The Merchant of Menace

life could—and did—get considerably worse the next day.
    It started with the anonymous note stuck into the front storm door. Jane noticed it as she came in from getting the morning paper. Handwritten and copied on bright pink paper, the note was signed A Group of Concerned Neighbors.
    In Jane’s experience a “group“ with no name attached usually meant one disgruntled, cowardly individual.
    The gist of the note was that the Johnsons’ Christmas display was a detriment to the neighborhood. It created noise and light pollution. “Light pollution?“ Jane snorted out loud. Furthermore, the Concerned Neighbor went on, it would create a traffic problem as word spread and more and more people came to look at it, thus endangering the welfare of the children who might not be used to so many cars on the street and possibly drawing the attention of a lot of “less than desirable“ outsiders. Moreover, the Group of Concerned Neighbors said, going overboard on political correctness, the display was largely Christian in intent and was offensive to Jewish, Moslem, and atheist residents. It might, the Group said, even violate the constitutional right to separation of church and state.
    Jane stared at the note and muttered angrily, “Get a life!“ as she headed for the phone. When Shelley answered, Jane said, “Have you opened your front door yet? No? Do so. I’ll wait.”
    It took Shelley a surprisingly long time to return. “Assholes,“ Shelley said, rattling paper furiously.
    “What took you so long?“ Jane asked.
    “I ran out the sidewalk to see if the perps of this trash were still on the street. They weren’t.”
    “I could have told you that. This is a ‘dark of the night’ communication.“
    “So what do we do about it?“
    “Well, we certainly don’t want to violate any constitutional rights,“ Jane sneered. “But there’s a section urging neighbors to call city hall and make their feelings known. I suggest we organize people to do just that. I’ll call the people on this side of the block, you call the other side.”
    Before she called any neighbors, she called city hall herself. She gave her name and address and said, “I’d like to make known my feelings about the house decorations next door to me.“
    “Yes?“ the city clerk said wearily. “I’ve gotten several calls.“
    “I like the decorations.“ This was an outright lie, but Jane’s constitutional rights provided for free speech, which included lying for a good reason, she figured. “And I like the Johnsons.
    And I dislike the mean-spirited jerks who put this note in my door.”
    There was a brief silence, then the clerk said, much more cheerfully, “Thank you, Mrs. Jeffry. I’ll see that your comments are passed up the line.”
    Jane called Suzie Williams next, who said, “I’m just on my way to work, Jane, but I’ll call the city clerk when I get there. That house looks like a combination of Disneyworld and a train wreck, but it’s their house and the Nazi busybodies haven’t got any damned business interfering.“
    “Hey, Suzie, before you go, do you happen to know Sam Dwyer? Down the block. Single. Has an owlish-looking little girl?“
    “You bet I do,“ Suzie said with a rich chuckle. “Gotta go spend another fulfilling day stuffing little old ladies into corsets. Tell you about him later.”
    Jane got out her address book and called everyone else on her side of the block that she knew. Two of them tried to convince her that the note was perfectly correct and Something Must Be Done. Another two were as outraged as she and thanked her for suggesting they call the city offices. The rest were either neutral or not answering. She thought she’d won over a couple of the neutral parties.
    Her last call was to Sharon Wilhite. “Not to worry,“ Sharon said. “It would take years of legal wrangling to impose somebody else’s standards on the Johnsons. Since they’re renters, only their landlord could stop them.“
    “I wonder who the owner of the house is?“ Jane said.
    “Me,“ Sharon said with a laugh. “I bought it as rental property a couple years ago. And I don’t much like people trying to use the Constitution to be rude. I’ll call the city before I go to work and make sure they know it’s okay with me.”
    Jane hung up. “Constitutionalize this!“ she said, wadding the pink paper up and throwing it in the trash. Then she fished it back out and left it on the counter so that the Concerned