Schadenfreude

 

 

I’ve talked about, briefly, my penchant for revenge. If I felt I was horribly wronged and could do nothing about it at the time, I’d file that away for a day when I could. Years could go by waiting for my moment. And there was one time I didn’t have to do anything at all. The payback for my little enemy was incredibly expensive. It came in the form of schadenfreude.

Frank Alves was a kid from the “other side” who hung with a different set of kids other than our little gang. Occasionally we’d run into each other and due to that crowd being Portuguese, we’d hurl insults at one another. This was when they, them...it started moving into our neighborhood and we knew they were filthy, corrupt, thieving and ate fish that they first turned into dry shoe leather then boiled to death later.

One day, we all accidentally met up and a fight broke out. While my back was turned, Alves picked up and brought down his kid sister’s tricycle down on my head, We were seven years old abouts.

I lived, but was furious at the back handedness of that move. That simmered in me for a long long time but it was near impossible to get him back with his clan always around.

1982

Tom and I were swapping out his rear brakes when we see Frank Alves and his new girlfriend Lee walking down our street. Frank had stopped to talk to a neighbor but Lee kept walking toward Mike and I. When she reached us, she stopped, turned around and shouted back to Frank and that neighbor about something. As she spoke, she turned her head to us quick and then started slowly walking backwards a few steps till her ass was all of 20 inches from either one of our faces, as we were crouched down working on the brake drum. Tom and I stopped working, turned to look, then at one another and back to her butt. Lee quickly looked back over her shoulder and smiled quickly and went back to shouting down the street to her boyfriend.

The look on Tom’s and my face was..”God damn!”

I stewed for a moment hating the thought that Alves had a hot chick.

Alves finally caught up with her and neither one of us acknowledged one another, though our eyes did meet. The feud still simmered.

After they pass, Tom says to me, “You see her ass? You see what she did?”

“Yeah,” I say, “She knew just what she was doing.”

****

Late 90s and Enter Bob…

Bob was part of our crowd for decades. He had lived a few blocks away and by chance, Alves and Lee had bought a house just around the corner from him. I had not seen nor heard much about Alves or Lee in years but apparently they had married and bought a home.

While at a local bar in I’d say, ‘97ish, I heard a story that was later confirmed an hour later by the culprit himself.

“How could you not know Bob was fucking Lee? Everyone knew!” Tom tells me.

“I just didn’t know...hey, I’ve been working full time, going to school full time and after that, I was taking care of the sick ones here...I’ve been out of the loop for some years now.” I tell him.

So I’m brought up to speed on Lee’s infidelities with Bob.

And in comes Bob about an hour later and I had to ask him.

“Oh shti? Lee? I’ve been doing her for a decade now! I never went after her, I never chased her...she came after me! Hell, I didn’t turn her away!” “You know she does whatever she wants, he’s completely pussy whipped by her!”

Bob goes on to tell me this story…

“Lee had come over to my house, from right around the corner and we did it, as Alves, her husband was at work. And about an hour later, I hear this loud bangning on my front door and I can see out a side window that it’s her husband. I hear him yelling to ‘Open UP! Open the door!’”

“So I grab Lee and her clothes and we quickly and quietly dash through my house, through the breezeway to the garage that’s connected. Once in there, I open the trunk to my ‘72 Ford Thunderbird and put her in it and press the trunk down till it latches softly. I then go back in, put on a pair of sweatpants and answer the door finally.”

“Cut that SHIT! I was SLEEPING! WHY are you banging on my door?” Bob yells.

“She’s HERE! I KNOW she is! Let me IN! I want her BACK!” shouts Alves.

Bob says. “I wasn’t going to let him and and we went back and forth for a good minute when, to get rid of him, I finally let Alves in.”

He went through my house shouting, “LEE? LEE! DAMMIT I KNOW you’re here!” I just followed him and when he got to my garage, he just looked in and just saw my two cars and nothing else.”

“So I shout at him, ‘You SATISFIED? She’s NOT here like I said!’

“So he leaves, but loiters out front for a bit, then finally crosses the street to go home.”

I ask him, “You let her out of the trunk then?”

“Nope..i go to the car and tell her through the trunk he’s lingering outside, and to just stay quiet till he leaves. I then go inside the house and watch TV for 45 minutes!”

I say, “You LEFT her in the trunk for 45 minutes? You bastard!” All he does is laugh when I brought attention to that. “Ah, so what. She’s only a fuck toy.”

“I finally do go get her though. She dresses up and then sneaks out the back garage door to hide over her friend’s Deb’s house. She still would come over for a few years more after that!”

Tom, who’s watching me listen to this for the first time, asks why I have mile wide smile on my face. I don’t answer really but think, “Hit me on the head with a tricycle huh you bastard? Guess I got my revenge in a different way...enjoy your joke of a marriage you prick!”

Is that immature? Yes. Is it pure schadenfreude? Yes, but I’m human and vulnerable to all what that is, including the bad. 

And some comedy for you too...