Angie stared out of her bedroom window. From her vantage point, she could see into her neighbor’s backyard, the same backyard where she and her husband had eaten dinner last night. She looked on, frozen with a bizarre mixture of emotions, as her neighbor’s young son was pooping on the grass.
“Eric,” Angie called. Her husband walked out of the adjoining bathroom where he had been brushing his teeth.
“Mrlph?” he questioned, his words obscured as he wiped his mouth with a hand towel, walking towards her. “What’s up, Ange?”
“Remember dinner last night at the Wright’s?”
“Babe, why would I forget? It was just last night. Plus, I still can’t get the taste of kale out of my mouth.”
Without saying a word, Angie pointed towards the young boy who was now running around the backyard, completely naked.
“Is that Grover?” Eric asked, squinting his eyes. “And is he naked?”
“Yeah, but that’s not even the weirdest thing. Just, like, a minute a go, I saw him pooping. Right on the grass, too.”
“No way!” Eric said is disbelief. “Like, what, he was just squatting and taking a dump?”
“Yeah! I mean, he’s only three, but that’s still super gross. Why would Wayne and Verona let him do that?”
“Come on, they don’t know this is happening. I’m sure Grover just got up before them and he’s, y’know, being a kid.”
“You used to poop outside as a kid?” Angie asked incredulously, turning to face her husband, one eyebrow raised.
“That’s not what I meant,” Eric said, putting his hands lovingly about his wife’s waist. “Just that he’s doing something dumb and weird.”
“We need to tell them about this. He shouldn’t be allowed outside, especially to go to the bathroom.”
“Whoa, hold on, Angie,” Eric said, his voice becoming serious. “You can’t just order them around.”
“I’m not ordering anyone to do anything,” Angie said, walking towards the nightstand on her side of the bed. “I’m just going to let them know what’s happening and they’ll obviously take care of it.” Angie picked up her cell phone and started scrolling through the contact list. “What’s their number?”
“I don’t know; I never got it.”
“Fine. I’ll walk over and tell her.” Angie walked over to the closet and began to change out of her pajamas
“Please don’t make a thing out of this,” Eric said to her from his spot in front of the window.
“I’m not making a ‘thing’ out of this. There’s nothing to make out of it. I’m just going to ring their bell, tell them that their son is running around like a wild animal, and then I’m going for a run.”
“Just try to be careful how you tell them.”
Angie walked out of the closet, now wearing running shorts and a t-shirt and carrying a balled-up pair of socks in one hand and her running shoes in the other. She sat down on the edge of the bed to put them on. “It’s fine, Eric,” she said without looking up.
“I just mean that some people might be offended to have their child described as ‘a wild animal.’”
“Obviously I’m not going to use those exact words,” Angie said, a little annoyed. Having tied her shoes, she walked into the bathroom and started brushing her hair. “I’ll be back in, like, thirty minutes and we’ll have breakfast.” She stopped and turned to look Eric in the eye. “I promise that I won’t be offensive, okay?”
“Alright,” Eric said, not pushing the matter further. “I’ll have breakfast ready when you get home.” He turned and walked downstairs to the kitchen.
Angie returned to brushing her dark, curly hair. It was so frustrating that Eric was more concerned about not offending their weird neighbors than taking her side. She just wanted him to listen to her and see her side of things. She decided that she was brushing her hair a little too hard, probably because she was annoyed with her husband. She pulled her hair into a pony tail with a hair-tie and pulled a head band out of a drawer to further keep her unruly hair in place. Clearly, her Puerto Rican ancestors had never considered how big, think, curly hair would make exercising so uncomfortable. She applied some deodorant and left the bathroom.
She grabbed her phone and slid it into its armband case which she put on her left upper-arm. She picked up her earbuds and started untangling them as she walked down the stairs. When she made it to the bottom, she said “bye” to Eric, who replied in kind, and walked out the door.
It was still pretty early, at least for a Saturday, so the street was mostly empty. That would make running easier. Angie was still annoyed at Eric for not being supportive, but she had a feeling there was more to her state than was obvious at the surface. Sometimes that happened. Even though she didn’t know what was bothering her, she knew that her run would help. Running always seemed to clear her head and after watching a little boy poop in his backyard, she needed her mind cleared out.
~~~
As Katy Perry’s “Roar” played in her ears, Angie ran. This run was different than usual. Normally when she ran, the running was the point. This time, it felt like she was running away from something. She reviewed the recent conversation in her mind, looking for reason in the confusion. She had rung the doorbell of the Wright’s home and was greeted by Verona.
