Eddie the Simp Holds Court

Besides me, there was Frankie Guzzardo, and then Bob Olson and his girl Kirsti, whose presence made us each a little more eager to impress, Bob included. The three of us though, we were just young guys who’d known each other like forever, mostly sharing whatever the television had taught us since we had last gathered, less than twenty-four viewing hours ago. It was early 1987.

Our main concern at that moment was running our mouths enough to keep warm while working our way through a cold case of cheap beer. On the way from 7-Eleven, we had also grabbed some semi-warm Mickey D’s, quickly turned semi-cold. We were just doing our thing, parked in front of the overgrown sump across the street from my house. And then Eddie Simpkins appeared.

Eddie lived two houses down from me and had been an inconsistent part of my life ever since I’d been old enough to stray from our front lawn. Eddie came in waves, ever-present for a time, then MIA for long spates after the first of the month delivered his disability check. A big guy, thirtyish, with an Elvis coif, Eddie would have seemed out of his time if any of us thought he was smart enough to be anything but, well, Eddie. Behind his back, we called him Eddie the Simp. Of course, we did. Eddie had always been a little—off.

“What’s he doing out at night?” I asked.

“Weird, right?” Bob said.

Kirsti wondered what was weird about that.

“He’s got nothing going on,” Bob said. “He mostly keeps inside, I guess for Granny’s sake.”

Granny Simpkins never seemed to mind having Eddie around. The rest of the family couldn’t stand him—even the Christmas cards had stopped—but Granny’s little Eddie knew a safe bet, and he never raised his voice to her in anything but jest. She still seemed to get a kick out of him, and besides, at her age I’m sure it helped to have a man around the house, even one semi-immobilized by permanent adolescence, never mind the bum leg that kept those government checks rolling in. His father long dead, his mother who the hell even knew, what happened to Eddie the Simp after he inevitably outlived Granny wasn’t something anybody stopped to think about. Well, besides us.

“What’s he doing over there?” Frankie asked.

Eddie had lighted his garage and sat atop a milk crate positioned under the open garage door.

“Well, we’ve got to know, don’t we?” Bob said before flicking a cigarette across the street, grabbing Kirsti’s hand, and dragging her along in that direction. Frankie and I naturally followed through the wake of Bob’s secondhand smoke. Frankie took along our MacDonald’s sacks; I just hoped Eddie wouldn’t want any.

Eddie had a cordless phone pressed to his right ear as we approached, but he was speaking too low for any of us to pick up his end of the conversation. He disconnected as we reached him.

“What’s up, Eddie?” Bob said.

“Freemonts,” was Eddie’s reply. That was it. He kept his eyes on the ground and spit without offering more.

“What about them?” I asked.

“Acting up again,” Eddie said. “I called the cops.” Eddie’s knees creaked as he rose from his milk crate and peered left. “Dispatch said a patrol was nearby. In fact, I think this is them.”

Eddie’s serious demeanor was momentarily justified when a police car rolled out of the dark and braked in front of his house.

“Keep your beers low,” Bob cautioned.

Eddie left us behind and raised his hands high to stress himself as harmless as he approached the police car. Eddie knelt alongside the car, his voice a murmur to us, and explained the situation to the cops.

Meanwhile, we had settled ourselves in Eddie’s driveway, leaning against and lying atop his cherry red pick-up, while the man of the hour played host to the police.

“Who are the Freemonts?” Kirsti asked.

“Odd ducks,” said Frankie, crushing Styrofoam and dropping the first of several MacDonald’s containers on Eddie’s lawn as he bit into a cheeseburger.

“Strangest birds in this burb,” I added. I took a quick look for Eddie’s garbage can, shrugged when I didn’t see one, and followed Frankie’s lead with my own clamshell, minus the crunchy crushing. The container opened up and fluttered several feet across Eddie’s lawn.

“Wife beater,” Bob said, pulling Kirsti against his chest in some sort of protective gesture.

Maybe it was something in our water, or maybe it was the same by you, but when I was growing up, the Freemonts were the most extreme example of a not uncommon local template. Us boys were working class stock. Our dads did hard work: Frankie’s pop laid brick, Bob’s was a roofer, and my Dad punched tin. Tough men accustomed to rough days. Luckily, my Dad left the nine-to-five at the shop at the end of his day. A lot of them though, they cooled their aches and troubles at the bars before landing at their dinner tables, where some of those fuckers earned reps for some ugly shit. It was better when the wives worked too. My Mom worked, and so did Bob’s, but back then there were still plenty of housewives in the neighborhood, and a few of them filled their empty days with empty vices.

“Freemont’s wife is a drunk,” Frankie said, putting name to the most common of those vices.

“Big time,” I added. Yeah, I’m a shit for having made light of it, but there was a story.

“Remember Mother’s Day?” Frankie asked. This was the story.

“What happened on Mother’s Day?” Kirsti asked, taking the bait along with a handful of fries.

