My Neighbor Vinny

The western sky was rosy, almost dark, when I stepped off the school bus. The doors closed with a bang and the bus pulled away in a cloud of diesel smoker. I had about a quarter-mile walk home.

As I walked, I looked up at the sky; the October stars were becoming visible and I was anxious to try out my new telescope eyepiece. The people at Sky & Telescope recommended the Plössl for deep sky items like M31, the Andromeda galaxy. 

I was almost home and our neighbor, Mrs. O’Reilly, was finishing up some raking. She gave me a curt nod as I passed. 

Suddenly something heavy hit me hard in the back of my head. I saw stars for a second as I heard a kid laughing. I turned around in time to see her nine year-old son Daniel running for his garage. At my feet was a large potato. He had hidden in the bushes, snuck up behind me and threw it at me as hard as he could.

I picked up my scattered books and looked at Mrs. O’Reilly, who had witnessed the entire thing. Surely this would prompt some redress. She looked at me and silently continued raking. Unbelievable.

I rubbed the growing knot on the back of my skull as I walked past the mailboxes and up our driveway.

Just another incident with our charming neighbors, the O’Reilly’s.

###

The O’Reilly’s were an odd bunch from the beginning. 

The builder of our tiny seven-house neighborhood had four kids and selected buyers with kids roughly the same age as his brood. My brother and I were exactly the same age as his two sons…nine and thirteen…so we were ushered in warmly.

The rest of the neighborhood had a mixture of boys and girls from eight to fourteen. All the houses had a few acres. We all got along well and many lasting friendships were forged in our rural neighborhood. It was a happy place.

By contrast, the O’Reilly’s had two sons, George and Daniel, four and two. Their ages were not right, and there was something off about them from the start.

All the other dads were professionally employed, but it was never clear what Mr. O’Reilly did. All we knew was that he was veteran and a bit peculiar. It was intimated that it’d probably be better if we left the O’Reilly’s alone. 

As we grew, the O’Reilly kids’ personalities developed. George was a bit weird but Daniel was downright mean. He delighted in inflicting cruelty on animals; tossing cats into crown-of-thorn bushes and running over frogs with his bike. He had a glint in his eye that made me uneasy.

As he got older, he started vandalizing things and was caught shoplifting at the minimart. Despite his penchant for juvenile delinquency, there was zero discipline. When I went off to the University of Florida, he was 11 and it was clear he’d probably never be the guest of honor at the Boca Raton Rotary Club.

###

One March day in my senior year at Florida, shortly before spring break, I was talking to Mom on the phone. Her voice was a combination of nerves and irritation.

“Your father is going to court in two weeks,” she said. “It’s about Daniel O’Reilly.”

“What?” I said. “Court? What happened?”

Daniel one day had evidently been at loose ends and for a bit of light sport, dug out his father’s .30-06 hunting rifle. He climbed up onto their roof and contentedly spent the next 15 minutes randomly shooting at things: trees, the utility pole, lawn ornaments, coconuts.

Our four mailboxes, clustered together on a common stand by the cul-de-sac, proved too tempting a target and Pop was incensed to find, upon checking the mail that evening, two holes that had not been there the day before.

Pop was about my age during this episode. The sheriff’s deputies took his statement and he was only to glad to make an appearance at the hearing. It turned out it was to be during spring break and I said I’d like to go along to watch.

###

As I got into Pop’s VW that morning, I noticed a box in the back. 

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he replied. There was no music that morning on the way to the Palm Beach County Courthouse, no Glenn Miller, no news, no nothing. Pop’s temples moved as he ground his teeth in irritation. I decided I better just remain quiet.

It was an interesting place; polished floors, dark wood, people in suits with brief cases, police officers. We found our courtroom and sat at a table in front of the bench. To our right was Daniel and his mother. She glared at us. How dare you drag my angel through the mud.

The judge entered and there was some preliminary stuff. He and bailiff quietly spoke for a minute as the second hand on the clock lazily circled around.

Finally, the judge turned his attention to us. He was an imposing figure in his black robe. He was probably in his fifties, graying hair, a stern expression. Behind him was a large flag of the State of Florida. He started with Daniel.

He looked down some papers, then over his reading glasses at him.

“Now then, young man, he said. “Suppose you tell me what happened.”

Daniel, dressed in a suit and with his hair neatly combed, wove a tale of innocence and simple misunderstanding. He was just playing army, he explained. He climbed up on the roof with his older brother’s BB gun and just shot it up into the air a few times.

“Into the air, you say?” the judge asked. “You didn’t shoot at the mailboxes?”

“Well… I forgot that. Yes sir, I think I may have shot a few in that direction. I’m very sorry.”

“And it was a BB gun?”

“Yes, sir,” Daniel replied earnestly. Mrs O’Reilly looked at him fondly. 

The judge turned his attention to Pop and asked him to give his side.

Pop, dressed in his finest leisure suit and wearing his no-nonsense IBM black horn-rimmed glasses, pulled his box out from under our table. He stood, opened it, and pulled out our mailbox.

“Your Honor,” he said. “May I present this to the court for examination?” The judge nodded to the bailiff, who came and picked up the mailbox. He handed it to the judge who looked at it closely.

The .30-06 fires a 7.6 mm round with a muzzle velocity of 2700 feet per second. In the back of the mailbox was the entry hole, about 1/2” wide. The exit hole in the front was a different story. It was about 2” wide with triangular pieces of metal splayed outward, like a grotesque steel flower. I looked over at Mrs. O’Reilly who seemed suddenly very interested in her fingernails.

The judge looked at it thoroughly, unhurriedly. He stuck his finger through both holes, then looked at Daniel. He held the ruined front of the mailbox so it was facing him and Mrs. O’Reilly.

“A BB gun, you said?” He asked. His tone was quiet but ominous. Mrs. O’Reilly turned pale and Daniel looked stricken.

“Well…” he said. “Maybe it was more than a BB gun. I guess I forgot.”

The next five minutes were glorious. All the years of pent-up irritation and frustration about Daniel and the O’Reilly’s were washed away as the judge read them the riot act: reckless discharge of a firearm, public endangerment, “appallingly bad” judgement, lack of supervision, and several other damning indictments.

He concluded with a withering blast at Daniel. “Young man,” he said. “If I ever…ever…see you back in my courtroom, you will not be pleased with the outcome. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Daniel said in a small voice. “Very clear.”

###

The ride home was a completely different affair. Glenn Miller made an appearance with In The Mood and instead of grinding his teeth, Pop softly whistled.

He slapped my knee. “Hey, whaddya say we grab some lunch at the Banana Boat?”

And as we ate our burgers, had a few cold ones, and watched the boats cruising up and down the Intracoastal, I thought about Pop; his eloquence, his calm but impactful approach, his knowledge of courtroom protocol. The way he had cagily snuck in the mailbox and sandbagged the O’Reilly’s. My admiration for him rose.

I thought about Mark Twain, who famously observed he could barely endure his father’s ignorance at 17; but by the time he was 21, he was astonished at how much the old man had learned in four years.

Just about, Mr. Twain. Just about. 😎

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