Tom and Gerald

Gerald McLachlan was not particularly fond of his next door neighbour. Granted, they lived in as close proximity as any two strangers could and yet still be expected to co-exist. The not so luxury town homes afforded residents individual driveways, but not much else. Not that Gerald was opposed to compromise. He had worked in the same box of an office with mostly the same people for nearly twenty years. But work was work. The fact that the guy who sat next to you was close enough to pick the lint off your shirt mattered little when you were nose deep in paperwork.

But home was different. For Gerald it was not so much the lack of physical space, but having to watch the ways in which people chose to live their lives. He hated all of the personal habits that people had. All of the annoying things they did that sometimes seemed to make absolutely no sense at all.

Tom was a single man in his fifties. He was tall and thin with frizzy white hair at the sides of his head. He always had the same closed mouth grin on his face. Tom never said much, only nodded. Unlike Gerald, Tom had not chosen the single life. The single life had chosen him when his wife died five years earlier. A Chartered Accountant, Tom left his house at five every morning and returned at six every night. On weekends he carried in boxes.

One Saturday, Gerald watched as the man carried in eighteen boxes, each one waist to chin high. The most puzzling thing for Gerald was that he never saw the man carry anything out. Ever. Not so much as a lunch bag or briefcase. And yet every weekend, there was Tom, carrying in boxes of all different sizes.

Gerald was out watering his lawn when he overheard his neighbour from across the street calling across to Tom.

“Moving in Tom?”

Tom only smiled, nodded and continued to carry in boxes.

Now and then when Gerald would be out pruning his shrubs, he would attempt to sneak a peek into Tom’s window. To his frustration, he was never able to see much of anything before Tom returned with another armful of boxes.

This went on week after week for a year. Then the following March Tom had to go away for a week on business.

Gerald sat in his kitchen the day after Tom had left. He stroked his hand through a mop of brown hair. He straightened his glasses and took a long drag of his cigarette.

Even as a kid, Gerald had never stolen anything, trespassed or got into a fight. This time though, his curiosity got the better of him. In Gerald’s mind there was no other option. That night he would slide open a basement window in Tom’s house. He would see for once and for all how it was that his neighbour Tom lived.

Gerald waited until the last of his neighbour’s lights had gone out. He crouched beside the back basement window, but the window was jammed. Gerald knelt down to get a better grip cursing as the wet grass soaked through his jeans.

The window creaked and skidded along the dirty track. Gerald took one last look around and lowered himself in.

Gerald was barely able to get two feet on the floor before his back thudded up against a wardrobe-sized box. He crouched low and flipped on his pocket light. Gerald had never in his life been claustrophobic until that moment.

Packed from floor to ceiling, were boxes. While there were many different sizes it was the waist to chin size that Tom seemed to favour.

Gerald followed a narrow footpath through the basement. He made his way up the stairs. Every floor was the same with only one narrow footpath throughout the house. At last Gerald could stand this madness no longer. He opened his pocketknife and sliced a careful opening into one waist high box in the living room. He pulled the side of the box open.

A stream of photographs poured out at his feet. Gerald pulled one out of the heap and held it up to his pocket light. It was a picture of Tom, smiling that same closed mouth grin. He aimed his flashlight down at the pictures as he sifted through them. In some pictures Tom stood beside a tree. In others, he leaned up against a fence. In one he stood alone in a room, stark naked.

Gerald ran his knife along the boxes. Box after box contained only pictures of Tom. Most were self-portraits of that same closed mouth smile that Tom had displayed every box carrying Saturday.

Gerald eased his way along the footpath and out of Tom’s house as fast as he could manage. He locked himself in his house and drew the blinds.

A week passed and Tom had not returned. Instead, a Real Estate Agent pulled up in a red Jaguar and nailed a “For Sale” sign on the lawn.

The following week, a work crew showed up. They parked an industrial sized bin in the driveway. For the next three days, they hauled out box after box. When the bin was full, they towed it away and replaced it with another one. The following week a young couple moved in. No one ever heard another word from Tom.

About three months later, Gerald had a knock on his door, as he got ready for work one Tuesday morning. It was a courier. He handed Gerald a pad to sign, then he handed him a box. Gerald set the plain brown box on the table. He opened his pocketknife and carefully
sliced open the top of the box. He pulled open the flaps and looked inside.

But the box was empty.