The Visionary

Audrey pounced on her landline after just one ring.

“Have you heard the Good News?” asked the woman on the other end.

Just having someone to talk to other than her cat was good news for Audrey. “No, have I won something?”

“Not exactly. It’s better than that.”

Audrey’s enthusiasm waned as the caller went on to talk about grace and salvation. After listening for a few minutes, she interjected, “Okay, but you still haven’t told me the good news.”

“Jesus loves you—and he’s coming again.”

At that moment, the doorbell rang. “Oh—that’s probably him now! I better go.” Audrey started lowering the receiver, adding, “I’ll tell him you said ‘Hi.’” Then she hurried off.

Nearly a decade had passed since her retirement from a public relations firm, but Audrey, with the clear eyes and youthful bearing of a woman half her age, missed the fun of dealing with problematic people. It was a little embarrassing going to the door in her bathrobe—especially so late in the afternoon—but she’d have plenty of time to change into her Carmen Miranda costume before trick-or-treaters began arriving.

Upon flinging open the door, she was greeted by a gust of autumn air and the sight of a stocky, balding man wearing ragged pants and a fierce expression. Leaves and twigs clung to his filthy crew-necked sweater as if he’d been in a brawl.

“You’re my witness!” the man exclaimed, holding out his arms so she could inspect the damage.

Audrey blinked in surprise. From his distinct, gravelly voice, she recognized him as Ron from the last block meeting. “Oh, my goodness! What happened to you?” she asked.

“They got me good,” he said, huffing and puffing.

“Who did?”

“You tell me. Who lives next door?”

“The Hamlyns did that?” The very idea seemed laughable.

“Hamlyn? Like the city councillor?”

“Of course. Neil Hamlyn and his wife—that’s their house.”

“Ha—I should have known!” he said, standing too close for Audrey’s comfort. “Word gets out that I’m going door to door with a petition, and this Hamlyn joker decides to shut me down.”

“Oh, surely not. Anyway, he’s not around these days. It’s just Mrs. Hamlyn.”

“Then she must be the old hag I heard laughing. I leapt back and got covered in cobwebs, then fell into the bushes.”

“Sounds like Halloween decorations. I’m sure the witch’s laugh is a recorded sound. It’s probably triggered by a motion sensor.”

Ron wasn’t persuaded. “So, you’re telling me it was an accident? Make no mistake, lady—it was a hit job. But what they don’t realize is that I’m going to sue. What if I’d been wearing an Armani suit worth three thousand dollars? They’re going to pay for it.” He looked down at the cotton ‘cobwebs’ on his dirty sweater and flicked a twig off his sleeve.

“But you’re not wearing an Armani suit.”

Ron scowled and leaned in. “Whose side are you on? Mine or Mr. Fancy Pants councillor over there, with his fancy-pants motion sensor?”

“Motion sensors aren’t that big of a deal,” said Audrey. “They’re just little things that run on batteries.” She didn’t want her cat slipping out, so she stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door close behind her.

“Batteries! How convenient that they’re off the grid. I should have guessed.”

“Why? What does it matter?” she asked, adjusting the collar of her robe as she settled in.

“What do you get when the power grid goes down? Mass hysteria. Lord of the Flies stuff. As a city councillor, Hamlyn is obviously preparing for the Big One. Ten-to-one he’s got that whole house on a generator.”

Audrey was confused. “Seriously? Why would he do that?”

“Moo-la!” Ron bellowed, rubbing his thumb against his fingertips. “It’s straight out of the playbook.” He glanced around warily. “Think of it this way: trillions of dollars are lost when the grid goes down. But where does it go? It’s got to go somewhere. Just ask Pope Benedict.”

“Pope Benedict?”

“Why do you think he left the papacy? To control the grid! You control the grid, you control the whole ball of wax. Trust me, the guy’s got a lab at the South Pole. It’s all in The Da Vinci Code.”

