Bulk Pickup Day

     Sheldon glared through the blinds in his breakfast nook, watching his neighbor, Greg, load brown paper refuse bags onto the curb.  Twice per year, the Lynchburg municipal public works performed bulk pick-up of garbage and brush.  Twice per year, Sheldon had to put up with Greg's pile of stinking lawn refuse bags out on the curb for a week.
     Greg dropped bag number seven on the curb and headed back into his house.  Sheldon let the blinds drop and grabbed his briefcase off the table and sprinted to the front door.  He had about two minutes, while Greg pulled on his shirt and tie, to get to his car and avoid a conversation.  
     After 34 bulk pickups, he knew the routine well.  Always seven bags stacked on Monday morning, another seven on Wednesday for Friday's pick-up.
     Sheldon locked the door to the house then turned and remote-unlocked his Saab in one motion.  He opened the driver side door and tossed his briefcase to the passenger side.
     "Hey Neighbor!"
     Shit.
     He turned to see Greg run-walking toward him, suit-coat on, but still buttoning his shirt.
     "Good morning," Sheldon said.
     "Listen, I went ahead and put my first load of bags out because I had 'em ready and I don't want 'em stinking up the house.  But in the fall, I'll just put them out later in the week, okay?"
     "Okay, sure."
     "I mean, if you have an issue with something, you can just come to me about it." Greg said.
     "Filing the motion with the HOA wasn't just about you, Greg.  The whole neighborhood would look better without these piles of trash sitting around."  This was only half true.  Sheldon did hate the look of all the piles of trash around the neighborhood, but the motion he'd filed with the HOA board, to not allow anyone to put their trash out until the morning of collection, was made solely with Greg in mind.
     Sheldon continued, "But it didn't pass anyway, so you won."
     "It isn't about winning, it's about getting along.  We've been neighbors a long time and we can be reasonable and get along.  I know I can." 
     Greg extended his hand.  Sheldon accepted it, but said nothing.  When they let go, Sheldon sat into his car.
     "Alright, have a good day, buddy," Greg said.  He turned, straightening his collar, and headed toward his own car.
     Sheldon shut his door and got a pump of hand sanitizer out of the bottle stashed in the door pocket.  The HOA motion hadn't carried because, by city ordinance, home-owners could begin loading the trash on the curb a week in advance of bulk pickup day.  He was sure though, that if any of the other members of the HOA board had to live next to the putrefying pile Greg always had out front, they would have voted for his proposed amendment to the neighborhood's by-laws.
     Sheldon drove to work.
     Throughout the morning, he imagined Greg's smug face craning around his cube wall like his boss occasionally did when on his own mission to ruin Sheldon's day.  
     I know I can be reasonable.  
     What an asshole.
     He spent his lunch at his desk looking at the municipal works website for anything Greg might be doing wrong.  There was no limit to trash quantity nor specification for distance from the curb listed on the site.  He then moved on to the neighborhood by-laws.  No bulk pick-up directives would be there, but maybe Greg's grass was too long or his house paint the wrong color.  Sheldon reveled in the exercise, but slid into despair when he came up with nothing.
     After sulking for an hour or so in the afternoon, he decided he'd be the bigger man and let the issue go.  It was, after all, only a few days of inconvenience out of the year.
     Sheldon was feeling benevolent on his ride home, imagine Greg's face when he paid the garbage no mind.  
     When he got onto their street, Greg was outside watering his bushes with a hose.  Greg waved.  Sheldon waved back with a nod. 
     As he pulled into his driveway, he saw the end-most lawn bag from Greg's stack had slumped across the property line.  An ulcer popped open in his stomach and his vision went white.
     He sat in the driveway, white-knuckled on the steering wheel, for a long time.  What finally roused him was a knock on the window.
     He turned his head slowly to the left.  Greg was the knocker, hose in hand.  After a moment, Greg made the circular "roll the window down" hand crank motion.  
     Sheldon peeled his hands off the wheel.  They ached with fatigue from holding the wheel so tightly.  He looked down at the door controls and fumbled hitting the window control.  It buzzed downward.
     "Hey buddy, you've been sitting here for like a half hour with your car running," Greg said.
     Sheldon looked at his dash as if to verify.  He didn't respond.
     "Sun's almost down.  Everything okay?"
     "Everything okay?" Sheldon repeated to himself.  He leaned out the window and peered up at the sky.  As he leaned back into the car, his eye met the slumped bag once more.  He threw open the car door, stood up, and removed his suit jacket in one motion, "Everything is not okay!"
     "Woa!" said Greg, stepping out of the way of the spasm.
     Sheldon threw his jacket onto the ground and stomped his foot on the driveway, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
     Greg's jaw hung slack, his eyes wide.
     "You know I hate this shit," he said motioning to the garbage, "the least you could do is keep it off my lawn."
