I don’t remember when it started. I think maybe I was in the shower, sudsing away, and uncannily, I sensed a sort of encompassing vibration, over the roar of the water. I stepped back, my first take to get out of the wet because maybe I was feeling the sound of a frizz in the wiring or a bad spot in the ceiling heating pipes about to blow.
But, no . . . the sound, I realized, was more of a presence than a direct stimulus, and everything around me looked normal. It was then, of course, that I pulled the plastic window curtain on the shower wall a bit aside and glanced through and saw the problem: my neighbor’s damned drone, hovering outside the window, with one of those tiny cameras attached. Aimed right at me. Looked like a spider eye. Anger flashed, but then I realized that I was safe and not really visible in the steam probably, so I just reached my hand up to the window, wiped an area clean, and wedged my overturned fist against the glass, middle finger extended upwards. I pulled back then and ducked down a bit to glance through the wiped glass, it once more fogging up with steam. All I could grasp was the sudden exit upwards of a shadow about the size of a drone, and then the matte blue of the sky caught, dissolved by condensation.
Rinsing the soap from my hair, I quickly finished my hosing, then dried off, and pulled myself into my standard at-home uniform of camo-cargoes, flip-flops, and a tee. It’s what I wear to think. And I admit that the warmth of the shower had calmed me a bit. But, underneath, I still was pissed. The mind reels, in such moments, churning outrage and revenge. All that “best served cold” crap goes right out the door. But, I held back and, a bit childishly, I shall admit, I tromped into my kitchen, grabbed a beer (it was almost lunch, I rationalized), and then wandered out to the living room to dump myself in a bean-bag and ponder my best response. My favorite philosophy prof always advised that, in crisis, we should “think macro.” My wife, whose father was a carpenter, always warns me, “Measure twice . . . cut once.”
Mind, the drone was no new arrival. Buzz had become a recurrent background channel in our lives. My neighbor, the drone master—or the Dipstick, as some of the neighbors, including yours truly, call him—is a bit of tech freak. Huge flat-screens adorn his interior walls; computers, it seems, from my walking through his stylishly bricked Craftsman some while back, lurk in nearly every room; his pads and phones are his “lifeline,” he informs . . . and he has been “monitoring neighborhood security,” he claims, peeping over fences and hovering along behind lawn mowers as folks ride them around, since the previous summer, when his fleet first took to the sky. At first, we all were amused. But the whole imposition has become a pain.
Visits to his house, since, have ended as he has “gone into” self-proclaimed “survival mode.” He cannot “allow his borders breached” and advises that “a revolution is at hand” and that he “intends to survive it.” Thus, the steady drone presence in our neighborhood skies, I presume. They are the “eyes of his eyes,” he claims: “wheels within wheels.” Apparently, he believes that, at any given time, even we who live nearby cannot be trusted as we might well have “succumbed to the Siren song” of the “secret government,” or the Lizard People, or something. I forget, exactly. It’s hard to keep up. I do remember, though, that he had a whole shelf of books on Roswell and “ufology.”
As a heads-up, or a warning—or something—he ran around the block, recently, stuffing mailboxes with printouts of an online article in which an expert testified that the heads of all major countries had met with “the alien masters.” But, “even as in 1939,” the ‘Stick had added to the article in a postscript, printed in red, “conflict makes for strange bedfellows.” Who knew “what actually would play out.” We had to be “on alert.” Arnold, from several doors down, had come by to talk with me about the printout and wondered if that “bedfellows” bit meant that the Dipstick was “anti-gay-people.” But I informed him that the word was merely an archaic term born of simplistic ideas. He nonetheless reasoned that the ‘Stick now had “gone around the bend on Looney Street,” an evaluation to which I could imagine no good reply.
