amendment. I parked on the side of the building, behind a giant Make America Great Again sign. Inside, behind the counter, was a literal wall of guns, more guns than I had ever seen in my life. A broomstick-thin, balding man with wrinkled, sallow skin and a pack of cigarettes in his left shirt pocket looked up from some paperwork, crushed out his cigarette and came over to me. “Can I help you?”

“Well, yes, I’m looking to purchase a firearm.”

“I guess you are, since that’s pretty much all we sell.” He laughed, and the laugh dissolved into a coughing fit, which lasted several seconds. When he recovered, he tapped his pocket with a crooked, tobacco-stained finger and said in a hoarse croak, “I gotta quit these damn things. I’ll get around to it next year.” And he laughed again.

“But seriously, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific about your needs. Do you want something for hunting, personal defense, target practice...”

“I have a problem with some pesky, annoying—”

“Oh, a gun for varmints. Do you need it for anything else, I mean like larger game?”

“No, at least I don’t think so.”

“Well then, I got just the thing. Be right back.”

A minute later, he handed me an odd-looking rifle and said, “Look, I could sell you something more expensive, but for varmints, especially in a neighborhood, this is all you need.”

I must have looked as confused as I was, so he continued. “It’s an air rifle.”

“You mean a BB gun?”

“Sorta, but this ain’t your father’s BB gun, not by a long way. It’s as quiet as a whisper, and I can fit it with a night vision scope; you gotta get ’em at night, you know, when they’re active. And it has a laser sight. The collapsible stock makes it easy to store.”

He flipped the stock into place, brought the gun to his shoulder and pointed it at the far wall, where a red dot appeared above the light switch. Just then, he coughed again, and a hole appeared in the wall. I was startled, to say the least. But he seemed nonplussed, as if people shot holes in the walls every day.

“Oops,” he said. “Well, anyway, you put the dot between their beady, little eyes and poof, no more racoon, opossum, or whatever. If you want to try it out, we got a range out back. One of the boys can show you how to use it, and we can charge up the air cylinder for you, so she’s all tanked up before you leave.”

I drove home with the gun collapsed in my golf bag, safely hidden. A lanky crewcut kid with terrible acne had given me a shooting lesson. After an hour of practice, I was a reasonably competent shot. Now, I had only two problems to solve before I could strike a blow for the dignity of The Fairways. The first, I solved by chance. I needed a place from which to shoot. Of course, my living room windows faced Sue’s garden, but I couldn’t very well say to Brooke, “Just run along to bed, dear. I need to use one of those guns you’re always railing against to smash our neighbor’s yard ornaments.”

As luck would have it, she asked me to take an old quilt up to the attic. I go there only twice a year: once to bring Christmas decorations down and again to put them away, and then only under duress. But, as I moved a box to get to the trunk where the quilts and blankets are stored, I saw it. It was a decent-sized vent. And, as I looked closer, I could see that it was hinged so it could swing out. I had never noticed it before, but that is exactly why one hires a lawn service: so one doesn’t have to risk life and limb climbing on ladders to clean gutters and change floodlights.

I crawled to the vent and looked through the slats. It was perfect. I would have a shot at every one of the offensive little trolls.

The other problem was more difficult. As much as Brooke hated the gnomes, and though she goaded me to find a way to rid the neighborhood of them every day, it wouldn’t do to have her around for my debut as a sniper. There would be too many questions. Fortunately, the problem solved itself. She accepted an invitation for a “spa weekend” to celebrate a friend’s birthday. She asked if I would be alright without her for a couple of days. I assured her that I would miss her terribly but would manage.

It was midnight. The sky was cloudy and moonless. I was perfectly comfortable on my palate of blankets appropriated from the trunk. The rifle was assembled, and I had carefully loaded the pellets, or “rounds,” as I had been told they were called. I slowly pushed the vent cover open and looked through the scope.

Although the garden was a dark blur to my unaided eye, through the green filter of the night vision scope, I could see the magnified gnomes clearly. I picked one in the middle of the group. His face was upturned with one hand in the air and one toe pointed down. He was in a dancing pose, I supposed. I put the laser dot on his head and, as I had practiced, squeezed the trigger. There was a soft “puff,” and the gnome’s head exploded into fragments. I fired into the center of his fat belly for good measure and moved to the next one.

Destroying the gnomes was intoxicating. For once, I was in control, not Chad, or my father-in-law or Brooke. I felt powerful and unstoppable; I was sorry when the pieces of the last gnome scattered among the azaleas. I had got them all, and I shot most of the larger fragments a second time, for good measure.

It was almost a total success, but there were a few mishaps. An ill-timed sneeze caused me to jerk the rifle, and I knocked the artificial robin off the top of old Mrs. Clarke’s yellow mailbox bedecked with painted morning glories. Another miss ricocheted off the house and hit the Martin’s disgusting cat, Tinkerbell? Lulubell? some damn “bell.” But she didn’t seem worse for wear. Although she did yowl and make a hasty exit from the bushes.