     He stomped over to the pile and straightened the end bag.  He was assaulted by the smell coming off the bag and recoiled.
     "Ugh," he looked at Greg's eyes, which had calmed, but were still watching in disbelief, "seventeen years I've put up with these stupid fucking bags," he kicked one and liked the feeling.
     "Seriously?" Greg said.  He walked nearer.
     Sheldon kept kicking the bags, "these stupid, shit smelling bags!" He stopped, turned toward Greg in a half bow, "I have never smelt shit so awful, in my fucking life!"
     He looked down at the bags, and saw his toe had left a hole in one of them, "what the fuck stinks so bad?"
     Sheldon dropped on his knees and tore into the bag.
     "Don't do tha... come on," Greg said.
     Sheldon pulled hand-fulls of grass, leaves, and dirt out of the bag and threw them to the ground. "Don't worry, Greg, I'm going to get to the bottom of your problem here."
     He grabbed a patch of stringy-feeling grass and yanked it from the bag.  It was a big wad of something that pulled a layer of clippings with it, and when Sheldon pulled it out completely, he was eye to eye with a battered, bruised, severed human head.
     Sheldon let out half a scream then something wrapped around his neck and yanked him onto his back.  He couldn't breathe or scream further.  He looked over his head and saw upside-down Greg dragging him into his garage using the garden hose as a noose.
     He dug his hands into the grass to try and stop their progress, but it was of little use.  He was losing consciousness quickly.  As he was dragged onto the driveway, his fingertips tore and his fingernails snapped against the concrete.
     Once across the threshold of the garage, Greg reached and grabbed a stun gun off a nearby shelf.  Sheldon rolled onto his knees to try and crawl away, but felt the arc of voltage through the back of his neck.  His vision went alight with fireworks and he collapsed onto the ground, his brain burning.
     When he regained his faculties, he heard the zip of zip ties and felt their pressure being applied to his wrists then forearms.  His legs were already secured in a similar fashion.
     "Don't struggle anymore and don't scream, or I will kill you." Greg said.
     Sheldon had a splitting headache and his neck was stiff from the stun gun.  He blinked his eyes into focus and raised his head as Greg was finishing up.  He couldn't bring himself to look at Greg.  The garage door was closed and the space was illuminated by a couple fluorescent work lights.
     He looked at his arms then his immediate surroundings.  He was strapped to a folding picnic chair set in a tile mop basin.
     "Sorry for the sloppy accommodations," said Greg, "This isn't how I usually work.  I had to improvise."
     Finally Sheldon felt the courage to meet Greg's eyes.  Greg was leaning against a workbench a few feet away.  Sheldon's throat began trembling when faced with his tormentor.
     "Remember, no screaming," Greg said.
     "What are you going to do to me?" Sheldon asked.
     "Isn't that just like you?  What about me?" Greg mocked.  "Not everything is about you.  I, for instance, have to leave my home of seventeen years because my neighbor didn't like my garbage bags."
     "I won't tell anybody, I swear."
     "You think that matters now?  Mrs. Kane from across the street already called 911, nosy bitch," Greg said.  He stepped away from the workbench revealing the disembodied head Sheldon had pulled from the lawn bag.  
     It was bloated and bruised.  The hair was short, but that's as close to a gender signifier as could be discerned on it.
     Sheldon almost threw up, but choked it down.  A rush of adrenaline coursed in his veins, the police would come.
     "I don't think she saw the fight," Greg said.  He'd moved over to a storage locker in the corner, "but saw your car running in the driveway with the door open while she was taking her dog out.  I saw her dialing.  The cops will eventually come here." He opened the locker and pulled out a black duffel bag. "It might be tonight, or tomorrow morning, but I won't be here.  I just have to decide what they will find."
     Greg heaved the duffel next to the garage's rear door.
     "You can't do this," Sheldon said.
     Greg stood up stiffly, then turned slowly and said, "I guess habits die hard, so I'll just remind you of the reason you're where you are right now.  Because you and the other HOA dick-wads think you can tell me what to do in my own house."
     "It's against the law to kill," Sheldon said.  
     Greg raised his hand to stop him from speaking, "Let's not get judgy.  I'm a killer, you're an HOA board member, all sin is equal in the eye of God."
     Greg hit the word "God" like a punchline and waited as if expecting Sheldon to laugh.
     He did not.
     "See, this is why Tammy left you," Greg said, "You always have to control every little thing," he paused, looked like he was reflecting for a moment, "Or maybe it was the other way around.  Maybe you tried to take control of everything after she left.  Either way," Greg waved his hand dismissively and walked over to his workbench again, examining tools hung neatly on a peg board above it.
     Hearing Tammy's name stung.  Sheldon didn't know how Greg remembered it after all these years.  He spoke with Greg infrequently and never brought her up.  But truth was, Greg was right in both aspects.  Tammy had left because Sheldon wasn't spontaneous enough and their marriage was stagnant.  When she left, he coped by doing the only thing he knew how, schedule life down to the minute so there was no room to think about her.