The ’Stick had drones of several sizes aloft at various times of day by the fourth of July, when he launched a gaudy monster about the size of a hub cap and trailing American flag bunting, weighted somehow, I am guessing, not to catch in the props. At one point that afternoon, when everyone from my block had gathered out back for a party at our house, the big new drone slowed and drifted close enough to earth (and backyard tables covered in burgers and chips and beans, circled by a couple outraged Cocker Spaniels barking their fool heads off) that one of my taller neighbors—he had played pro hoops overseas but now is a devoted linkster—picked up a golf club and took a swing at the thing. Barely missed, too. Moments later, the Dipstick came running into the yard and screamed a lot, but the aforementioned, large neighbor just walked over and glared down at the smaller man, who quickly stuffed his protest and carried the, now landed and docile, drone back to the waiting car-barn, next door. When his “eyes” are not flying, he keeps them in charging racks on the garage wall, I have noted.
“The Hindenburg has crashed! The Hindenburg has crashed!” shouted another of my neighbors, raising a brew in a toast, once the ‘Stick had left the yard. The shouter is a high-school history teacher, specializes in Nazi stuff, and, I think, just couldn’t help himself. The Dipstick had walked off with his head down, but the resolute pace of his march home immediately suggested to anyone who cared to see that a battle was about the begin.
“Respect, man,” interjected another partier. “The blimp took a bunch of lives.”
A moment of quiet ensued, and the history guy placed his beer can over his heart as an apology, but the die had been cast.
What followed was a reactionary period of growing surveillance in our neighborhood. The damned drones became a determined presence in our skies. At first, they kept their distance, hovering around rooftops. But then, gradually, the Dipstick began to launch sorties into open garages, window wells, porches, any place that allowed easy entrance and retreat. Soon, the drones regularly were camping, shoulder height, outside picture windows. For being unnerving, they put all those crime shows on cable to shame. Interactions like mine at the shower window became commonplace.
I have read pieces online suggesting that, in future, as old-fashioned notions of privacy are eroded, we will have to accept that we will be watched–indeed, buzzed–all our lives. And, as the recorded information enters the Internet, our collective lives will become common property of who knows how many millions of our fellow humans. Even as, today, when sophisticated folks probably can hack into most people’s daily phone lives, in the near future, it is argued, I have found, that even undereducated couch-campers, clicking with their channel-and-function remotes will be able to locate feeds featuring summaries of their neighbors’ recent behaviors, as seen from above, even as the ‘Stick, no doubt, was monitoring ours. Hell. How far away are we, really, from popularly priced heat sensors, like those used by the military, and some clown down the street will be able to watch the “hot guy” (my wife’s words) across the way chase his girlfriend into the bedroom, mimed as shadows of heat dashing across the surfaces of his brick bi-level ranch? Dreams of spy movies dance in my head. Weirded-out drifts right into paranoid.
Just for the historical record, I will assert that it was after the post-box stuffing that several of my male friends from the block gathered with me in my basement and held discussions leading to our formation of “The Committee.” Mind you, and you will recall, after the later business with the cops and all, talkers on local news channels tried to spin the fabrication that our group had been established, and indeed financed, by “outside influencers.” That we were “political.” But I can tell you that it simply grew, gathered steam, as it were, after one impromptu meeting, several guys standing around and sucking brews by my furnace, the bunch of us frustrated with being watched.
Our premise was simple: We would “bind our hearts and minds” in a “brotherhood” devoted to “salvaging our collective privacy,” individualism being the “foundation of our American Way.” We typed up about a page of basic beliefs—a manifesto, if you will—printed it out, all signed on, and then created enough copies that everyone could take one home to file. Felt righteous doing so. Our initial task was set as “brainstorming,” our plan to “confront” the Dipstick’s drone battalions and then meet again in a week to sort out the best ideas and to launch our efforts. We left the meeting one at a time, exiting the doors of my house, front and back, one member every five minutes.
Alas, we discovered, however, that such spy craft as we had garnered from film did not suffice. Three members reported by text that they were followed home by drones, but tried to “stay cool.” For example, one guy stopped and smelled flowers (“a living metaphor,” noted Ed from down the street—he was an English major in college and is pretty up on his language skills); another paused to kick the tires on his SUV. He then nodded appreciatively, went indoors.