“I highly doubt that,” said Audrey with a gentle smile, standing at a non-confrontational angle.

“Everything’s hidden in plain sight. It’s the same deal with Halloween. You think trick-or-treating is all fun and games? Well, I got news for you.”

“Oh?”

Ron threw out his chest. “FACT: The average person collects candy from ages three to eleven. Eight years. But guess what? As adults, they shell it out for fifty years. It’s like some kind of Ponzi scheme. The numbers don’t add up. Where’s the extra candy going?”

Audrey had dealt with Ron’s type before. “The Bermuda Triangle?”

Ron let out a short, derisive laugh. “Don’t get me started! When I was a kid, people talked about the Bermuda Triangle all the time. Bermuda Triangle this, Bermuda Triangle that. There were all these books and documentaries. Then one day BOOM”—he clapped his hands—“it’s gone. You never hear about it anymore. It’s like it vanished.”

Ron’s general manner had been forceful, if not downright belligerent, yet every time a car went by, he’d cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. And something about the next vehicle really set him off. “Oh, geez—you gotta be kidding me!” he said, stepping behind one of the juniper trees that stood alongside the porch.

Twenty seconds later, after confirming it was gone, he returned to his spot. “Whew! I thought it was the Google Street View car. They’re keeping tabs on me.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” said Audrey.

“You think I’m joking? Wherever I go, whether it’s at a mall or a zoo, there’s always a spot on the map that says ‘You are HERE.’”

“Do you suppose they’ve implanted some sort of tracking device?”

“Well, duh! What do you think dentists are doing when they put fillings in your teeth? That’s how they get you.”

“My goodness, you’re just a fountain of shocking information, aren’t you?”

Ron raised his chin and hooked his thumbs over his belt. “Lady, you don’t know the half of it. I could tell you things that would curl your hair.”

Audrey smiled to show she was listening but not agreeing—a distinction she’d learned long ago was lost on most people. “Try me.”

The same vehicle that had alarmed Ron before, now came back from the opposite direction.

“Google!” he cried, getting down on his hands and knees behind the junipers. “Are you seeing this?” He looked up at Audrey with the desperate, pleading eyes of a raccoon caught in a trap. “It’s all going down in real time!”

“Oh, honestly,” began Audrey, with genuine pity. “Come inside.” She held the door open, and Ron scurried into her front hall.

She tried to set him at ease. “So, you were saying? Something about curling my hair…”

Still shaken, Ron seemed to have lost a bit of his edge. He eyed with suspicion two smiling jack-o-lanterns that sat on the floor. “Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling are the same person! No one’s ever seen them together. You do the math.”

“I’ve seen them together.”

“Smoke and mirrors. Okay, how ’bout this: Eleanor Roosevelt once went on a date with Walt Disney’s brother Roy. She said he was a perfect gentleman but that she preferred more athletic types.”

“Well, this is becoming more like celebrity gossip...”

“Here’s one: pork, ham, and bacon all come from the same animal.”

“Everyone knows that.”

“But it’s not the animal you think.”

At this moment, an orange cat named Chairman Meow began making his way down the staircase toward the front hall.

“Jumpin’ Jiminy!” exclaimed Ron, pulling back. “Pardon my French, but I’ve got a thing about dogs. I’ll eat ’em, but I won’t shake their paws. Matter of principle.”

“But it’s a cat,” said Audrey, following Ron as he stepped back onto her porch.

“You do realize that cats are a kind of dog. The American Kennel Club just doesn’t want you to know that.”

Audrey bristled. It was one thing to ridicule Ryan Gosling, but to accuse Chairman Meow of being a dog was a bridge too far. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, squaring her shoulders, “even if that were true, why would they keep it a secret?”

“Purebred dogs are big business. License fees, registration, grooming…it all adds up.Don’t kid yourself—we’re talking serious coin. You want to understand what lies behind all human motivation? Just do what Sigmund Freud said and ‘Follow the money.’”

