The Horrible Relocation by Marco & Liam Etheridge

A cross-country move is a big change, I get that, but no way I deserve this nightmare I’ve landed in. The relocation wasn’t even my idea. Doctor’s orders, right? The doc said I needed a drier climate and less stress. And the move did lower my stress level, at least initially. Putting three thousand miles between me and the cops, that’s a hidden bonus. Needless to say, I didn’t mention that to the good doctor.

My whole life, I’ve never been west of the Mississippi River. Suddenly, I find myself in Tucson, Arizona. At first glance, the place seems perfect. The town is dry as an old nut. Thousands of newcomers arrive every year, so it’s a snap to blend in. Most importantly, Tucson boasts a massive university with a well-earned reputation as a party school. Plenty of frat houses, right? I’m anticipating fun times in a new hunting ground. Man, was I wrong.

Sorry if I sound like a sniveling bitch. Just hear me out before you leap to judgment. I try to be a professional, take pride in my work. I know I’m not Mike Myers or Freddy Krueger, but I do have some things going for me. First off, I’m not a fictional character. Second, even though I’m no movie star, I’ve enjoyed a pretty solid run of successes in college towns up and down the East Coast.

If I have a failing, besides the obvious lack of a moral compass, it’s that I’ve always worked old houses. Call me a traditionalist, but I find real beauty in a quaint Queen Anne, a multi-story Georgian, or a cute Craftsman Bungalow. That sort of classic architecture, we’re talking basements and attics, windows with single-pane glazing, historic door locks, and lots of thick shrubbery. Easy in, easy out, plenty of dark places to hide. The things we take for granted, right?

So, Tucson. I go shopping for a shitload of household items, cleaning products, all the usual stuff. You know the drill. After I get settled in, I get down to business.

My first gig goes completely south. We’re talking total disaster. I scope out a likely sorority house. So far, so good. You might call it formulaic, but I love a basement entry. I circle the house looking for that perfect dusty window set deep and low into the foundation. All I get for my trouble is a few cactus thorns stuck in the meat of my legs.

I know what you’re thinking. I failed to do my homework. And you’re right. Any fool could have googled that shit. Tucson sits on a stratum of something called caliche. Translate that to simple English for a workingman like me, and it means that the ground is hard as concrete. Hence, they don’t dig basements in Tucson. No need.

There’s me, looking like an idiot, with my legs stuck full of cactus thorns. A house full of sorority chicks and I can’t get inside. But I’m no quitter. I see a vent panel up under the eaves. Okay, we go in through the attic.

You can always find a ladder back by the garage or garden shed. I don’t know why this is true but trust me. I find the ladder, prop it against the house, and up I go. The vent panel pops loose first try. Easy as pie, or so I think.

I check my cleaver and wiggle through the opening, only instead of a proper attic, I disappear into a pit of blown insulation. I’m half suffocating before I get my feet under me and stand up. Halfway. That’s when my head bashes the rafters, and I fall back into the insulation. Guess what? Tucson houses don’t have proper attics either.

Now I’m concussed, sucking dusty insulation with every gasping breath, and feeling like I’ve landed in a cookstove. It’s about four hundred degrees in that awful hell. A stark mental image swirls through my addled noggin. I see my mummified body forever trapped above a sorority house. Granted, it’s a fate I might deserve, but not a death I choose to embrace.

Panic hits me. Hard. I claw my way back to the vent, pull myself through, then half-fall and half-slide down that ladder. When I get my feet on the hard ground, I run. Tough to admit that Clyde the Cleaver turned and ran, but it’s true. And here’s another bit of hard-earned advice. Don’t run at night in Tucson. It only means more thorns.

Failures are learning opportunities. I read that in a self-help book I picked up at a frat house somewhere. Maybe Athens, Georgia. Great town, highly recommended for a good spree.

Anyway, bloodstains aside, the book made some interesting points. My big takeaway was the idea of learning from failures rather than beating myself up over a simple mistake.

Keeping that principle in mind, I do my prep work. Alpha Phi Alpha. Good frat for producing future celebrities, by the way. A big split-level house, lots of rooms, lots of stairs. I plan a standard panic action. Basically, you get the frat boys running around like chickens, then pick them off one by one. It’s a classic, sure, but we build on the work of those who have gone before us. No shame in that.

Circling the frat house, I’m careful to avoid the cactus booby traps. Just in case, I’m wearing heavy canvas work pants I bought special. Lights in all the windows, and all of them shut tight. I swear to you, this whole town lives in an air-con bubble.

My opening gambit is the eerie noise feint. I pick a window, pull my trusty cleaver, and scrape the blade across the glass. The horrible screech is supposed to draw an unsuspecting frat boy. He opens the window, leans out to see what’s what, then I give him the chop.

This is the point where traditionalists espouse two different methods. The first is to yank the body out the window, then leap inside waving your bloody weapon of choice. Panic ensues, the thrill of the hunt, etcetera, etcetera.

An alternate school of thought favors the tension-building method. Yank the body out the window, as above, but then delay entry by running around the house and trying the same ruse at a different window. You’d be surprised how many drunken frat boys fall for this.

A simple plan, right? Except this time, nothing happens. I get tired of waiting, give the glass another scrape, and still no head. What the hell, are they deaf? Then I take a good look at the window. Triple-pane glazing. Three panes of glass to seal out the heat, and damn near soundproof.

I don’t mean to sound like a hater, because that’s super negative energy, but at that moment I’m beginning to hate this town.

Another hitch in my evening plans. Unfortunately, I allow myself to get angry. Experts agree that this is always a mistake. Anger is poison. I’ve found it’s far better to find pleasure in my work. An easy thing to say with the benefit of hindsight.