But we knew from the start that the ‘Stick, if not onto us, at least probably supposed something was in the air other than his fleet.
Marcus, our tall member and former hoops star, suggested at our initial meeting that we simply keep bats with us at all times. Most of us were players in a local summer softball league and so already possessed the necessary weapon. “Sooner or later,” he advised, “one of the peepers will buzz too close, and one of us, in turn, will annihilate the piece of crap.”
General laughter ensued. But then Rodney, who lives over on the next street, but attends all neighborhood functions, and who is a lawyer, gave us the word. The drones, he informed, were property. They belonged to someone. Our smashing one could be construed as malicious. The ‘Stick could post videos, claim he was attacked. Social media would pick up, and “nobody online much would care about fine discriminations.”
“Okay, what can we do?” we asked.
Rodney informed that our best bet was to stick with the privacy issue and try to build a case for the ‘Stick’s invading our lives. “If he comes after children or wives, we scream.”
None of us being lawyers or wanting any interactions with keyboard crazies, all of us took note.
As a consequence, our first action—“Op One,” we called it—was fairly simple. We wanted to build on the ‘Stick’s suspicions. Thus, we decided to let him know we were watching him back. Responding to an online ad, we ordered up a box of cheap one-eyed “spy scopes,” mon-oculars, and began wearing them on lanyards around our necks. Every time we realized we were being monitored, we would whip the scope up to an eyeball, twist it into focus, and stare back. Ed, whom I mentioned, saw on an infomercial that he could clip his cell onto the back of his monocular and record snaps of the ‘Stick’s surveillance. He added that wrinkle to our collective theater, “in case we have to fight back, later.” The drone flights did not diminish, but we knew that the Dipstick knew that we knew, if you get my drift. And, with the videos, we were at least establishing a “body of evidence,” Rodney admitted.
Op Two was an accident, I must admit . . . and more aggressive. Marcus, well, in spite of our collective counseling, he started to keep his bat within reach at all times when he was out in the yard. Mowing his lawn, as an example, he had it leaning nearby, against the fence. He meant “only to wave it,” he rationalized later. “Let the ‘Stick know we were serious.”
Crisis, though, ensued. Later that week, Marcus was out back of his house, sucking a brew and deciding where exactly he best might put in the shrubs his wife had purchased at the garden-and-feed store and that were, at that moment, “jamming his garage.” At which point, unnervingly, he began to sense that he was being watched. His father, who had served in the military in jungles always told him that, in hiding, you never look at the enemy—he can feel it. Well, something like that happened here. Marcus had a weird sense of presence as I had felt in my shower. Then on the inside of his sunglasses, Marcus caught the flicker of a shape behind and above his shoulder. He joked with his wife later that he “knew it wasn’t an angel . . . he hadn’t lived that kind of life.”
What happened was, he nonchalantly turned slightly and strode over under his porch’s sun deck, where, on this occasion, he had his bat stashed. Who knows? Maybe the drone’s view was blocked, given Marcus’s height and his having, thus, to lean down as he went under and into the shade. The stupid drone came along, the ‘Stick not sensing the danger, I suppose, as he watched, back at his place, on a screen.
Alas, once he had the bat in hand, Marcus turned and ran at the damned thing. The ‘Stick, seemingly caught on right then and tried to reverse out from the porch and into the safety of the skies, but Marcus’s long legs caught him up, and before the machine could rise, anger intervened, and he connected with a homerun swing that scattered the device in several bits across the yard. In reaction, Marcus could not help himself. He folded over in roaring laughter. He turned and screamed then at the Dipstick’s fence: “You fucking moron!”
Moments later, as one might expect, here came the ‘Stick, dashing into the yard, waving his arms, and yelling back at Marcus, “You know what that thing costs? I’ll sue, you stupid jock!”
