"Son of a bitch."

"What is it, honey?" Linda called out to me from the living room. She must have opened the windows to air out our new home. Otherwise she would be unable to hear me muttering expletives in the driveway.

"I can't believe it. We have only been here for one week and already someone has broken into my car and stolen my CD player."

"Are you positive?" Linda asked. "I'm sure that we have misplaced a lot of things. I am still looking for the hair dryer."

"Yes, I'm positive. I must have accidentally left the car door unlocked last night. I used the CD player just the other night in the house, and then I'm sure I brought it right back out to the car. I don't misplace things, that's you." I tacked on the last dig as an after-thought. I wasn't really mad at Linda. However, I felt that singling out her faults absolved me of my own. After all, it was her fault I brought the CD player in the house in the first place. If she had let me have one installed in the car then I wouldn't have to drag that cheap portable player around with me.

"Well, I'm glad it's gone." I shouted. "Now I can get one installed in the car like a real person."

The last statement brought Linda to the doorway, as I knew it would. "We can't afford for you to just go out and buy things on a whim. Steve, we have a new house and we will have several hidden expenses, I'm sure. We also have a baby coming or have you forgotten?"

"No, I haven't forgotten. You remind me constantly. I guess I'm just upset because we moved to this city because it is one of the top three places to live in America, and in the first week of our arrival in one of the best neighborhoods in one of America's best cities, I get ripped off. It sucks."

"Honey, I'm sure it was just some stupid kids. The police will probably catch them later in the week. You can't let this get to you. Now come in here and help me straighten these pictures." That was Linda. Always looking for the bright side in any situation. I was more prone to dwell on the dark side especially when I felt an injustice of some sort had been committed. I felt that way then.

As we settled into our home, I began to feel more comfortable with my new surroundings. I'm sure that I had just experienced a twinge of culture shock. For the previous five years Linda and I had lived in a town no larger than 5000. While our bucolic surroundings were quaint, we both missed the activity that is part of any large metropolitan area. Temple was just the right size and we figured that we would begin to feel as safe here as anywhere. It would just take time.

A month later I set out to tackle the front lawn for the first time. The last owner of the house had let the thatch build up for a year. This build-up caused the act of mowing to become more of a workout than I anticipated.

I was in the process of lifting the mower onto its back wheels and dropping it back onto the ground with a satisfying clunk when I saw our neighbor swerve around the corner and slide into his driveway; stopping just short of the garage doors. Usually, I wouldn't have been home at this particular time late in the afternoon, but the lawn had been calling me. I shut off the mower thinking now was as good a time as any to introduce myself. I walked over to his car and noticed the front of his white pinpoint shirt had splatters of red across the front. Looking more closely I realized that the splatters were blood.

"You OK?" I asked. Immediately I began thinking that I should have just stuck with the lawn.

"Huh? Oh yeah, the blood," He said, looking down. "That's what I get for breaking up a fight."

"You a prison guard?" I asked, half joking.

"I might as well be. I teach civics and coach baseball over at Temple Senior. I stepped in between two little shits in the hall and nearly got a haymaker to the temple. I got the blood off one of them when I was wrestling him to the ground." He was still wired from the adrenaline of the fight and he knew he had a captive audience in me.

"By the way, I'm Kip Lansing. I live here alone. My kid comes to visit once in awhile but his mother lives in Illinois. So mainly it's just me. You got kids?"

"Not yet. We will soon. We know it's a girl." I answered.

"Well, send her to private school that's all I have to say. Listen I have to change and get back over for ball practice. Maybe we can catch up later this week. What's your name again?" I realized that I had never given him my name.

"Steve. Steve Summers." We shook hands and Kip headed towards his door. After a few steps, he turned back around. "They're little shits, Steve. We've gotta keep 'em in line." And with those words he disappeared into his home. I stood there a moment, overwhelmed by the whirlwind encounter I had just experienced with Kip. His last words sounded somewhat ominous. All I could think was "Sure, I'll send my kid to a private school so she never has to encounter you." Then I realized that all I had heard was the frustration of a teacher who felt a little keyed up and a little out of control after stopping a fight. I figured the next time we met his attitude would have changed completely. I glanced back towards my lawn and saw the long, slow task ahead of me. I powered up the mower and trudged deeper into the jungle of my backyard.

Later that week I was grilling steaks in the back yard. Linda had thawed out three T-bones and said that I should go over and invite Kip for dinner.

"Honey, I don't know," I said. "I mean, I have only met him once but he sure does seem like he could be overbearing."

"Oh, Steve," She said with a hint of exasperation. "I'm sure you are exaggerating. Invite him and let me decide for myself."

