Ludmilla

LUDMILLA (and her little dog, Fletcher)
By
John Fern

The house was ours. Well, the bank's anyway, but they would let us
live there for thirty years until it would really be ours. We finished
the long process of closing, and had just added the new keys on our
respective key-chains.
We couldn't move in fast enough! We loved our new home and it took us
a long time to decide on a place that both of us agreed on. We had to
settle for a single garage but we figured, one day we'd build on. The
basement wasn't finished except for one corner but I kind of liked it
that way. It reminded me of the basement in the house I lived in as a
kid. A nice, cool place to hide in the summer, and read comic books
stretched out, on an old rollaway.
The new place also had a beautiful pond directly in front of us and it
was close to both of our jobs. We had heard that most of the neighbors
were retired so we figured it would be a nice, quiet
neighborhood.
Of course the day we moved had to be 97 degrees before noon, in the
shade, but we didn't let that stop us. It sure slowed us down though.
After going back to look for the sofa cushion that we lost on the road,
returning the rental trailer and passing out from dehydration, we were
done!
We couldn't wait to start making improvements. The wallpaper was
outdated by about thirty years. Along with the gold carpet in the
living room and the lime green carpet in the hallway.
The kitchen floor was an industrial tile that had all the charm of a
factory. But these were all things that could be fixed with a lot of
work and a little money. Or with a little work and a lot of money, or
what it turned out to be was a lot of work and a lot of money.
Of course, my major priority was very clear. There was no cable in
this house! We had taken the week off to get situated so I had time to
wait for 'the guy' during the 9am to 2pm window.
He finally showed up at 1:53 and started complaining right off the bat
how there was no line into the house. He'd have to climb the pole and
hook one up and charge me another twenty bucks.
I told him, "Go ahead, and I'll run in the house and sneak a twenty
out of my wife's purse."
I came back out and watched him hookup my lifeline to happiness.
As I was waiting, one of our new neighbors came walking up to her side
of the chain link fence. She was an older woman, short and very stocky.
She was wearing tan safari shorts that went down past her knees, a
paisley blouse, a large straw hat, and enormous sunglasses that
reminded me of welding goggles. She had applied bright red lipstick
rather liberally and apparently had decided that lipstick wasn't just
for lips but for the entire general area around them too. Her walk
seemed more like she was marching toward me and I was tempted to
say,
'Companeeeeeeeeeee, HALT!'
But I didn't. Why get off on the wrong foot. Instead I said, "Well,
Hello there! I'm John! My wife Peggy and I just moved in!" She turned
her head to one side and said, "VHAT?"
I figured that she must be a little hard of hearing in one ear. I
picked up on her strong German accent by the one word that she screamed
at me.
"I said, 'Hello, we live here'!" To which she then gave me an annoying
look as if she didn't like to be yelled at.
" Yah, yah, I am Ludmilla Baumberger!" At this, a little terrier dog
sporting a lovely powder blue sweater ran up and sat down beside her
and started barking at the cable guy, then at me. It wasn't really a
bark though; it sounded more like a cough. I never did understand
making a dog wear a sweater. Especially on a hot day, but he didn't
seem to mind. Or at least, he couldn't speak to say, "Uhhh, if ya look
a little closer, you'll notice that?I've already got a coat on! I
really don't need a sweater on top of it!"
"And who have we here?" I asked as I reached down and scratched his
head.
"Dis is my dog, Fletcha!"
"Well, it's nice to meet you both!" I yelled in the direction of her
good ear.
Fletcher coughed back a greeting to let me know that the feeling was
mutual.
Now that the formal niceties were over, she got down to what was
bothering her.
"So, vhat are you going to do about dis yawd?" Both her and the little
dog were looking at the grass that hadn't been cut in quite some time.
There were brown spots and dandelions and many varieties of weeds that
would keep a horticulturist busy for a year, trying to identify them
all.
"Oh, once I get the 'ol mower going, I guess I'll cut it." I assured
her.
"Cut it? It needs more than cutting!" She snapped.
"It does?" I said, pretending to sound interested but more concerned
about my new cable hook-up.
"Yah! Look at all the dead spots! You have to pull all ze weeds and
dig up ze dandelions with a knife! Then vake it all out! Zen you must
re-seed and fertilize! Zen you have to keep it vatered constantly! You
should just put new sod down to do it right!"
I looked down and noticed that Fletcher seemed to be nodding in
agreement to everything she had to say before he went back to coughing
at the cable guy, who was now coming down from his ladder.
"Well, you're all set! Congratulations! You're the first one on the
block to have cable!"
Ludmilla took this news as a chance to voice her opinion on pay
television.
"Cable! BAHHH! None of us ever had any need for such foolishness! We
all have television antennas on our voofs! We see no point in spending
money for TV when we can get it for FREE!"
The cable guy looked at her sideways and mumbled, "Why watch TV at all
when you can just crank up the victrola and spin 78's!"
"VHAT?!" Ludmilla asked him, cocking her head to give him her good
ear.
"He said, 'everybody has different needs for their viewing pleasure'"
I interjected before I'd have to referee a fight- in which I'm pretty
sure the cable guy would lose. He wandered back to his truck to sit and
write in his clipboard for twenty minutes before backing down our
driveway and moving on to the next customer who was (more than likely)
staring out their window and looking at the clock saying, "What's
keeping that guy?"
Ludmilla and Fletcher had gone back to keeping her lawn meticulously
perfect in every way.
It could have been one of the finest golf courses in the world. It was
rather amazing how level, green and plush it was. She obviously did a
lot of upkeep to maintain it.
I didn't have the heart (or the guts) to tell her that lawn care has
never really been my forte.
Oh, I've put some effort into it. I even fertilized a few times and
tried to water it during the dry spells but after a while, it was all I
could do to get my butt out there and mow it once a week. (Maybe, every
two weeks) Besides, I'd see open fields that seemed to grow all right
without someone dumping toxic chemicals on it and dragging a sprinkler
from one end to the other. Why should my lawn be any different? No,
life was too short. Justification becomes second nature when you are
just too lazy to worry about what the neighbors think.