To which the larger man, realizing that their threats had sort of balanced out, replied, “Pick up your garbage, asshole,” leaving him one up. Or so he reported to the group.
Suffice it to say that another stare-down followed, won again by the taller man. The ‘Stick exited, returned with a leaf bag, and cleaned up while Marcus laughed again, standing with his wife and filming the scene on his phone. Before he returned home, the ‘Stick walked over, shook his fist, and announced, “This is not over!”
Marcus immediately forwarded the loop to the group for study. And we decided to meet at evening’s first protective darkness, to “debrief.”
Unfortunately, not long after, the cops arrived, marching up Marcus’s driveway, the Dipstick in tow, looking determined. The officers began questioning Marcus, and news of our group had apparently reached the ‘Stick because the men in unform knew all about us. Marcus, he confessed to us later, began to “panic.” Visions of perp walks in his head. But then, as well, something weird happened. The minute the cops began to lay out all the details involved in filing charges, and who would be contacted, and their need to enter the ‘Stick’s house to substantiate with recordings what had happened, the ‘Stick himself seemed to become a little rattled. He literally stepped back from the gathering, his eyes flicking back and forth between Marcus and the uniforms, or so Marcus recalled. The ‘Stick began to walk back his claims, as well. The cops then grew frustrated and aggressive with him for wasting their time. In the end, all the ‘Stick asked was that Marcus “and his friends be given a stern warning.”
Which is what Marcus, on our behalf, received. The uniforms exited around the garage, pausing on route to admonish the ‘Stick about the value of their time. “Don’t call us again unless you are ready to sign papers,” one officer chided.
The ‘Stick then turned to Marcus and warned him “Next time, you’re going down.” But Marcus could see that the air was out of the smaller man’s balloon.
Marcus couldn’t think of a fitting reply, this time, still shaken as he was by threats of arrest, and so stood and watched the ‘Stick’s return home.
Needless to say, that evening’s committee meeting was subdued, as well. As we listened to the big man’s report, and Rodney offered his parsing of the events and our collective status, you could feel the group’s reassessing its priorities.
In short, as Desi, another neighbor, summed, “We were lucky.” We would “need to plan our next steps with care.” We “could appreciate Marcus’s emotional reaction,” but we would have to “control ourselves in future.”
“The ‘Stick might grow some balls,” Desi summed.
Everyone nodded.
A couple members already were combing social media, but it looked as if, this time, we had squeaked by.
What followed was as unpredictable as life itself, I guess. Just like those knights in medieval stories you read at school, the ‘Stick overplayed his hand. What was that one story about the wheel of fate, and all the chairs on it circling up and down? Well, he didn’t realize that his was about to drop. I mean, we never do. Right? That’s the point of the knight stories?
Everything evolved a few days later. A lovely day, in fact . . . bright sun . . . cool breezes. The wife and I were sitting on our patio, sharing a couple fancy drinks that she had learned to make from a bartender friend, and across the lawn, as relentless as its owner, arrived one of the drones. At first it hovered, about twenty feet out, just watching. Humming. Letting us know it could.
“Don’t pay any attention,” my wife counseled.
And I tried to just chill out, you know? I wanted to follow her advice. She’s a second-grade teacher and knows things.
But, the Dipstick apparently found our reaction tedious. For in a sudden jump, the thing zoomed closer and now was hovering, bobbing, about ten feet away. The wife’s demeanor shifted.
“That thing gets in my hair,” my wife alerted me, “and I’ll march over and strangle the bastard. You can come visit me at the Big House.”
“Gotcha,” I told her. The girl is assertive. Which, normally, I love, but today had me worried. What was the idiot neighbor up to?
Once more frustrated, I suppose, the ‘Stick made his contraption jump forward . . . this time so it was floating only a few feet in front of our faces. You could feel the wind from its propellers. The buzzing was quite loud.
And there it sat for a few. But then, I think, a patch of wind pitched it directly toward us before its operator could react and adjust.
