The House Across the Street

by Hadi Touré

“Wait for me! Why do you have to be so fast?” I heard my friend Oliver yell at me
from behind. I stopped and turned, watching his short, frail figure bounding towards me.
He wasn’t much into sports or anything like I was, but he was super smart, and squinty
as he was, he was my best friend.
“Hurry up, ya slow poke! Even Bernard is faster than ya!” I called back, my fist
clenching tighter around the leash of my huge, hairy German Shepherd. Walking him
every day was hard work, but when Oliver started helping out, it was always fun.
He finally made it to where I was standing and the three of us started on, at a
slower pace this time. It was chilly outside, a creepy chill for a New Orleans October
day.
“It isn’t normally this cold come this time around fall,” I said trying to make
conversation. We were walking in such a silence, and it scared me. Oliver didn’t answer
right away, and for a moment, I could hear him puffing softly. He hadn’t completely
recovered from the run. It must have been a good five minutes of just walking. The only
noises were Oliver’s quick breaths and Bernard’s patter-patter on the sidewalk
pavement.
“Global warming I guess. The cold days are colder, and the hot days are hotter.”
“I don’t think so. I think Halloween’s going be so much creepier this year,” I
pointed out.
“If you say so May.” He kept walking then, his deep-blue eyes staring straight
ahead. This didn’t bother me. Oliver didn’t like talking much and I understood him. I
liked him the way he was and never demanded him to be any other way.
Bernard whined a little bit and I stopped. I looked to my right. Oliver had stopped
too. The House loomed out in front of us. Big and scary. It was not normal for a house
to be this big in the suburbs; not in Forest Isle, New Orleans at least. But this house was
not like other houses. It was huge and dark; always seemed to be in the shadows no
matter the time of the day. In it lived Dr. Stuart. Dr. Stuart what? Dr. Stuart nothing. He
had no last name anyone knew of. When you saw him in the street he was always
friendly, but always seemed a little absent-minded.
People said he’s a mad scientist. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. He was
terribly tall and always looked like he hadn’t slept in days. People said he did illegal
experiments on humans in a hidden laboratory in that house of his. Oliver and I both
looked at each other and quickly back across the street. The only safe refuge from this
mad man: Oliver’s house, welcoming and safe, just across the street.
We got ready to run when old Mrs. Cuddlefish stepped out from the shadows and
shuffled us over to her house down the lane.
“What you kids think y’alls doing up over there? Don’t you know dat place is
dangeerous? Dat man der done gone kill y’all. And with a dog too! You asking for him to
do y’alls wrong!”
“But Mrs. Cuddlefish! We weren’t doing any harm! We were going to get away
from that place before you called us over!” Oliver blurted out as soon as that crazy lady
let go of his ear. Rubbing my own ear that had been pulled mercilessly, I cried, “Lady,
what’s your problem? Going and putting yourself in other people’s businesses!”
“You betta’ watch dat tongue o’ yours, else imma have to get out ma belt. Ain’t
even gonna bother your poor mama.”
I didn’t know how the name Cuddlefish could fit a lady like that. She was a crazy
old woman of about 60 or so. She had a huge bosom and always wore black
sunglasses which didn’t look right with her frizzy, volumous curls. They made her look
like Whoopi Goldberg, except she had a huge scar across the side of her face from her
cheek to her chin. She got that from one of her many dogs. She always dressed in black
and she scared me. I felt sorry for poor Oliver though. She absolutely hated him for the
way he looked and the way he talked. I thought she was going to treat us to one of her
long and boring sermons, but to my surprise she didn’t. She went on telling us of an
incident of her life:

“Alright, y’alls sit on down right here on ma porch, aight children? Imma tell y’alls
why I don’t like y’alls hangin ‘round dat ole Dr. Stuarts place. Dat darn man and I gone
growed up together as great friends. Sorta like you, pretty Green-Eyes and yo’ friend
here. Stuart and me been so close, we coulda ended up like yo’ white daddy and black
mommy, and maybe one day, May, you two’ll end up like dat too...if he don’t change.
Well, dat ole’ Stuart decided he wanted to do sciences. He went on ta college and came
back a few years later, not long since y’alls were born. He changed so much, he coulda
scared da bones outta my dead mama. Gone went skinny, he did. Tall and skinny, as if
he ain’t had no meat on dem bones o’ his for 8 years, and he took a hatin’ to dogs. A
darn horrible hatin’. He see one come nearby, he freezes. Like a chill run down his
spine everytime he see one. And dat look in his eyes. Oh Lord, like he could kill dat dog
wit his bare hands. I had dogs o’ my own so I got scared. I saw him less and less. But
one day I couldn’t find my favorite dog, Bonnie. I ran all over da’ place looking for her.
Last place I looked was near his house. What did I find? Bonnie’s collar in his back
yard, and a human finger not too far from it!” Here Mrs. Cuddlefish grew silent for a
while, letting what she had said sink into us. “I wanted to run-”