It wasn't long before we found out that lawn care wasn't her only
complaint with us. My wife was still driving a rusty old 'Ford LTD'
that she had before we were married. It had been a good car but the
winters had taken their toll. We figured it wouldn't be too much longer
and we'd invest in something a little nicer. But Ludmilla thought the
time was now.
She snuck up on me when I wasn't looking. I even peeked out the window
to make sure the coast was clear, but I wasn't careful enough.
"Do you know how bad that looks to have that junky old car in the
driveway?" She asked, point blank, as I almost jumped out of my
socks.
" Whoa! You startled me! What was the question? The car?"
" Yah! Why don't you buy a new one?!"
"Well, as long as it gets the Mrs. from point A to point B, it's doin'
its job!" I told her as calmly as I could.
"VHAT?! What is dis talk of point A and point B! I'm talking about how
you make the neighborhood look with dis jalopy leaking oil all over!"
She said as Fletcher looked under the car for spots.
"Oh, it may lose a drop here and there but it's not so bad." I said,
rather calmly under the circumstances.
"YAH! It is bad! And you are a poor neighbor that doesn't care!" She
huffed.
"Well, I think I hear my wife calling, I'll talk to you later,
Ludmilla!" I told her as I sprinted toward the door yelling, "Coming
dear!"
When I got inside I told Peggy of Ludmilla's latest complaint about
her car.
"I know, she already ran that one by me when I was planting flowers in
front of the window. She then proceeded to tell me that I was planting
all the flowers way to close together and that they would suffocate
each other when they grew out. Ooooooh, I'd like to suffocate her!" She
said, as she shook her fist in Ludmilla's direction.
"And that freakin' little dog keeps barking at me every time I go out!
You'd think he'd know me by now!" she screamed.
"She's had him for thirteen years." I said. "They're
inseparable."
"You mean she actually told you something that wasn't an insult to the
lawn and the car?"
"Oh, yea. I got a little information out of her while she was berating
me. She's gone through three husbands. One in the war, a German soldier
who was reported missing at the Russian front. I was tempted to do my
Groucho Marx imitation and ask 'are ya sure he's just not using that as
an excuse?' Then husband number two died back in '67 from an illness.
And the last remaining husband that is still alive is now her ex
because all he did was ride his bike up and down the street, then sit
in front of the computer. It sounds like him and Fletcher didn't get
along too well either so, out he went!" I said as I pretended to drop
kick a football.
"She has a daughter out of state but she doesn't visit very often." I
added.
"Gee, I wonder why?" Peggy said, rolling her eyes in a voice that
dripped with sarcasm.
"Well, it's kind of sad that she is the way she is, but the minute she
starts telling me how I'm doing everything wrong as a home-owner and a
neighbor, I lose all sympathy for her, fast!" I exclaimed.