“Mother’s Day, 1984,” Bob began, rattling off the familiar dateline like he was Ted Koppel. “Okay, it’s hard to tell in the dark from here, but the Freemont house is practically butted against Eddie’s. I mean, you can barely fit the lawn mower between the two for a single pass, not that Eddie’s ever mowed his lawn. I digress. Usual crazy Freemont shit starts breaking out over there, so Eddie pops out and tells Mr. Freemont to shut the fuck up.”

“They were out front,” I added. “The Freemonts. Yelling and screaming at each other right in plain sight.”

“Both loaded,” Bob continued. “The old lady charged Eddie and got in his face. Eddie about faces into his house and—surprise—calls the cops.”

“Meanwhile,” Frankie interrupted, eager to steal away the meatiest bits of the story. “Mr. Freemont gets in his car to leave, but before he could pull away Mrs. Freemont jumps on the hood. The old man didn’t let up on the gas though—”

“And with Mrs. Freemont obstructing his view,” Bob said, jumping back in, “her husband takes off and—”

“Rams into a tree!” we all three boys said in unison.

“That tree right there,” I said, pointing.

“Eddie’s tree,” Bob added.

“Was she hurt?” Kirsti asked.

“Nah,” Frankie said. “She just rolled onto the grass right around the time Eddie was coming back out of the house.”

“Eddie was pissed,” Bob said.

“His tree,” I said, as if, obviously he’d be pissed.

“Anyways,” Bob continued. “The cops pulled up just when it looked like Eddie was actually going after them, perfect timing to save him an ass-whupping because the cops cuffed both Freemonts, and Eddie was soon back on his couch.”

“Yeah, but not before—” I said.

“Oh yeah, not before everyone from around the neighborhood had gathered, right here, in fact,” Bob said.

“It was like an old town meeting,” I said. “People came from blocks around and caught up with each other, while the Freemonts’ lives came apart in the background. Or foreground, I guess.”

“Sounds more like a witch trial,” Kirsti said.

“Guilty,” Frankie said.

Eddie had managed to place himself at the center of everybody’s attention and turned the Freemonts unfortunate situation into a tailgating party. Or witch trial. All depended on your point of view.

Since the Mother’s Day incident there had been several slight skirmishes that didn’t amount to anything more than an occasional story and another few police visits. I mean, I could go on, but nothing as wild as Mother’s Day. Until, maybe, this night.

Eddie was coming back over to us, while policemen jumped out of both sides of their car, its red and blue lights swirling over us like we were at some depressing club, which we kind of were.

“It’s Freemonts,” Eddie told us. “Something smells over that way. Like a body.”

“What the fuck?” Bob said. “Do you think he finally killed her?” Bob winked in our direction.

“Probably,” Eddie said, a little too sure of himself. “I heard a scuffle over there a few days ago, and the place has been abandoned ever since. I wouldn’t put it past him. When I come out today, the smell practically knocked me back inside—don’t you smell it?”

I didn’t. I don’t think the others did either, as none of us said anything.

“Something’s rotting in there,” Eddie added. “I’m telling you.”

The two policemen were doing laps around the perimeter of the Freemont house with their flashlights beaming into windows. We heard the hum but not the specifics of their radio every so often, and a couple times they called Eddie over for more questions. The first pair of policemen weren’t there ten minutes before two more squad cars rolled up. The new arrivals were filled in by their peers, and then they had even more questions for Eddie.

“Why are they listening to him?” Kirsti asked, sounding as upset as she did curious.

“Eddie is very—” Bob hesitated, probably searching for the right word. “Practiced at this.”

“But I don’t smell anything,” Kirsti said. “Do any of you smell anything like he says?”

“Burgers and fries is all,” Frankie said. “The cops are probably just doing their due diligence.”

“Such a waste,” Kirsti said.

“Not to Eddie,” Bob said, chuckling. Eddie was headed back in our direction. “Eddie eats this shit up.”

“What’s that?” Eddie asked.

“McDonald’s,” Frankie said.

“The one cop says he thinks he saw something inside,” Eddie said, ignoring Frankie. He didn’t care what we’d been talking about in that moment. His moment.

“What’d he see?” Bob asked.

“Dunno. A corpse, I suppose. They’re talking it over. They all smell it though. I think they’re going to go in.”

“They look like they’re getting ready to leave,” I said, pointing past Eddie.

The police did appear to be returning to their vehicles, but Eddie headed over before anyone could even ask what he was doing. We couldn’t hear him, but stood dumbfounded, as whatever Eddie had said convinced the cops to return to the Freemont house. We heard a loud banging on the door, several series of such knocks, before the wood creaked and splintered when two of the cops pushed it in on its hinges and entered flashlights blazing. The beams shone out the windows of the Freemont house, spotlighting us as they passed.

“Holy shit, they actually went in!” Frankie said, giving voice to what we’d just witnessed.

It was only a few minutes before everybody came out of the house, most of the police leaving as suddenly as they had arrived, except for the originals, who stood talking to Eddie. They returned to their car and their radios, but Eddie followed and squatted next to the passenger side door, undoubtedly hoping to keep the excitement going for as long as possible. It had been forty-five minutes since the police first arrived, and we were all through with our beer and eats by the time that last car pulled away. Only then did Eddie join us.