About forty-five minutes after I extended the invitation, Kip walked up the back porch, two six-packs in hand.

"Need any help?" he asked as he sat down in a lawn chair and twisted the cap off a beer.

"No, no. Have a seat and relax. Linda, you want to come out here for a minute?" after I made the introductions, Linda headed back in the house to finish a spinach salad.

"Wow, she looks about ready to bust. When is the date?" Kip asked.

"In about three months. I'm looking forward to it."

"Yeah, having kids is great." Kip said. "It's all the things that happen afterwards that you need to worry about."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, for instance, there's so much that most of the parents aren't doing for my students. By the time mom and dad figure that out, the kids are screwed up and then I get them and I get the blame. I mean the frigging parents let them run wild and then wonder why they act the way they do at school. 'I can't believe my baby would do that,'" Kip said mocking the words of one of his parents. "That's bullshit. They have no clue what their babies can or cannot do." "I know what you mean," I added. "That first week we moved in here some kids broke into my car and took my portable CD player."

"They broke the window?" Kip asked.

"Nah, I was stupid and left the door unlocked."

"That doesn't make it right. The same thing happened around here about a year ago. Kids were getting into unlocked cars around the neighborhood and getting whatever they could. Then they just stopped. Something must have spooked them, but it sounds like they have started up again."

"Well, it's a good excuse for a better CD player." I said jokingly. "Looks like dinner is up. Sorry I didn't ask you how you wanted your steak. Medium to well- burnt is my only specialty."

Kip laughed. "Well-burnt is just my style."

After dinner Linda began to feel a little sleepy. While she headed off to bed Kip and I retired to the back porch to finish off the house warming presents that he had brought with him. I began to feel the effects of the beer as we talked about baseball, his most recent dates and the car he was working on. Eventually, the conversation worked its way back to the theft that took place in my driveway.

"You know, I still can't believe that kids today would have the balls to waltz onto your property and just walk away with your player." Kip said. "I mean, doesn't that just piss you off to no end?"

"Well, I have pretty much gotten over it now. I explained. "I was pretty pissed on the day it happened." Kip started to laugh silently to himself.

"What." I asked.

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking how much fun it would have been to find those kids out here in the middle of the night half-way in your car and just scare the daylights out of them."

I began to laugh as well. "Don't think I haven't thought about catching them in the act and pushing the door shut and pinning them there until the cops showed up."

"Oh, the cops would just get in the way. I think we could give them a better scare if it were just the two of us." Kip had obviously moved into brainstorm mode. "Those little snots act so tough at school. I would like to see how high one of them holds their head with a baseball bat shoved into their neck."

"Hold on there partner," I said. "Come back to reality."

"You said yourself that you would like to scare them." Kip's voice took on a different tone and his eyes, which had been closed, were now wide open and waiting for my response.

"Hey," I said, "I think it would be funny to scare them, but not beat them. I'm not really a violent person. I don't even own a gun. Heck the only bat I have is plastic and good for nothing more than whiffle ball. Besides, it's not even going to happen so we can stop the brainstorming session right now."

"But what if we were able to find them?" Kip asked one last time. I knew he was drunk or nearly drunk and all I needed to do was placate him at this point and then we could move on with the conversation. "All right, Kip you win. If we found them I would love to scare them and maybe get my CD player back." Kip leaned back in his chair, satisfied with my answer. The rest of the evening's conversation turned back to nothing important.

Kip left right before midnight and I stumbled upstairs to bed. As I slid under the covers Linda rolled over, and in her half-awake, half-asleep way asked, "Did you have a good talk?"

"Yeah," I said. "Kip and I are going to go scare the kids who took my CD player."

"Well, I'm glad you had fu . . . ." Linda began to breathe deeply once again as she drifted back to sleep. She would never remember our conversation.

Two weeks passed and I found myself in the final stage of culture shock. I was beginning to accept my new environment. I accepted that Temple was just like any other town. It was not the utopia I had hoped for but it would suit Linda and me. We were ready to raise our family here. Kip however, wasn't ready for me to get too comfortable yet.

Late one Monday afternoon I was reading the paper on the back porch, waiting for dinner when Kip called up to me from below.

"Can I come up?" He asked.

"Sure." I shouted back. "Come on up." Kip made his way to the porch and sat in the chair across from me, waiting until he had my full attention away from the paper.

"What's up?" I finally asked.

"We have some business to attend to. Umm, where's Linda?" He looked around like a master spy about ready to pass over secret documents.

"She's inside finishing dinner. What business are you talking about?"

"Remember our conversation a couple of weeks ago?"

"We talked about a lot of things. Yeah I remember." I said.