“A human finger? How? Wait, did he find you, Mrs. Cuddlefish?” Oliver asked, his face
grasped by utter fear.

“Child, don’t you go distractin’ me! I’m telling a story!”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Cuddlefish. Please continue.” Eager to hear the rest, Oliver grew quiet
again.

“Now where was I agin? Ah! So yes, I wanted to run away as fast as I could! But I
turned around and there he was. He said ‘Xelina Cuddlefish, my it’s been a long time!
How have you been keeping? I hope you’ve been in good condition, wouldn’t want
something bad to happen to you would we?’”

“What did ya say then?” I couldn’t help it. She had me in a trance with her story.

“Child Hush! I said all I could say then. ‘Stuart, where’s ma dog?’ And he answered me
alright. Gone and said ‘A horrible tragedy Xelina. Your dog, I-’ ‘I ain’t wanna hear wat
you done to it Stuart! I just want ma dog, and I want her now!’ Den he made as if he
wanted to come near me. Dat’s when I ran. And eva’ since, I neva seen Bonnie agin.
Neither did I nor anyone go near Stuart agin. So now you see, y’alls keep away from
him, ya hear?”

The crazy woman had scared the lights out of us. All we could do then was nod
our heads and walk away. We set on our way out of Mrs. Cuddlefish’s porch and over to
Oliver’s house.
We almost got there when we stopped cold. There was Mr. Stuart, standing at
the gate, creepy and as if only a silhouette, standing in the shadows. We wanted to run,
but he saw us and started to approach. We were trapped, deer in headlights.

“Hello there, children.” He smiled a crooked smile.

Suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t just stand there looking at a man who
killed dogs and people! I blurted out,

“What is it that you do in that house of yours? Why are you like this? What did you do
to Mrs. Cuddlefish’s dog? And that human finger in your backyard? How can you be
such a monster?”

“Hold on May...I think you’ve been misled.”

I couldn’t believe it! He was actually trying to defend himself!

“Oh really? So are you calling Mrs. Cuddlefish a liar?”

Then Dr. Stuart lifted up his left hand. I froze when I saw it. He was missing his
index finger.

“Now do you understand, May?”

“Oh my God, I’m, I’m, uh, I....” I felt horrible now. I didn’t know what to do or believe.

“What about Mrs. Cuddlefish’s dog?” piped up Oliver calmly.

“Bonnie? She died. She got accidentally run over by my car while I was trying to drive
off to the hospital to get my hand looked at. I was cutting paper you see, with my cutting
board. Then my finger slipped and got in the way of the cutter. Next thing I knew, I had
sliced my finger off.”

I was speechless. I stood there looking at him feeling faint. Bernard was whining next to
me.

“I bandaged my hand and used the back door to enter the garage so I could drive to the
hospital. I guess the finger itself must have fallen off in the process. Well, I got in the car
and started moving out of the driveway when Bonnie jumped out in front of me a I hit
her. I got out of the car and checked if she was still alive. She was just barely breathing
so I carried her into my backyard and laid her down and took off to go find Mrs.
Cuddlefish. Turns out she was already there, misunderstood, and well you know what
happened next.”

“Wow,” was all I could say.

Suddenly we heard a loud crash. We all turned around to see Oliver’s cat, Molly,
climbing on Mrs. Cuddlefish’s fence.

“Oh, and you might want to be careful children. Mrs. Cuddlefish hates cats. Her favorite
recipe is her grandmother’s Cat Soup.” Here, Dr. Stuart giggled a bit, “I think my old cat,
Tabby, has had the misfortune of being in one once.” He looked over at Oliver. “Are you
alright son? You look a bit faint.”