“What happened?” Bob asked. “What’d they say?”

“The house was clean,” Eddie said, sounding like a TV detective. “No bodies. Still, a couple of the guys agreed with me: something stinks over there.”

“So why’d they leave?” I asked. “What’s the final verdict?”

“We think it’s in the pool,” Eddie said, grouping himself with the police. “But it’s dark and the cover is on tight, so they didn’t want to disturb it tonight.”

“Bullshit,” Frankie said.

Eddie ignored him and plowed forward. “One of them was talking about getting a chopper out here with the spotlight, but the other one didn’t think that would do it. Instead, they talked to homicide, and they’re going to send a team out tomorrow morning.”

“Bullshit,” Frankie said.

“You wait and see!” Eddie said, this time snapping at Frankie. “He killed her, sure as I’m standing here.”

Eddie stuck around another half hour or so, smoking cigarettes and acting the big man. The rest of us joked about the Freemonts’ misfortune, but this longshot murder was serious business to Eddie, who refused to break character when talking about the mysterious goings-on of his neighbors. He was serious enough to begin selling us on his story.

Selling me, at least.

#

I woke up the next morning and rushed to my front window to see if the homicide team was outside. C’mon, I was like sixteen and gullible as hell, I admit it.

The neighborhood was quiet.

I gave it till noon before I went to Eddie’s front door. I felt a little bad about all of the empty beer cans and MacDonald’s trash scattered around his truck, but felt better once Eddie answered the door in his robe, a big bowl of cereal cradled in his free arm. He didn’t say anything about the mess. Instead, he invited me in, offered me a bowl of cereal, which I declined, and we both flopped in front of his TV.

“So, last night, huh?”

Eddie froze and looked at me, a milk trail dribbling down his chin.

“Dumb fuckers,” he said. “Got them to sweep the house and tell me they’re coming back for the pool.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Really, that’s what they told me,” Eddie said, quickly crossing his heart with his free hand for emphasis. He smiled. “Check my basement, right? Right?”

He dropped his eyes to his cereal bowl, giving me a moment to try and understand. I was speechless, horrified by the idea of a five-footish lump bundled into a tarp of some sort and propped against Eddie’s basement stairs. Eddie’s eyes rose and a jack-o’-lantern grin spread his face.

“Fuck off!” he shouted before breaking into a cackle so furious that milk spilled over the sides of the bowl and seeped into his lap. “Thinking I killed her. C’mon, bro!”

I left after The Flintstones had ended.

Check my basement, what the hell? If Eddie had meant to shake me up, it worked. I mean, he kind of took it back with the Fuck off and all, but I was still wound up from imagining the bundled tarp. Had the previous night really been just the typical Eddie bullshit, or had there been more to it? If he’d done it—no—but, if he had done it, was it clever of him to get the cops involved, or the most stunningly stupid decision Eddie had ever made in a life filled by asinine actions? No, he couldn’t have done it.

Sleepwalking across Eddie’s littered front lawn I was distracted by a light tapping on a window. I stumbled over an empty beer can and looked up to see Granny Simpkins pointing at me so emphatically that I thought she was gonna drill her finger through her kitchen window. She raised a hand to her ear and extended her index and pinkie fingers in the fashion of a phone—I’d missed the pinkie at first and thought she was miming a gunshot to her head. But no, it was a phone, and she was mouthing something to me, but I was no lip reader. It wasn’t until Eddie’s shadow began looming over her that I solved the puzzle:

“Call the police.”

He did it! Jesus Christ, he really did it! I snapped from my trance and ran the hell home, trying to catch my breath and calm myself once I was behind my front door.

When I was breathing normally enough to speak, I grabbed the phone off my wall, but then I stopped myself before I could dial.

Had she said Call the police, or had she said I’ll call the police? If the latter, she was probably referencing all the beer cans and other trash the gang and I had left on her front lawn last night. If the former, then her grandson was a murderer. Had she been scared of him, or had she been pissed at us?

I couldn’t tell, but if she was just pissed off, and I called the cops to report Eddie as a murderer, well then, wouldn’t I be well on my way to becoming just like Eddie? What if the cops came and talked to me, and I liked the attention so much that it was like a cigarette, and I craved more more more? It’d be a big step towards becoming a certifiable asshole. Like Eddie the Simp.

And what were the odds that harmless ole Eddie had actually committed murder? Seemed long. More likely, Granny was pissed—at me.

I hung up the phone. I didn’t call.

Shit, I didn’t even know if anyone had died, never mind been murdered.

Within a couple of weeks there was a Century 21 Realtor’s sign on Freemonts’ front lawn. The newspapers made no mention of the Freemont house, and certainly none of any murder local to my neighborhood.

Be that as it may, after 1987, none of us ever saw any Freemonts again.

END

Cliff Aliperti is a fiction writer from Long Island, New York. He's had stories appear in After Dinner Conversation, The Razor, Fiction on the Web, Nude Bruce Review, and elsewhere. Previously, Cliff ran the classic movie website Immortal Ephemera. You can find more about Cliff at cliffaliperti.com. Bluesky & Twitter/X: @IEphemera.

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