"We talked about one specific thing more than anything else." Kip paused for dramatic effect. "I know the kid who took your CD player." I sat up in my chair and leaned forward.

"Who? I mean how did you . . . ."

"Kids talk constantly, Steve. They are always bragging about stuff they didn't do. Imagine how much they brag about something they actually did do. It's almost overbearing."

"Well, I guess we need to call the police and let them investigate." I said. Kip sat back in his chair with a look of exasperation.

"Man, you still don't get it. The police aren't going to do anything. Your stuff is long gone and the only way these kids are going to get a clue is if you and I give it to them."

"Listen, Kip, The other night I was just . . . "

" All we are going to do is scare this kid." He said. "He will never know it's us I will take care of that. I know where he is hanging out Thursday night. We'll be over there and back by midnight."

"I don't know about this. I feel a little old to be scaring some kid." I said.

"You would let a little punk like this walk all over you wouldn't you? I mean come on. He took advantage of you. Think about it, this time it was your car next time it could be your house. All we are doing is protecting what's ours." Kip stopped talking. He was waiting for my next excuse, but he knew that he had won. We were only going to scare the kid, and Kip already seemed to have a plan in mind. The idea of vigilantism appealed to me. I mean, who knew how many other people we might be able to help with our one night out. I asked one last question knowing full well that Kip had an answer at the ready.

"How in the world do you think we can get things ready in three days?" I asked.

"Don't worry about that. Just, plan on being at my house at 10:00 on Thursday night. I have everything we need."

Kip did indeed have everything we would need. Temple had a strong rivalry with the Southmore Red Devils. Kip thought the best way to preserve our anonymity was to wear devil masks that he had found at a costume shop. We were both in fairly decent shape and with the masks in place, we were able to pass for high school seniors. Kip provided all black clothing for both of us and a baseball bat each. "They're for protection." He explained.

At 11:30 we drove deep into a wooded area. The further we drove, the rockier the road beneath us became. The moon through the trees cast uncomfortable shadows before us. We drove on in silence and further into the wilderness.

Kip stopped and parked behind a grove of oak trees. "We are going to walk in the back way." He explained. "Then it will be easier to make a quick getaway." He laughed at his own bravado. I was getting the uneasy feeling that Kip had been planning and plotting this moment for several years.

With masks in place we made our way to a clearing. There we saw two teenagers leaning back on the hood of a car, the headlights illuminating the dark spaces before them. Kip whispered that the two teens talking and laughing were Lance and Mike. Mike was our man. According to Kip's sources, Lance knew about the theft, but had not participated.

Kip thought the best way to approach them was for us to come out of the woods from either side. We were to sneak through the brush, wait five minutes, and then approach the car with as much stealth as our non-combat ready bodies could muster.

I crawled into position and waited. I watched the kids laughing, talking, and drinking, trying their best to pretend they liked the taste of hops and barley, and acting as adult as they possible could. It was then that I realized how young they actually were. I wasn't mad at Mike any more. I actually felt sorry for him. I was ready to make my way to Kip so we could cancel our act of lunacy before it was too late. However, Kip had left his post only two minutes into our surveillance, and was headed straight towards Mike.

Mike had his scrawny, black T-shirt-covered back to Kip. Lance saw Kip first. I could tell that by the way he stopped talking to Mike in mid-sentence. Before Lance could say any word of warning to Mike, Kip had lifted his bat and pulled it tight against Mike's neck.

"Make a run for it or I break your friend's neck." Kip shouted. Lance scrambled off the car hood and bolted past me into the woods. I heard his sobs choking back his attempts to breathe as he crashed deeper and deeper into the woods. I ran out to where Kip still held Mike firmly around the neck.

"Let him go." I said. Kip looked up at me. While the mask covered his head, front and back, I could see his eyes. They were tight and wild and they fit the devil mask perfectly.

Kip removed the bat from around Mike's neck, but held it at the ready, prepared to swing for all he was worth. Mike began to catch his breath again. Mike tried to maintain an air of aloofness or indifference. It didn't work. His expression revealed everything. He was scared beyond belief.

"We did what we came to do now let's go." I said to Kip.

"I think we still need to have a little discussion about personal property. You like to steal things, Mike?" Kip asked.

"No . . .I . . .I don't. Listen you can have whatever you want. Take the stereo. It slides out real easy. I only have about twenty bucks but you can have that too." Mike stammered out his offers.

"Now see that's the difference between you and us, Mikey." Kip said. "You steal, we seek retribution, you piss your pants. Go ahead you little fairy. Show us what kind of a baby you are."

"I didn't steal anything. I haven't for about two years and that's the truth." Mike was trying to explain this to us in between sobs. The alcohol and fear were combining to create near hysteria in Mike. "I just don't know what you want."