The following Monday, I pulled in the driveway after finishing the
first grueling day back at work following our little moving vacation. I
cringed when I saw Ludmilla put down her spray hose and goose-step over
to the fence. Her trusty side-kick was prancing alongside and had a
look on his face that said, "You're gonna get it, you're gonna get
it!"
I turned off the ignition and got out, hoping she wouldn't say
anything before I could get in the house. I made a mental note to get
the rest of the junk stored in the garage down to the basement. Then
I'd be able to hit the opener coming down the street, go straight into
the garage as soon as the door was up and close it behind me while
still in the safety of the car. Just like Batman speeding into the
Bat-cave! But, until then, I had to pass the guard on duty.
"Hello!" she yelled. I learned a long time ago that this was just a
formality before 'lecture time'.
"Hi Ludmilla, how's it going?"
"Vhen are you going to paint your house?" She asked.
"Yea, we're planning on it. We didn't particularly care for this
color. Olive drab is....well, it's olive drab. I suppose it couldn't
hurt to throw a coat on. Something a little brighter. A light blue,
perhaps."
"Throw a coat on? You don't just 'throw a coat on' as you say!"
I was tempted to say, 'it worked for Fletcher' who was wearing a cute
little black and white striped sweater that looked to have been cleaned
and pressed that morning. I was waiting for him to throw a flag and
penalize me 15 yards for not knowing how to paint a house.
"First you have to wash the entire house! Not just with a hose,
either! Go to a vental place and vent a power-sprayer!
Then, you have to scrape all the old loose paint off with a scraper and
a wire brush!
Then you must replace all the damaged wood with new pieces!
Then you put on a coat of primer, followed by not one, but two coats of
paint! And, certainly not blue! There are already three houses on the
block that are blue. You have to pick another color!"
All of sudden 'olive drab' didn't look so bad after all.
"Well, when I get a little time, I'm gonna do that." I told her, but
really didn't believe it myself.
"You have to make time!" she commanded. "When my second husband and I
were fixing up our place, we both verked full-time jobs and came home
and verked on the house till midnight! Then we'd get up ze next day and
do it all over again!"
She was doing one of her favorite spiels so it was my cue to sit and
listen and nod my head as I gave her a look of admiration for being ten
times the man I was. Fletcher would signal his agreement with her main
points by coughing out a little bark, and I'd just have to wait for a
lull in there somewhere so I could beat a hasty retreat to my recliner
and remote that waited patiently for me inside.
"Yes, back then we knew that owning a home was a LOT of hard verk! If
you didn't want to do the verk, then you moved to an apawtment! Maybe
zat is vhere you should be! AN APAWTMENT!"
This was as good a lull as any so I decided to bring this conversation
to a close- fast.
"Maybe so, Ludmilla, but we're happy here, so you have a good
night!"
I ran inside without even checking the mailbox. Whatever was in there
could wait until Peggy got home and maybe, just maybe, Ludmilla would
be back inside her house where the only one subject to her abuse was
Fletcher. I could just imagine her in there yelling at that poor little
dog that he wasn't eating out of his bowl properly. I could see it
now.
"Yah! You have to start on the sides of ze bowl and verk your way to
the middle! Maybe you belong in ze kennel, Yah! Ze kennel!"
Just then I heard Peggy's car door slam shut. I peeked out to see
Broom Hilda, uh, I mean Ludmilla honing in on her new victim! She was
caught! Now she was in the pit of doom, at the mercy of Ludmilla's
voice of authority on all things great and small!
I suppose we should have devised a plan by now. Park at the store two
blocks away. Apply camouflage paint to our faces. Crawl on our bellies
along the back yards behind the shrubs.
Then using a grappling hook and an elaborate pulley system, hoist
ourselves up and sneak into a back window. All this under the cover of
darkness, of course.
When Peggy came through the front door with the mail, the look in her
face said it all, but she was more than happy to put it into words for
my benefit.
"Like I really need this at the end of a 'Monday from Hell!'" She
shouted.
Between her and her little buddy yelping at me, I thought I was gonna
explode! Why are we so nice, that we put up with it? I'm beginning to
see why they let this place go so fast! We thought we were getting a
deal when we were being lured into Ludmilla's world of shame!"
She fell into the couch, letting the mail fall on the floor. I picked
up the scattered bills and junk advertisements before sharing my words
of wisdom that would have made Ghandi proud.
"She's just a bitter, old woman, from the old country. She thinks that
she's probably helping us. Just smile and nod and call the dogs
'sweater of the day' cute and don't take it so personally." As I spoke,
I knew this was pretty big talk for someone who was more than tempted
to run her over with her own lawn-mower.
"Yea, I guess so. It won't be much longer and it'll be winter. No more
hanging around her chain link fence, waiting to pounce on us. Do I have
any wine left?" She asked.
"Nope, I drank it. That's why I'm so calm about this right now." I
told her with a smile.
She just headed toward the refrigerator to make sure I was
kidding.

