CATTY-CORNER HOUSE
by Mark A. Nobles
Caty-Corner House ‘covers’ the Tom Waits song “What’s He Doing in There,” but from the narrator’s perspective. I’ve always thought someone should make an anthology television series from Tom Waits songs. Many are mini movies. Surely, someone has propositioned Mr. Waits on this idea. I can only imagine he has refused. That is too bad. I would watch that show.
I mind my own business. Live and let live, I say, but I knew from the minute the moving van pulled in the driveway of the catty-corner house that something wasn’t right. The van had all the identifying decals stripped off. I heard the engine cut and two hookers fell out of the cab, went around to the back of the van, and spent five minutes trying to figure out how to open the damn latch on the roll-up door. They obviously hadn’t loaded and locked the thing or they would have known how to open it back up. They finally managed to get the latch open and it took them three hours to drag 26 boxes into the garage.
Who hires hookers to move their personal belongings? Those women didn’t even know how to back the truck into the driveway; they pulled in nose first. It was a sight, I’ll tell you that much. And when I say boxes, I mean only boxes, unlabeled, far as I could see. No trunks, and not one stick of furniture. They opened the garage door — it was unlocked — and lugged all the boxes just inside, all willy-nilly, and just far enough to drop the garage door back down. Didn’t stack a one, but I guess that’s what you get when you hire hookers as movers.
As I already said, I mind my own business, but this sight with the boxes and hookers raised my curiosity, and I am glad it did. I happened to be off the following two days and kept a keen eye on the catty-corner house. There were no more moving trucks. No in-and-out activity of any kind. No lights on at night that I could see, but it was hard to tell, because there were blackout curtains on every window in the front and east side, which are the only two sides I can see from my house.
Let me back up. My street runs east and west. I live on the north side of the street, one house west of the catty-corner house. I have a clear view of the front and partial view of the east side, back to the fence. Since I’m not a nosey neighbor, I did not notice when the blackout curtains went up.
Old man Lowell, the previous owner of the catty-corner house, died in April. His wife died in August, two years prior, and the house began to fall into disrepair after her passing. Lowell was a good neighbor, I suppose. He kept his house and yard in good to decent shape, until, like I said, his wife died. He voted Republican, by the look of the signs in his yard every other November; waved if he passed you on the street, but never stopped to talk if he saw you in the yard, which was all right by me. That lousy son of his never visited, even though he lived less than an hour away, and when the For Sale sign went up less than two weeks after Lowell died, everyone on the street was pretty happy. Maybe the new owners would water the yard again, and the eaves and sills would get a fresh coat of paint. The For Sale sign came down nine days before the hookers in the moving van showed up.
Carol, my wife, said I began to obsess over the catty-corner house; hell, good riddance when she left me, I say. I wasn’t obsessed. It was just damned peculiar, and somebody needed to keep watch. There are children in this neighborhood.
I worked rotating shifts, so over the next few months, I got good information about that house during different times of the day. Fifteen days after move-in, if you call 26 boxes moving in, the noises started coming from the basement. Every night, at exactly two a.m. Weird noises — arcing, high-voltage electricity; steel hitting steel; gear-grinding; pneumatic air guns; and a low, melodic whistle. Something was being built in that basement and we are zoned residential.
A few times late at night I tried to sneak over and get a closer look at the catty-corner house. Every time I got no more than five feet into the yard, the noises stopped suddenly. When I retreated, they picked up again within 10 minutes. Son of a bitch must have installed cameras or motion sensors, though I saw no signs of them. Once I tried to get a look over the back fence, but the neighbor one street over, whose yard I was in, called the cops on me. But not before I saw movement in the basement. Floating, slow-moving lights cast shadows on at least two hanging bodies, or what looked like bodies, one human and one not so much, except for having a torso, two arms, and two legs. And I could hear moaning. Low, gurgling moaning and that melodic whistle. Of course, it stopped when the cops came and the neighbor turned on their back porchlight. The cops thought I was the weirdo and wouldn’t listen to a word of my story about the bat-crazy goings-on at the catty-corner house.
It got worse for me when they ran my license and found out where I lived. I had supposedly called them “63 times” to investigate the catty-corner house, but they never investigated, they just drove by. I no longer bother to call the cops. They won’t go there anymore.
My wife, of course, cited this incident in the divorce papers as another example of my “lunatic obsession.” Did I mention I’m glad she’s gone?