Well. The wife lets out a shriek and retreats back and upward, butt over tea kettles, collapsing her chaise longue and falling on her neck and shoulders. I swing a fist at the thing as it jumps past, miss, and fall into her on the concrete, adding to her chorus of complaint, my own verses quite profane.
The girl is now up and scrambling into the house’s dark interior, the drone after her. The thing actually clips her across the haunches as it rises in chase. And I am right behind, screaming like a banshee.
Suddenly, we all three are inside, wrapped in half light. The wife is plastered against the far wall, arms crossed, breathing in gasps. I have slammed the door behind me and am leaned against it. The drone hovers mid-room, shoulder high, kind of swaying in place. Oddly, and I know I am projecting, but the thing looks confused. Maybe it has lost its master’s voice.
The wife yells, “DO something!” And I cannot think of anything else, so I grab an ornamental blanket draped over the chair next to me, and I sling it over the drone. Its propellers become entangled in the fabric, and it collapses to the floor in a sort of throbbing and then silent heap. Anger and fear overcoming me, I step forward and stomp it dead.
The wife walks over, slips into my arms, and we hold each other for it seems like five minutes.
“Shit,” she mutters, as she steps away, shaking her head.
What followed was the birth of a neighborhood myth. Apparently, the ‘Stick lost contact when the drone raced inside. He could not know for sure what happened next. Maybe, once more, it just got too dark for him to see? When he arrived at our door, demanding his toy back, the wife and I simply feigned ignorance. Last time we saw it, “it was out back,” we told him, “chasing squirrels.” How could he prove otherwise? We said the same to the cops when they came around. When we invited them in, a quick glance through our house found them nothing. The fact that our trash went out with one oddly configured parcel was never discussed, and they didn’t look in our cans.
Unfortunately for our nosy neighbor, this time around, the cops actually entered the Dipstick’s house, and, as luck would have it, they found on his devices that he was monitoring more than the neighborhood. Social media narratives soon followed: “Local Perv’s Stash Astounds Detectives,” read a summary piece in the local press.
The ’Stick was lonelier, and crazier, than we had thought.
In the wake of events, the Committee, of course, disbanded. Marcus, though, proudly carries his softball bat in a gun rack in the back window of his pickup. Rodney has published a piece in a law-related journal, an essay called “Stalkers in the Skies.” Ed, ever the English major, rewrote the whole thing as a short story. Read it at a conference. Won a hundred-dollar prize.
But we all are different now. We trust the skies less, I would guess, as a start. We feel vulnerable. My last drive into the city, my journey ran parallel to that of a television news chopper for a while, and I was sure the thing was after me. Last month, I watched a cable series about alien visitations, and tin foil hats suddenly seemed less offensive.
I remember, one time, at a party, speaking with a man who played in a “big band,” back in my grandparents’ younger days, during the Depression. He eloped with his wife—then a high school girl—and created lifelong enmity with her family. “Elope is a fancy word for it. Actually, I just stole her away,” he laughed, his wife chuckling along at the table where we sat.
“We were passionate,” she added, with a grin. Five children followed. And yet, she explained, there was a lesson to be learned. “Those days are so far away now,” she told me, patting my arm, “that they almost don’t matter.” Her expression turned serious. She wanted me to understand.
“Of course they still matter,” her husband countered. “We had our life together! Our family!”
“Yes,” the woman noted, turning her attention his way. “But the world is different. We don’t fit, dear. In those days, you could disappear. We were champions. Now we are old . . . we’re just relics of that time. Today, where could we run?”
Her husband hung his head, swiped his phone.
I have been thinking about that exchange a lot, since the drone business. Mostly, I think, my friends and I have come to understand that in our world, today, when change comes, it probably will come top-down . . . not rising from the finer instincts of human nature. The hand turning the great wheel of fate is digital. And we will have to live with that, now: knights and ladies . . . stolen brides . . . and all. Our privacy, I fear, went out, in a lump, with the garbage.