That weekend we would discover that Ludmilla had a part-time job at
our local supermarket.
I was just rounding a corner when I spotted her sitting at a table of
'free samples' of sausage slices, adding the toothpicks and yelling at
some kid that it was 'one per customer.'
"Hello!" she yelled before I could dive into a rack of 'Little Debby'
snack-cakes.
"Hi Ludmilla! We didn't know you worked here."
"Yah! I verk here every Saturday!" She told me as I made the quick
decision to always, always, always shop on Sundays from now on. I made
a feeble wave and started to make my exit, but it wasn't going to be
that easy.
"Well, take it easy, Lud......."
"Vait!" she yelled, "Did you notice that your dandelions have gone to
seed and are now blowing into my yawd?"
I couldn't believe it! Now I had to put up with this in front of a
crowd of shoppers? Was there no sanctuary from this woman? I would just
have to roll with the punches and 'be nice'. I couldn't be seen yelling
at Ludmilla in front of witnesses, in case by some freak accident, she
turns up dead. Hey, it could happen. People are found stuffed in their
mailboxes every day.
"Well, that's why I'm here today!" I lied. "I'm shopping for some
dandelion killer and snuff the life out of those little pests when I
get home. Well, I don't want to keep you while you're on the job! You
better get back to those tooth-picks!"
I found Peggy hiding over by the dairy section and we checked out and
bagged everything in record time.

The days rolled by and we learned to take Ludmilla in stride. Making
sure we didn't subject ourselves to any marathons of abuse, we found we
could handle her in small doses. We'd see her walking Fletcher down the
street every night although Fletcher fought her every step of the way.
It appeared that he didn't like to leave the property line so she
always ended up dragging him down the street so she could peer into the
neighbors windows to see how their interior decorating was all
wrong.
Life went on and as we slowly began to make improvements on our own
time, our own terms, and most importantly when we had a little extra
cash to splash around.
One day as I got home, I saw Ludmilla out in her yard. She was
watering her flower box and pulling out the occasional weed. She was
alone.
'Where was Fletcher?' I wondered. I was going to head into the house
but my curiosity got the best of me and I had to ask.
"Hello Ludmilla! How's it going?"
"Hello, John." She said. I think this was the first time she had ever
used my name.
"Where's Fletcher?" I asked as she strolled toward the fence slower
than I'd ever seen her walk.
"I had to bring Fletcher in for a routine surgery." Her voice had
started to quiver and I could tell by her eyes that she had been
crying.
"Well, I'm sure he'll be all right. If it's just a routine, simple
procedure, he'll be back in the pink in no time." I said, trying to
reassure her.
"Somezing vent wrong......they couldn't save him......Fletcha died."
She said as a tear spilled down the side of her face.
I instinctively put my arms out and we hugged.
"I'm very sorry, Ludmilla." I told her.
"Yah, me too. She said.
I remembered what it was like to lose a pet. As a child, my dog
'Sparky' had been hit by a car and it was devastating to lose my
companion so suddenly. I had experienced her pain and I wouldn't wish
it on a soul.
After a few seconds, she let go, turned around and walked back into
her house.
The next day, Peggy went over with some banana bread which she took,
thanked her and closed her door.
I'd try and initiate a conversation with her, from time to time, but
she just wasn't in the mood to talk about anything anymore, much less
hand out unwanted advice. I guess we should have been grateful that the
criticisms had stopped but it was sad to see her lose her spirit after
the death of Fletcher.

It wasn't much longer that her daughter and son-in-law put her house
up for sale and made plans to move her into an assisted living
condominium. A family of four moved in and it was nice to see kids
playing on the plush green lawn.
In a strange way, I almost miss her and the little sweater wearing
dog, coming up to the fence and start ripping into me, but with plenty
of emphasis on the word 'almost'!
Although, I don't think I'll ever forget the moment when I shared her
sorrow and was able to offer a little comfort at a time when she needed
it most.
No longer were we two different people, worlds apart in how we did
things. She wasn't a crazy old German woman with a mean streak and I
wasn't a lousy neighbor who wouldn't take care of his house and lawn.
It was just one person being there for another.
None of the other things mattered.