After I lost my job (I had stopped going in anyway), I had more time to devote to keeping an eye on what was being built in the catty-corner house.
Packages were delivered three or four times a week at odd hours by courier services I never heard of. Sometimes they left with envelopes and small packages. They always delivered to the back of the house. I’ll leave it to you to decide if legitimate companies walk around to the back door of darkened houses and deliver at three a.m.
I had to start wearing a surgical mask because of the smells. When the cacophony would begin at two, the smells would waft up 20 minutes later. Everyone has heard of the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, but did you know there are seven primary odors? They are musky, minty, floral, ethereal, camphoraceous, pungent, and putrid. Brother, you haven’t lived until you’ve gotten a whiff of all seven at once. Odors trigger memories, and being hit with such olfactory overload can make the mind trip balls. Which might have been the purpose, a way to throw me off the scent, if you’ll pardon the pun. But I hung strong, even when the utilities got cut off. I kept a constant vigil.
A week or so before the sheriff was due to evict me, I was walking back from the Brookshire’s with bananas and peanut butter when Jake, a neighbor one block behind the catty-corner house, stopped me for a chat. He didn’t want to see how I was doing; he wanted to laugh in my face. Jake has always been a dick.
He surprised me by saying he thought something was up at the catty-corner house, and he asked if I had seen the spotlight signals shooting into the sky from the roof during gibbous moons.
It threw me. I had never seen so much as a nightlight on, or around the catty-corner house, much less a spotlight coming from the roof. He insisted and seemed serious. I didn’t reply and kept walking. Pretty sure he was yanking my chain, but I was curious.
I wiped my ass with the letter from the county saying the sheriff will be here tomorrow to escort me out and padlock my house. Understand that I realize the irony in the fact that my house is now as derelict as the catty-corner house. The grass is dead; weeds and nettle vines have overtaken the place. The only remnant showing a decent family ever lived here is the tire swing still hanging from the pepper tree in the back yard.
I used to push Carol in that swing on lazy fall Sundays. She would wear a loose gingham dress and I would stand behind her, gently pushing with one hand while holding a Shiner in the other. She would laugh and I would feel grateful.
by Mark A. Nobles
Caty-Corner House ‘covers’ the Tom Waits song “What’s He Doing in There,” but from the narrator’s perspective. I’ve always thought someone should make an anthology television series from Tom Waits songs. Many are mini movies. Surely, someone has propositioned Mr. Waits on this idea. I can only imagine he has refused. That is too bad. I would watch that show.
I mind my own business. Live and let live, I say, but I knew from the minute the moving van pulled in the driveway of the catty-corner house that something wasn’t right. The van had all the identifying decals stripped off. I heard the engine cut and two hookers fell out of the cab, went around to the back of the van, and spent five minutes trying to figure out how to open the damn latch on the roll-up door. They obviously hadn’t loaded and locked the thing or they would have known how to open it back up. They finally managed to get the latch open and it took them three hours to drag 26 boxes into the garage.
Who hires hookers to move their personal belongings? Those women didn’t even know how to back the truck into the driveway; they pulled in nose first. It was a sight, I’ll tell you that much. And when I say boxes, I mean only boxes, unlabeled, far as I could see. No trunks, and not one stick of furniture. They opened the garage door — it was unlocked — and lugged all the boxes just inside, all willy-nilly, and just far enough to drop the garage door back down. Didn’t stack a one, but I guess that’s what you get when you hire hookers as movers.
As I already said, I mind my own business, but this sight with the boxes and hookers raised my curiosity, and I am glad it did. I happened to be off the following two days and kept a keen eye on the catty-corner house. There were no more moving trucks. No in-and-out activity of any kind. No lights on at night that I could see, but it was hard to tell, because there were blackout curtains on every window in the front and east side, which are the only two sides I can see from my house.
Let me back up. My street runs east and west. I live on the north side of the street, one house west of the catty-corner house. I have a clear view of the front and partial view of the east side, back to the fence. Since I’m not a nosey neighbor, I did not notice when the blackout curtains went up.