With the gnomes dispatched, I closed the vent, put the blankets back in the trunk, went downstairs, hid the gun in my golf bag, and poured myself a victory Scotch from the bottle of thirty-year old I had saved for special occasions.

Sunday morning was bright, clear, and cool. I was in a celebratory mood, so I called the pro shop. Dave told me I could make the fourth player in a group slated to tee off at ten a.m. It would mean spending four hours with Chad, but it was the only open slot.

As I backed out of the driveway, I saw Sue wearing what I had come to think of as her gardening uniform. She was picking up pieces of the shattered gnomes and dropping them — well, throwing them, really — into a brown garbage bag. I decided I had better remove any suspicion by walking over and expressing my shock and sympathy.

“Oh, Sue, what on earth happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding exasperated and angry. “I guess someone doesn’t like garden gnomes.”

She looked at me, though the sunglasses made it impossible to read her face.

“Well, please don’t let this give you a bad impression of The Fairways,” I said, trying not to sound nervous. “It is a wonderful community, though we do have some teenagers who get a bit rowdy sometimes. There was probably a party last night and they got up to some mischief.” I hoped I sounded convincing.

“I thought about replacing them,” she said. “I mean, I do have a great place to get more.”

“Oh, really,” I said, feeling a bit on edge and suddenly weary. How long could this go on?

“Yeah, I thought about it, but I realized this probably isn’t a gnome kind of neighborhood.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything before, but I do believe you have read the situation correctly.”

My victory complete, I drove to the club in a triumphant mood that even hours of listening to Chad couldn’t dampen.

My father-in-law had set aside Monday afternoon for a strategy session, senior leaders only. We were told to stay home in the morning and review the agenda, making note of any thoughts that might contribute to the discussion. I was having a leisurely cup of coffee on the back porch when I heard Brooke yell from the front of the house, “What the hell!”

As I was getting up to see what happened (another lawn service issue?), my cell rang. It was Susan Strathborne from the HOA. “Mr. Westerton, I thought I was pretty clear when you emailed me last week.”

“Oh, yes, you certainly were, but there isn’t a problem any longer.”

“But I’m afraid there is. I’ve received three phone calls and several emails this morning.”

It’s a bit late for that, I thought, assuming I wasn’t the only person complaining about the gnomes, but not wanting to incriminate myself, I didn’t say anything.

By then, Brooke found me. Her eyes were wide and her hands were on her hips. I made a quick apology to Susan and hung up.

“What are those things? They’re ghastly. You must do something, now!” she said.

Her duress was palpable. It was worse than the time the maid had washed a woolen sweater and caused it to shrink. I put down my coffee and walked to the front of the house, all the while saying, “Really, Brooke, what on earth could be so—”

I stopped in mid-sentence. Through the windows I could see, or, more accurately, couldn’t see, the front yard. There were plastic flamingos in every possible color on tall poles, covering my entire lawn all the way to the edge of the street, except for one spot near the front of the driveway where there was a white sign board attached to a wooden stake.

Sill in my pajamas and dressing gown, I went outside. In the gentle morning breeze, the flamingos bumped against one another, making hollow sounds. Under other circumstances, it would have been pleasing, relaxing, like the sound of a bamboo forest. But now the swaying birds mocked me with their artificial flamingo smiles.

Several neighbors had come out of their houses to gawk, and a few others snapped pictures as they drove by, laughing at my predicament.

I’ve always been proud of my ability to maintain a detached indifference in the face of life’s little trials, but on this occasion, I fear I lost my composure. I stormed into the yard, flinging plastic flamingos before me, until I reached the sign which read: “You’ve been flocked. Have a nice day.”

I punched the nearest flamingo and was about to punch another when I noticed the flashing red and blue lights. A moment later, a police officer pushed her way through the flamingo forest. “You Mr. Westeron?”

She held a mobile phone so I could see the screen. “We got this video sent to us anonymously. Do you happen to recognize any of this?”

In the video, my house was clearly visible. Below the roof, there was a dark square in which a red dot of light could be seen moving back and forth.

“We also found these in the neighbor’s garden.” She held out a plastic bag containing several pellets. “And there’s the matter of a neighbor’s cat with what appears to be a wound from a pellet gun.”

I turned to see Brooke standing beside me.

“Wes, what on earth did you do?” The look of disappointment on her face was a knife through my heart.

The officer said, “Maybe you should come with me.”

We all turned when we heard the car horn. Chad leaned out of the window of his Lexus and yelled, “Hey, Wes!”

He held his hand out, his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a pistol. He made a shooting motion, winked, probably at Brooke, and drove away, laughing.

Across the street, Sue, dressed in her gardening uniform, gave a thumbs-up.

Was that intended for Chad or me?