The Villainous Micky Elwood Shakes Up the Town

In small towns everywhere, there’s always one of each. The tiny village of Twisted Creek isn’t any different. We have one person to chair meetings. That’s Dave. One to fix anything that breaks. Always Jim. One person to explain the hard stuff. That’s Arnie. Virginia organizes social events you look forward to, and Sally organizes social events you dread. And, of course, there’s one bad guy. Ours is The Villainous Micky Elwood.

Micky has a perfect track record. Without exception, he has managed to wrong, scam or offend every person in this coastal village of 88 people where my husband and I live. Micky calls himself an investment advisor, but that's not what anyone else calls him. The epithets are endless –– and they are not complimentary. 

A few years ago, Micky’s bad behavior caught up with him and a judge slapped him with a hefty fine for trying to cash stolen checks. A few months later, he was at it again. This time he was defrauding his “friends” around town and pocketing their money. He even befriended the elderly lady down the hill for her money. Yep. Micky really did talk our much-loved 85-year old neighbor Annabelle into wiring money from her retirement savings directly into his so-called “charitable fund.” 

“Micky offered to tend my canary when I visited my sister in Iowa,” Annabelle explained when Micky got caught. “He convinced me he was my friend. When he asked me for money, he said it was to fund after-school programs for children. I believed him and donated as much as I could.”

As it turned out, the sole beneficiary of Micky’s philanthropic outreach was Micky. 

Micky hardly looked the part of the shyster people knew him to be. For one thing, he never seemed to wear a piece of clothing with a wrinkle in it. His standard outfit was a perfectly ironed –– and probably new –– white button-down shirt with the cuffs folded back, a pair of spotless, creased and cuffed khaki pants, and expensive tan loafers without socks. On sunny days, he added a straw hat with a leather hatband that matched his shoes. 

A black cape with a hat that hid his face would have fit his reputation better.

That explains why I nearly ran into a tree the day I turned off the highway onto Twisted Creek’s main street and saw a “For Sale” sign in front of Micky Elwood’s expensively-restored eighteenth century farmhouse. I hit the brakes and stared to let the vision sink in. Micky had the most beautiful house in town, and it had never looked better than it did on this day. Then I floored the gas pedal to get home and call our neighbor Dave.

If anyone knew something it would be Dave. He was not the one to call when you wanted to talk politics or the stock market or sports, but he made a point of always knowing the local gossip. 

Dave hadn't heard about Micky Elwood’s house being for sale. The news was as huge to him as it was to me. He couldn’t wait to hang up so he could pass it on to Jim. Then he called Virginia, Frank and Frieda. They must have started making calls of their own as soon as they hung up from talking to Dave. I knew that because for the next two hours at least a dozen neighbors called me to hear the story firsthand. Their interest spurred me on to call a few more people. By the end of the day, everyone knew the story, and everyone was thrilled.    

Three days went by. During that time, whenever one of the locals ran into someone else from the neighborhood, the first thing they talked about was Micky leaving. The second thing was to re-tell the stories about their run-ins with The Villainous Micky Elwood over the years. Every one of them still held a grudge. Charlie described how Micky illegally cut down his prized shade trees to open up his own view of the ocean. Charlie was only out of town for a few days, but when he returned home, six trees were gone –– or as Charlie liked to say, “amputated.” Arnie and Trix, who volunteered coaching sports at the junior high school, were livid that Micky got away with declaring himself a non-profit organization to reduce his taxes. But the issue at the top of everyone’s list? Years ago, Micky bought our local water system and quadrupled everyone’s water rates. Small communities live or die by their water supply.

As the gossip made its way around town, we acted like 10-year olds complaining about the class bully. Finally a grown-up showed up and the buzzing stopped. It was Frank. He knocked on my door and didn’t say hello when I opened it. What he said was a bomb shell. 

“Micky Elwood’s not leaving,” he said without smiling. “I was out walking early this morning and saw the ‘For Sale’ sign propped up against the low rock wall surrounding Micky’s house. Just as I was passing, he picked up the sign and put it in his car trunk. Micky’s a realtor along with everything else he does, you know, and he had leaned the sign there until he needed to take it to a home he’s selling. It’s gone now.”  

For the second time in less than a week, I was on the phone with the neighbors, this time to admit my mistake and apologize for it. The news opened up all the old wounds again. Now we were having a neighborhood-sized group therapy session. Talking about the times we were all on the receiving end of Micky’s devious tricks seemed to be cathartic. Some people even laughed about it, which they hadn’t done the first time I called. Micky Elwood was still Villainous, but people were putting the damage he caused behind them. 

Maybe that was the silver lining to the whopper of a rumor I accidentally started years ago when I thought Micky was leaving town for good. I’m glad to report that since then I have managed get the story straight before I start another rumor. 

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