Old man Lowell, the previous owner of the catty-corner house, died in April. His wife died in August, two years prior, and the house began to fall into disrepair after her passing. Lowell was a good neighbor, I suppose. He kept his house and yard in good to decent shape, until, like I said, his wife died. He voted Republican, by the look of the signs in his yard every other November; waved if he passed you on the street, but never stopped to talk if he saw you in the yard, which was all right by me. That lousy son of his never visited, even though he lived less than an hour away, and when the For Sale sign went up less than two weeks after Lowell died, everyone on the street was pretty happy. Maybe the new owners would water the yard again, and the eaves and sills would get a fresh coat of paint. The For Sale sign came down nine days before the hookers in the moving van showed up.
Carol, my wife, said I began to obsess over the catty-corner house; hell, good riddance when she left me, I say. I wasn’t obsessed. It was just damned peculiar, and somebody needed to keep watch. There are children in this neighborhood.
I worked rotating shifts, so over the next few months, I got good information about that house during different times of the day. Fifteen days after move-in, if you call 26 boxes moving in, the noises started coming from the basement. Every night, at exactly two a.m. Weird noises — arcing, high-voltage electricity; steel hitting steel; gear-grinding; pneumatic air guns; and a low, melodic whistle. Something was being built in that basement and we are zoned residential.
A few times late at night I tried to sneak over and get a closer look at the catty-corner house. Every time I got no more than five feet into the yard, the noises stopped suddenly. When I retreated, they picked up again within 10 minutes. Son of a bitch must have installed cameras or motion sensors, though I saw no signs of them. Once I tried to get a look over the back fence, but the neighbor one street over, whose yard I was in, called the cops on me. But not before I saw movement in the basement. Floating, slow-moving lights cast shadows on at least two hanging bodies, or what looked like bodies, one human and one not so much, except for having a torso, two arms, and two legs. And I could hear moaning. Low, gurgling moaning and that melodic whistle. Of course, it stopped when the cops came and the neighbor turned on their back porchlight. The cops thought I was the weirdo and wouldn’t listen to a word of my story about the bat-crazy goings-on at the catty-corner house.
It got worse for me when they ran my license and found out where I lived. I had supposedly called them “63 times” to investigate the catty-corner house, but they never investigated, they just drove by. I no longer bother to call the cops. They won’t go there anymore.
My wife, of course, cited this incident in the divorce papers as another example of my “lunatic obsession.” Did I mention I’m glad she’s gone?
After I lost my job (I had stopped going in anyway), I had more time to devote to keeping an eye on what was being built in the catty-corner house.
Packages were delivered three or four times a week at odd hours by courier services I never heard of. Sometimes they left with envelopes and small packages. They always delivered to the back of the house. I’ll leave it to you to decide if legitimate companies walk around to the back door of darkened houses and deliver at three a.m.
I had to start wearing a surgical mask because of the smells. When the cacophony would begin at two, the smells would waft up 20 minutes later. Everyone has heard of the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, but did you know there are seven primary odors? They are musky, minty, floral, ethereal, camphoraceous, pungent, and putrid. Brother, you haven’t lived until you’ve gotten a whiff of all seven at once. Odors trigger memories, and being hit with such olfactory overload can make the mind trip balls. Which might have been the purpose, a way to throw me off the scent, if you’ll pardon the pun. But I hung strong, even when the utilities got cut off. I kept a constant vigil.
A week or so before the sheriff was due to evict me, I was walking back from the Brookshire’s with bananas and peanut butter when Jake, a neighbor one block behind the catty-corner house, stopped me for a chat. He didn’t want to see how I was doing; he wanted to laugh in my face. Jake has always been a dick.
He surprised me by saying he thought something was up at the catty-corner house, and he asked if I had seen the spotlight signals shooting into the sky from the roof during gibbous moons.
It threw me. I had never seen so much as a nightlight on, or around the catty-corner house, much less a spotlight coming from the roof. He insisted and seemed serious. I didn’t reply and kept walking. Pretty sure he was yanking my chain, but I was curious.
I wiped my ass with the letter from the county saying the sheriff will be here tomorrow to escort me out and padlock my house. Understand that I realize the irony in the fact that my house is now as derelict as the catty-corner house. The grass is dead; weeds and nettle vines have overtaken the place. The only remnant showing a decent family ever lived here is the tire swing still hanging from the pepper tree in the back yard.
I used to push Carol in that swing on lazy fall Sundays. She would wear a loose gingham dress and I would stand behind her, gently pushing with one hand while holding a Shiner in the other. She would laugh and I would feel grateful.