“Oh hi, Angela!” Verona said, smiling broadly. “Long time, no see.”
“Yeah, hi” Angie said, smiling nervously. “And Angie’s fine. Anyway, I just stopped by to tell you that I saw Grover in your backyard and that you might want to check up on him, that’s all.”
“Thank you for your concern, but I know he’s back there. He can be a handful and letting him run around in the morning makes him more manageable.”
“Okay. Did you know that he’s naked?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Remember last night when I said that we like having everything ‘all natural’? I wasn’t just talking about food. Other animals don’t wear clothes, so why do we? Wayne and I are teaching Grover to not be ashamed of his body. Whenever we’re at home, we encourage him to wear as little as he wants to. It should be great for his self-esteem.”
Angie knew that Verona was kind of a hippie but this was really pushing the envelope. Suddenly, Angie didn’t want to waste any more time talking and just get to running.
“Right. Well, I also saw him, um, pooping. In the backyard. Just thought you should know.”
“I think that it’s barbaric to force our children to hold in their waste. No other animal besides humans wear diapers or use toilets. Obviously we can’t always live naturally and organically, but that’s only because society forces its norms on us and makes us assimilate. We want Grover to have as much freedom as possible, so yes, we let him relieve himself outside. Besides, human waste makes for wonderful fertilizer, so our garden is very healthy.”
Angie’s blood ran cold. “You mean you use your family’s poop as fertilizer for the food that we ate last night? Like the tomatoes and onions and kale we ate last night were grown out of your poop?”
“Yes! Isn’t it amazing what you can do when you go back to living organically? I like to think that some of our vegetables, I’ve eaten twice.”
~~~
Angie had felt suddenly queasy, something that happens when you find out your dinner the night before grew out of human-manure. She told Verona that she just wanted to make sure that Grover was okay, but she had get going for her morning run.
Having finished her two miles, she thought about going farther, as if she could sweat out her uneasiness. She decided that the best thing to do was to go home and eat a new meal. She couldn’t un-eat dinner, but she could replace it with something new.
She walked through the front door and was greeted by the rich smell of bacon in the air. Eric’s cooking was usually simple, but it was also usually tasty. She went into the kitchen, still a little sweaty from her exercise, to find Eric sliding an omelette on to a dining plate, next to another plate with a matching omelette. She walked over to the fridge to grab a cold water bottle when she asked what kind of omelettes he had made.
“Well,” Eric replied, “the Wrights had sent us home with some kale, so I figured we should get rid of it right away. And you know how bacon can improve the taste of anything, so it should go down pretty easy. Babe, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Indeed, Angie was frozen in horror as she looked at her breakfast. After a moment (but what felt like an eternity) she finally was able to compose herself enough to say what was wrong.
“Eric,” Angie said, not taking her eyes off of the omelettes, “the Wrights make their own fertilizer.”
“Well, sure. Lots of people have compost heaps.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, turning to look her husband in the eye. “What I saw Grover doing this morning was making fertilizer.”
Suddenly, all of the color drained from Eric’s face. He moved quickly over to the sink and started making retching noises. Angie walked up behind him put a hand lovingly on his shoulder. Seeing him like this made her feel better. Not because he was dry-heaving, but because it meant that he was on her side. Their conversation this morning had made it feel like there was a distance between them, but here in the ugly-light of nausea, she could see that he was on her side. As gross as it was, it was also a beautiful moment.
After nearly a minute of dry-heaving, Eric stood up and turned to face his wife. “I am never eating anything from their garden again,” he said, his grey-blue eyes full of moisture. He looked over in disgust at what he had made for breakfast. “What’s the opposite of garden-fresh vegetables?”
Angie couldn’t help but laugh a little before she replied. “Probably bacon.”
“Bacon alone is no match for manure-fed kale. Let’s go to McDonald’s.”
Angie nodded in agreement, gently smiling.
As she climbed into the passenger seat of the car as Eric held the door for her, Angie was happy for the weird morning she had had. It was frustrating to have Eric disagree with her, but if they hadn’t disagreed, it wouldn’t have felt so good when they were back in agreement. If it took having the argument to get to the happy moment of being equally grossed-out by their neighbors, she was glad to have gone through it all.
Though she doubted that they’d ever eat kale again.
