Emily, A Great Evil

“I want to apologize” 

She just stood there. Eyes barrelling through him. 

He had overstepped. That’s not to say she didn’t deserve some retribution but…  

As much as it pained him, he had undergone some soul searching since the incident. He spoke to friends, did some meditating, some shower thinking and had regretfully arrived at the conclusion that yes, he had in fact overstepped. 

“I overstepped,” he said, shoulders shamed and shrunken. 

“You overstepped?” she said, as her arm found a spot in the doorframe to lean against. He was disgusted by the entire ordeal. That his neighbor, who was abjectly and categorically, not a nice lady, could stand here, leaning against this doorframe like the Fonz, with moral superiority oozing out of every single pore of her body. He was disgusted that the onus was on him. Here was this woman, Emily, with chronic behavioral problems, a worldview inherently neglectful and broken and it was his fault that everything had gone awry. It was his fault that the police were called. It was his fault that he stood here, beneath this woman in every way, this woman whose mind and soul had a pathological lack of concern for others. If he had just composed himself… 

“Yes. I overstepped,” he said, in protest. “But I stand here before you, Emily, to simply ask for your forgiveness.” 

“You took a shit on my lawn, Derrick.” 

He had. 

“I understand that,” he said, his head hanging limp and looking down. 

“I don’t think you do.” She removed her arm from the door and was now crossing both to put an emphasis on the matter. 

“Oh no, no, no. You’re the one who has zero clue about what is going on, Emily!” 

He was getting animated. He could feel it. In a world of blissful Connecticut suburbia, Emily truly was a great evil. The stakes were not high. There were no lives on the line. There were no geopolitical consequences but in their world, where the two of them found themselves unlucky enough to have to coexist, she was his Sauron. 

There was something about her though that he just could not ID. He had undergone years of therapy, before they began denying coverage, and had thought of himself as rather evolved. It had been years since he had sat across from a mental health professional and in the midst of this conflict, this skirmish of light and dark, he had thought about going back. He’d lost control of this situation. He’d been bested by this small, loathsome next door neighbor. 

“Yes. I defecated on your lawn. Was it grotesque? Absolutely. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Am I immensely remorseful? Yes, Emily, I am. But this lording over me-” 

“This lording over you?” she said, completely taken aback. 

He stared at her, a profound disbelief washing over him. 

How does she not realize what she is doing?

“Yes! Emily-”

“Derrick.” 

“Emily, I am sorry. I should not have taken a shit on your lawn.” 

“You should not have stormed up to my front door, blown an airhorn, banged on my door, then jovially, pulled your pants down and shit on my lawn.” 

“I know. I’m sorry,” he gathered himself. 

“Emily, I cannot tell you how apologetic I am and how appreciative I am that you didn’t press charges. You could have.”

She nodded her head and rocketed her eyebrows as if to say, you’re goddamn right. 

“I was in the wrong. But I will not stand here, and pretend, because of my mistake, that you are not culpable in any way shape or form!” 

“Are you kidding me?” 

“Are you!?” 

“My dog shit on your lawn, Derrick.” 

“THREE TIMES, EMILY!” 

He felt it again. He felt himself slipping away, spiraling into a loud darkness. A loop of self loathing projected out onto each and every target with a big enough bullseye. 

“Maybe you see something in her that you hate about yourself,” Jeff had told him. 

“Jeff, I don’t need your Jungian bull shit right now.” 

“Well then why’d you call me?” 

“I want you to tell me if I’m right or wrong.” 

A pause hung between them.

“You want me to tell you if you were right or wrong to defecate on your neighbor’s lawn?” 

“I do, yes.” 

Another pause followed. 

“I think you were wrong to pull your pants down in public and take a shit on your neighbor’s lawn. Yes.” 

“Jeff, can I ask you something?” 

“Absolutely.” 

“Why have you never once stood up for me?” 

“Derrick, buddy, that’s not true and also I’ve got a meeting in about,” he rolled up his sleeve and stared down at his watch, “six minutes.” 

“Don’t fucking buddy me, Jeff. Enjoy your meeting.” 

“Love you.” 

“Yeah, yeah.”

Everywhere he looked, he saw signs buzzing in dayglow, expressly stating he was in the wrong. But there was more to it. A rubicon had been crossed but how, how had that small detail, that he had overstepped, completely nullified the evil that this woman was capable of? 

“Yes three times! I told you that I forgot my bags!” 

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. 

“Emily, do you understand how unbelievably insane that is?” he opened his eyes to see her staring back, dumbfounded. 

“That I forgot my bags?” 

He felt the tug, the sting of anger. He fought against it and breathed out his final arguments with a yogic tone. 

“Well, obviously right? Emily? Right?” 

She stared back. 

“Obviously it’s insane that your dog has shit on my lawn three times and each of those times it’s because you’ve forgotten your bags. But what is even more insane, what is a damning indictment on you as a spirit, Emily, is that you would even think to use that as a defense or justification for why you have left your cocker spaniel's feces on my lawn on three separate occasions. Was I wrong? Of course. But, what I beg of you, is to understand where I am coming from and please find it in your heart to one, forgive me, and two, see your part in the escalation of things.” 

He was out of breath. The entire week’s worth of confrontation had boiled to this moment. The anger, the multiple piles of excrement both human and dog, the distracted attempts at introspection and the time spent preoccupied with this seemingly eternal feud. 

“What do you say, Emily? Do you forgive me?” 

She stood there for a moment. She recrossed her arms and stared down at him. He could feel the motive. He knew she wasn’t genuinely plumbing the depths of herself. He knew she wasn’t really diving inward to find an earnest, earned decision to forgive or not to forgive. She was making him sweat it. He knew that. He knew her. And in that moment, he was okay with it. He forgave her. 

“Go fuck yourself, Derrick,” she said, and slammed the door. 

“GODDAMMIT EMILY!” 

Neighbor’s begin to arise out of windows and front doors. There was a tension in the neighborhood the second they saw him cross his lawn on his way to her door. The neighborhood was tired of it and here they stood as a collective watching him storm down her porch and squat once again in her front yard. 

“Derrick don’t!” Sharron yelled from across the street. 

“Stay out of it Sharron!” Derrick yelled back. 

He had to focus on the task at hand. 

He had to show Emily, once and for all, that she was wrong.