I walked closer to Kip and tried to take his bat from him. "We're through," I said. "This was a mistake and It's time to go." Kip whirled on me, the bat still firmly in his grip.

"You wanted this." He said. "We can't stop now. Not without a confession, and I plan to get one any way I can."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "That was never part of the plan."

"It was always part of my plan." Kip had gone beyond any level of rational thought, and it was at that moment that Mike attempted to make his escape. He clamored across the hood of the car and tried to slide his legs over the opposite side away from us. Kip wheeled away from me and brought his bat down on Mike's leg. Mike reached for his leg, but continued to slide from the car's hood, head first. We heard him hit hard with nothing to break his fall. I expected him to jump up and begin to run blindly in the woods like Lance. I braced myself to tackle Kip if he took chase after Mike.

Mike never came up. We both waited for what seemed like several minutes before we walked around the car to see Mike. His legs were splayed out at an awkward angle against the front panel of the car, his eyes open and staring. Mike's neck was obviously broken from the fall to the gravel that made up the road that had led Mike and Lance into this clearing only hours before. Just then we heard the sound of another vehicle approaching. Without thinking we both ran for the safety of Kip's automobile a half-mile away.

The drive home was much like the drive there; it took place in silence, and the headlights still cut through the shadows before us. While the world outside continued on as it had before, our lives were forever different. Nothing had happened in that clearing quite the way I thought it would. Then again, I don't know if I ever really knew what to expect. Kip pulled into his driveway and turned off the motor.

"Nothing happened." Kip said. "You go into your house and go to bed and tomorrow you just pretend you were dreaming. Bad dreams. They happen all the time."

"Nothing happened?" I asked. "How can you sit there and say that? I don't know if my conscience will let me say, 'nothing happened.'" Kip turned towards me and placed his face inches from mine.

"Now listen, Steve," He began," "your conscience won't do your wife and that new baby on the way any good if it's locked in jail. We did nothing. You hear me? Nothing. That little idiot fell off the hood of the car all on his own. It wasn't you and it wasn't me. Nothing happened and I will NOT go to jail based on a little nothing like Mike. If you just keep your mouth shut this will blow over as an accident."

Kip knew I wouldn't say a thing with my wife and future daughter's welfare on the line. Yet, I knew that I would never be able to convince myself that nothing happened. I would always see Mike's young face, his mousy hair drenched in sweat, his eyes open and unfocused, fearing for his life. I climbed from the car and before I could shut the door Kip made one last comment.

"He got what he deserved." I looked at Kip for several moments without speaking.

"No one deserves that." I said. "What kind of a teacher are you? What kind of a person for that matter?"

"A good one." He answered. "And as for the person? I'm just like anyone else except I am more than just talk."

"We won't be talking again." I said.

"Fine with me. As long as you remember our secret." Kip responded. I shut his car door and wandered to our front porch. I sat on our bench, unable to feel angry, unable to cry, although I wanted to. I just felt numb. I was still sitting there when the sun broke the horizon.

Several weeks passed and Mike merited nothing more than a small column on the front page and then a blurb here or there before his story drifted off the back pages and into the void. His friend, Lance said that some students at Southmore had threatened them. The police wrote the situation off as a drunken accident. No one, not even Mike's parents were really that concerned about what happened to him. Kip was right about one thing; it was as if nothing had happened.

I was able to do nothing more than maintain our home and family life. I didn't make the improvements I had promised Linda. Our marriage was on autopilot and she suggested a counselor might help. I knew she meant a counselor might help me, but she was willing to split the difference if it meant getting me off center.

I knew that I needed to make an effort so I tried to shake my emotional state. I began to help out more around the house. I read to the fetus and I sent roses home to Linda. My world seemed to be slowly getting back to normal and Mike moved further from my thoughts.

We even decided to take a vacation. One last hooray before the two became three. I took my car to get the oil changed and get the interior cleaned. When I got the car home, I remembered all the junk that had been accumulating in my trunk since the move. I knew I had to clean it out before we packed our bags and headed out. As I was working diligently in the driveway, I heard something next door. I looked up to see Kip staring at me. He was in his lawn, raking grass clippings. We stared at one another for several minutes, neither of us saying a word. Then Kip broke our eye contact and walked into the darkness of his garage.

I caught my breath and returned to the task at hand. I grabbed another pile from the trunk and as I lifted my armload something slid from my hand and back into the mess.

"Nuts." I said and turned my body to see what had fallen from my grasp. Below me lay something that will haunt me till death. It's my sentence and it's ruined me beyond belief. A portable CD player had fallen from my hands. It had never been stolen, only lost in one short move to a better place.