“I see. So, if people always want what brings them money, does that mean doctors want people to be sick, police want crime, and teachers want stupid kids? Is that it?”

“You said it, sister!”

This was Audrey’s chance to flip the script. “Well, you’re obviously not as naïve as reports would have us believe.”

Ron cast her a sidelong glance. “Reports?”

Audrey looked down as a breeze sent leaves skittering across the porch. She cinched the belt of her robe. “I might as well come clean about the hit job on the Hamlyn’s porch,” she said at last. “It’s cards-on-the-table time.”

Ron snapped his fingers. “I knew it!”

“The fact is, you’re getting too close to the truth. People may think I’m a silly old woman, but I keep my ear to the ground. It’s not just Google that’s watching you. Look what happened to Neil Hamlyn when he started asking questions about the grid.”

“What happened?” asked Ron, wide-eyed.

“Isn’t it obvious? I told you he hasn’t been around for a while. It’s just his wife, and she’s obviously in deep with Big Pumpkin. I mean, all those Halloween decorations… You do the math.”

Ron hung on every word. “Big Pumpkin?”

“Probably The Kennel Club too. Maybe even Ryan Reynolds. I’m not saying they paid her off, but it’s obvious that her husband was going against their interests. He’d become inconvenient. That’s why they sent him to a ‘conference,’ if you can believe that.”

“Whoa.”

“And that’s probably why they set up fancy-pants booby traps like the ones that nailed you. They don’t want people nosing around before they’ve hidden the evidence. I’m telling you this for your own good, so don’t go blabbing or they’ll do to you what they did to Neil Hamlyn.”

“Send me to a conference?”

“Well, that’s one way to put it.”

“Wait—you don’t mean…?” He dragged an index finger across his neck.

Audrey nodded grimly.

“But why take the risk?”

“It’s all about the money, honey. Look, you seem like a nice guy. Consider what happened to you on Hamlyn’s porch as a warning shot.”

Ron let out a low whistle. “Mind blown,” he said, miming an explosion from the sides of his head. Then he just stood there, deflated.

“Hey, what about that petition?” Audrey asked, in a brighter tone.

“Oh, this,” said Ron absently. Producing a pen from his pocket, he held out his petition to City Council asking that the metal transformer box at the end of the street be given a new coat of paint. Audrey signed it.

“You sure you’re not yanking my chain?” he asked, taking the petition back.

“Yeah, right. That’s what they want you to think.”

Ron shuddered, then turned to leave—revealing in the process a lot of soil and mulch still stuck to his back. If he’d been wearing an Armani suit, he’d have to get it dry cleaned, thought Audrey, as she watched him cross the lawn. He moved like a nervous deer—at first heading east, but upon catching sight of a taxi or driving-school vehicle, abruptly turning around and heading west.

Four hours later, dressed as Carmen Miranda, with jangling bracelets and a bright turban piled high with plastic fruit, Audrey had finished giving candy to the last few stragglers. She blew out the candles in the pumpkins, then headed upstairs.

At the top of the steps, she flipped the switch for the hall light. Nothing happened. She went to her bedroom, but that light didn’t work either. Had she blown a fuse?

Or maybe it wasn’t just her house, but the whole street. She held aside the curtain of her bedroom window. The darkness was total, not just along the street, but as far as her eyes could see. Chairman Meow rubbed against her legs as her mind flashed to The Da Vinci Code. “So, what do you think?” she asked him. “Is Pope Benedict up to his old shenanigans?”

Then she looked down into the neighbor’s backyard. By starlight, she could make out someone moving. It was Mrs. Hamlyn. She had a shovel, and she was digging a hole. A big one.

Audrey took a sharp breath through her nose, then released the curtain. ‘Let’s get you something to eat,’ she said, scooping up her cat. Then, holding him close, she headed rather quickly back downstairs.