The Vigilante (part 2)

The vigilante has not slowed down.

At any hour, the downstairs door is no longer propped open. In the middle of the night, in the rainy afternoon, in the sleepy morning, the chunk of concrete, the broken floor tile, the wadded up cardboard is plucked and tossed away. Some of these pieces are added to a shelf in the wall between the second and third floors. The library grows and grows.

And then at one point, they are also added to a little alcove on the fourth floor.

All of this happens while children play soccer in the parking lot, screaming and shouting and sometimes whacking the ball against a parked car - then the harsh words from a balcony followed by a whimper and a defeated reply.

The tortoise man with his manic wife scowl at faces, walking slower than slow. He invents reasons to stand sentry by the entry door, pretending to wash one of his abandoned cars with a rag. She leans from their window, hands clasped, hair hanging like a jungle across her twisted face. They mumble to each other, holding vigil over the door. It is easy to imagine an arsenal of broken pieces of tile stacked inside their apartment, poised to replace the latest one that has been pulled from the door hinge and tossed by the vigilante.

And then, one day I notice the door is closed - but the rock holding it was simply placed on the floor next to it. This is not the vigilante’s style. No, this must be some new individual, inspired to action and far too polite. All the same, I smirk - the vigilante has nudged people to action. The fuse has been set. The tug of war over this door may be at a tipping point.

On the next day, I wake to a massive banging coming from downstairs. I imagine the door being mangled, the tortoise man going after it with a sledgehammer he can barely lift. I eventually trot down with some garbage to throw away as my excuse to rubberneck.

The tortoise man has removed some makeshift railings from the outside wall. They look like bathroom towel racks, bought for a few tetri, nothing the building needed and no one asked for them. If a handicapped person every tried to get into our building (that has no elevator) they would be of zero use. All the same, I remember when he installed them, wildly satisfied with himself, gloating over them, waiting for anyone to mumble some thanks.

Now, they litter the ground.

Later, I see he has put them back, now bent and mangled, with a fresh spackling of concrete to hold them in place.

Once again, I walk the four flights up to our place, scratching my head, marveling at the logic this man can manufacture. This is a painful magnifying glass for our world, in all of its mad glory, the charade, the parade, the delayed day of reckoning, the hour-by-hour battle over human decency, the minor victory, the dangling question - what madness will tomorrow bring?