     "So here's what I'm thinking," Greg said.  He spun to face Sheldon and slammed his fist on the table, making the head jump in place, "I'm not gonna kill you."
     Sheldon let out a shuddering breath.
     "I'm just gonna maim you."
     Sheldon let out a squeak then swallowed it.
     "Just a little bit.  Hear me out," Greg continued, "This morning I told you I was going to be reasonable and I'm going to keep that promise.  But I have to teach you a lesson.  Show you how to be a better neighbor and a better person.  Teach you to accept the things you can't control.  What good does it do society if I teach you all that and then kill you?"
     Sheldon just looked at Greg, expecting the diatribe to continue.  Greg angled his head and raised his eye-brows, awaiting a response.
     "None?" Sheldon asked.
     "Exactly.  So what I'm going to do is just give you a little reminder.  A sort of mnemonic device, so to speak, so that every time you see it, you'll remember to just be nice, and happy, and let things go," Greg turned back to looking at the tools, brought his right hand to his lips, "The question becomes, do we need a little reminder or a big reminder?"
     Sheldon prayed for the first option.  He watched as Greg considered all the tools.
     Greg continued without looking at Sheldon, "While I appreciate that you've finally learned to shut up, I am looking for a little input here."
     "Oh, little reminder," Sheldon puffed, "little one."
     Greg, looked at him, unconvinced, "Are you sure that'll do it?"
     "I promise, even without the reminder I will never forget this night as long as I live.  Just a little reminder, please."
     Greg shrugged, grabbed a pair of shears off the peg board, "Works for me," he started toward Sheldon, but paused.  He pointed the shears at Sheldon, "Be cool."
     He was on Sheldon in a blink and grabbed Sheldon's left pinky finger and pulled it straight back.  The zip ties across his arms prevented Sheldon from having the leverage to fight Greg's grip.
     Sheldon's finger was as likely to snap off from the pressure, but just before it could snap on its own, Greg brought the shears in cleanly, just above the knuckle, and snipped it off.
     A wave of electric fire washed over Sheldon's body, emanating from the finger.  He wanted to scream, to shatter the night with expletives, but thought of Greg's first rule of the evening, and swallowed his scream.  His head began swimming from the pain and he threw up what he had held down before.  His vision began to lose focus.  He struggled to hang onto consciousness, but lost the fight.
     Sheldon roused to the smell of ammonia being shoved in his nose.  People rushed around him, yelling.  He had a bright light shining in his face, but red and blue lights were swirling in the distance.
     "Sir, what is your name?" asked one voice.
     "Sh... Sheldon," he managed to mumble out.
     "Sheldon, do you know what day it is?"
     "Bulk pickup day?"
     "It's Tuesday, sir.  It took a little time to find you, but we're working to get you out of here.  You're gonna be okay, okay?"
     Sheldon nodded shallowly.  He looked at his left hand.  It was bandaged up, "My finger."
     The people were cutting his zip ties and wiping him with cool wet towels.
     "You were patched up when we found you, can you tell me what happened?"
     "He," Sheldon took a breath, "cut my finger off."
     "Your neighbor cut your finger off?"
     Sheldon nodded again.
     "Okay, we'll see if we can find it, but we think you're in okay shape."
     The people lifted Sheldon from his chair and laid him on a stretcher.  He was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the emergency room.
     After some pain medication and some water, he started feeling better, more lucid.  
     He was able to talk through his ordeal with the police who had begun searching for Greg.  After a few weeks, it became clear they wouldn't find him.  They determined Greg wasn't his real name, but were unsuccessful in finding who he really was or where he may have come from.
     Greg's lawn bags, the police told him later, had each contained a piece of the body that belonged to the head they found in the garage.  Though the file was open, they'd yet to identify the victim.  They also didn't find any other bodies or parts of bodies in the house.  Based on the description Sheldon gave them of previous bulk pickup days, they took some cadaver dogs to the municipal dump, but that search proved fruitless as well.  Still, if their estimate was correct, Greg was one of the most prolific serial killers in US history.
     Sheldon had a hard time going home.  It wasn't that he didn't feel safe in his house, it was that he didn't feel safe in his neighborhood.
     He did some counseling sessions to try and get over his fear, but after a few weeks, he put his house on the market and moved to a new neighborhood across town.  He did not join the HOA.
     One morning in the fall, Sheldon went out to his car to head to work and saw his new neighbor, Chet, loading refuse bags onto the curb.
     "Bulk pickup day already?" Sheldon asked.
     Chet looked at him and motioned to the bags, "Yeah, sorry to put them out so early, just didn't want them stinking up the garage."
     "No problem, neighbor, have a good one," Sheldon said, climbing into his car and extending a four-fingered wave to Chet.