So, now I’m pissed off and not making good decisions. I race around the house, find another window, and plant my feet. One good shot with the cleaver and I’ll be inside, or so I think. Then I learn lesson two about triple-pane windows. They’re damn hard to smash.

By the time I chop the window into silver splinters, everyone in the house and most of the neighbors know that something bad is happening. The frat boys scramble out the front door, jump through windows, and every one of them waving a smartphone. I hate smartphones. I know, sorry, another hate thing.

I finally get inside and try to salvage something from this fiasco. I manage to get one frat boy, and only one. Thank goodness for the fatty who always downs one beer too many. I drop the slow kid just inside the front door and give him a few extra chops because he’s all I’m going to get.

What with all the smashing and screaming and cellphones, it’s time to make a quick exit. I double back through the house and race out the back door. Remembering the cactus, I zigzag across the backyard. There’s a fence thing at the rear of the property. It doesn’t look like much, just a bunch of flimsy sticks. I hit it at full run, and that’s when I discover the pain of ocotillo.

Like I said before, I’m an East Coast guy, born and bred. Back home, we’ve got the usual thorny plants, quince, roses, easily spotted and avoided. What we ain’t got is ocotillo—fouquieria splendens for those of you who are into Latin. This is the devil’s own plant, six-foot-high sticks with two-inch thorns, and so tough they make security fences out of the shit.

I crash through that thorny barricade from hell and fall flat on my ass. I’m bleeding like I’ve been clawed by a family of bears. Swear to all the gods, I’m going to buy a suit of armor. Then I’m on my feet and staggering off into the night. I’m betting Ghostface never had to deal with this kind of crap.

 Hard times, am I right? Here’s where a lesser man might throw in the towel. Maybe I should say a smarter man. Whatever. But I’ve got my reputation to think of. I’m Clyde the Cleaver, and Clyde ain’t no quitter.

It takes a few days to heal up, which gives me time to think this thing through. I decide on the direct approach, no more Mister Nice Guy. Kick in the front door and get to slaughtering. Sometimes, you’ve gotta get back to the basics.

Regardless of how the gig went down, I don’t want to give the impression that I rushed into the thing like some kind of madman. Far from the truth. When I show up at the sorority house—Chi Omega, a classic!—I’m wearing my canvas pants, heavy work boots, and leather gloves. Adapt, improvise, overcome.

No hesitation, straight up the front steps, and a flying kick to the door. To my great embarrassment and pain, the door does not splinter open. Instead, I rebound off the door, fall backward down the concrete steps, and roll face-first into (you guessed it) another fucking cactus.

I push myself up and race for the backdoor. My face must look like a porcupine, but I’m past caring. Running past the backlit windows, I see half-naked sorority girls dashing back and forth. It’s full-on panic. If I can just get inside, it’s good times.

Around back and I’m sprinting across a paved patio. Finally, no more cactus! The back door flies open when I’m only two steps away. I raise my faithful cleaver as a sorority chick leaps through the door. I swear to you, she ran right into the blade. Damn near took her head off and I didn’t even have to swing.

There’s no time to savor the moment. I pounce through the open doorway, bloody cleaver leading the way. That’s when I see the huge kick plate on the door, like something off a freaking battleship. Good thing the dead chick let me in.

A piercing scream brings me back to the business at hand. There’s another one right in front of me wearing teddy bear pajamas. She spins and runs, careening up a hallway and veering through an interior door. This is more like it! Trap them in the rooms and let the games begin.

I’m on her heels, right into a frilly bedroom. I figure she’ll turn and give me one final scream, the classic, but that’s not what happens. Instead, she keeps right on running, full-tilt, and dives headfirst through the wall. One second, I’m poised for the chop, and the next heartbeat I’m looking at a chick-sized hole punched right through two layers of cheap drywall.

Now this I call downright unfair. Back east, a victim runs into a wall, they bounce off solid plaster and lathe. Maybe they dent the plaster, but nothing more. No way they disappear clean into the next room.

I’m stunned, standing there flat-footed, squinting through a ragged hole. Then I see a blur of movement, and the world explodes. Bang-bang-bang-bang! Damned if that chick isn’t shooting at me. Bullets pop out of the drywall and whizz past my head. Luckily the girl can’t shoot for shit, but what she lacks in accuracy she’s making up for in sheer volume. Those damn high-capacity magazines should be illegal.

Never bring a cleaver to a gunfight. Words to live by, especially if a fella wants to keep on living. For the third time in as many weeks, I turn and run. Shames me to the core to admit it. Not only do I run, I keep right on running.

I spend the rest of that horrible night in my shitty rented bathroom pulling thorns out of my face. The next morning, looking more like Pruneface than Clyde the Cleaver, I’m at the bus station. Left almost everything behind. The next poor fool can have those damn cleaning products, on me, and with my sympathies. I buy a one-way ticket, scaring the poor ticket guy in the process. Sorry about that.

Four days riding the dawg might seem like hell on earth to some folks, but not me. I’d rather spend forty days on a Greyhound than endure another hour in that hellhole of Tucson.

We’re rolling across Texas now, and two more days to go. Won’t no one sit next to me on account of my hideous face. That suits me just fine. I need time alone, time to think and plan. Maybe I’ll stop off in Charlottesville, or head north to Burlington. Good Eastern college towns, both of them.

Just let me get my feet back on familiar ground and I’ll be fine. That doctor can take his advice and shove it where the sun don’t shine. No more horrible relocations for this boy! Give me a month to heal up, a quiet college town, and Clyde the Cleaver will be back in business. Count on it.

Marco and Liam Etheridge

Image by icondigital from Pixabay – cactus and undergrowth in Tucson, Arizona, lots of prickly plants.