Misinformation

“Nothing can stop what’s coming!” yelled Feenie Huggins from the Campions’ roof, where she was attempting to smash the few solar panels that had been installed the day before. It was 6 am. Why she thought she could get away with it at that hour when everyone was sleeping (or just waking up) directly beneath, Ted couldn’t fathom. Of course she’d climbed up the ladder, which had been left on the back patio leaning against the house.

Then Ted understood that she wasn’t trying to get away with anything. She had a purpose, and wanted them to know it. He gazed up at her kneeling silhouette with hammer raised high. His stomach turned when he thought of the damage she might have already done.

“Miz Huggins…can we talk?” Ted yelled, as Orville and Edwina hurried out the sliding glass door to see what was going on. Ted was already prepared for a day of installing. Orville had thrown on long pants. Edwina was still in her shortie pajamas.

Feenie had quickly introduced herself to Ted as he and Aaron were unloading the panels from the truck the other day. She had seemed a bit manic, or at least hyperactive for an old lady, but Ted counseled himself against judging her. This was his home town. He’d known several folks like Feenie Huggins years ago, and had been impressed by their energy, if not their discourse. Had she said anything at all that could have prefaced THIS?

“I’m saving you, and the rest of us, from future disaster, Mr. Ted. You should be grateful. Solar power is not a good thing. We can’t have you starting a trend here in our perfect city! It’s anti-American, and bad for the environment! Just ask the the CRS! Not only that, but resi-DEN-shull solar receives signals from the Deep State! I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. Ted! Just being PRO-active!”

What a relief, thought Ted, in a briefly sarcastic inner moment. but he was starting to freak out. Keep her talking, maybe? “What do you think about hydro-electric power, Miz Huggins?” he shouted. He was waiting for Orville to call the police, but Orville was just standing there in his ‘wife-beater,’ good pants, and one shoe.

It was Edwina who ran back into the house to grab her phone and call the cops. She hadn’t liked that old lady, and now she knew why. Some kind of Q-Anon bullshit had gotten into her ignorant head. Mowing down violets, that’s what it was. Everything extended from that.

Aaron passed Edwina on his way out to the patio and picked up the emergency vibes. “She’s calling the police, I think,” he told Orville, and then he, too, stood gazing up at Feenie, who had just exclaimed, “What does hydroelectric power have to do with it?!” and was apparently turning back to her vandalism with renewed strength. This infuriated Aaron, who had spent the previous day helping secure the panels to the Campions’ roof. He began to climb the ladder to get to this crazy woman.

“Don’t try to stop me, you dirty hippie. I know what you people do!” Mrs. Huggins, now on her feet on the low-pitched roof, approached the top of the ladder and seemed to be about to push it away from the roof, with Aaron on it. Then she changed her mind and raised the hammer again, waiting for a head to smash. Then she lost her balance and fell, past Aaron and onto the concrete, head first, just as three policepersons rounded the corner of the house with Edwina in the lead, pointing, then screaming.

The woman cop ran to the body and placed her hand gently on Feenie Huggins’s back while looking carefully at her head, which was creating a puddle of blood next to the new picnic table. Then she placed her fingers on Feenie’s neck. “We’ll need an ambulance, just in case,” she said to her fellows. “But her neck is broken.”

One of the policemen radioed for a city ambulance; the other walked over in an authoritative if not outright belligerent manner to question Aaron, who, having shakily stepped down from the ladder, kept shrugging, nodding, and making little bows. “Hold still, fellah,” said the cop. Aaron tried to do so.

“Kendall!” murmured Edwina suddenly, to the sky.

— Macoff