Years of hard work spent toiling and struggling, wandering in a seemingly aimless spin that had left him dazed and dizzied, he plops into the welcoming arms of a comfortable chair. Eyes closed, he hears a bottle of bubbly champagne popping somewhere, his imagination perhaps. Figurative yes, but it might as well have been of the literal variety.

He had made it, oh at long last how he had made it. Four years of collegiate coursework, three bumbling and lackluster internships, and two low rent jobs later had led to one shining moment. The mythical “big break” envisioned and bandied about by naïve teenager, journeyman young adult, and disillusioned cynic alike. For Financier Conrad Justice the pomp and circumstance and glittering parade of self-adulation came in the form of a job opportunity with the best bank in the state that seemed too good to be true—-only it was not.

There was no catch, nobody was waiting to smack Justice with a dose of reality, or lift the floor from underneath his feet like a showman removing a tablecloth and leaving the flowers and fine china unimpeded. Just a three-year contract equipped with a substantial raise, a generous signing bonus, and an insider’s deal on a stately home in a lovely neighborhood. To top it all off, Conrad’s wife was thrilled with the new residence and all of the bells and whistles that came together with the neat little package.

I must be the luckiest man in the world, he thought to himself as he rocked back and forth in the comfortable rocking chair. Here I am in the prime of my life, having just landed the job of my dreams, out of that town of nothing into this great city, out of that cramped apartment and into a gorgeous plot of property. Opportunity had finally knocked, and Justice had opened the door before it even had a chance to ring the doorbell.

In due time the young couple moves into the gallant Dutch colonial, white and blue it was. A perfection blend of colors indeed, with white symbolizing purity and new beginnings, blue symbolizing a vigorous spirit of life, Justice thought. Poet and creative mind he was not, being a man of dollars and cents and numbers and arithmetic. However, even the most rudimentary of us can see the colors and sing the praises of nature when all is right with the world.

While outside one Saturday morning performing some yard work, Justice spots a neighbor of his across the street doing likewise. Having met most of the neighborhood folk already, Justice was eager to introduce himself to one that had remained a stranger. Beyond the major bullet points and the biographical highlights and tidbits, Justice remarked about the lovely home and the great neighborhood, and how this neighbor, along with another who lived next to this former stranger were the only two that had evaded him up until this point.

“I’m afraid that you will not be able to meet Mr. Clary,” exclaims the kindly old neighbor, whom had proclaimed himself as the ‘dean of the block.’ “You see he passed about a month ago. Odd fellow, that Clary.”

“How so?” asks Justice, partially intrigued yet mainly engaging in polite conversation with the neighbor, an old man desperately craving any attention and starved for it just the same. 

“Well, he was a most unusual figure, very private, reclusive, kept to himself. In forty years I must have spoken to him a small number of times. He was also of the superstitious variety, and was quite fluent in black magic, if you believe in the existence of that sort of thing. After his home was burglarized roughly ten years ago, he attached a peculiar variety of locks to his doors and windows, and the gates on his fence. To ward off vandals, yes, but in perhaps his only public appearance to the neighborhood, he declared that he had elicited a great curse upon each of them, and whomever disturbed the locks or trespassed or committed felony against his domicile would be subject to the curse, and would feel his wrath,” rambled the kindly old man to the new resident.

 “Seems to me like he was a miserly fellow, an old coot at the end of his rope. Just the same, as a newcomer to the area, I shall pay my respects and steer clear of any of his locks to appease his memory and honor your neighborhood tradition,” replies Justice.

Nonetheless, Justice could not help but be somewhat intrigued by what he heard, as he peers out his bedroom window late one night at the empty house that gave an empty stare back at him from diagonally across the street. An old fashioned, small radio transmitter tower was connected to the unusual old house, which featured a lock on it that was in effect keeping several of the cables connected. The entire apparatus seemed very out of place, as did that particular house compared with the others on the block, which for the most part were somewhat uniform in appearance.

     They say that people grow to take on the appearance of their spouse as they age, and that others resemble their pets. As Conrad Justice falls asleep that night, he wonders if people might just resemble their homes over time, if that made any sense, as he thinks about what this old man may have looked like...

     A few months pass, and after having found much success, Conrad Justice finally finds himself in the midst of a bad day. Under heavy stress from a long and ugly day at the office, and following an argument with his wife, Justice decides to work off the stress by getting in a little exercise by walking the dog. The hour is late, the scene is dark, and the sounds are quiet as Justice maneuvers around the block, still heated from the course of that day. The only sound is the faint buzz of the streetlight chiming down as if to say hello. Surrounded by shadows, the light has illuminated the front chain-link fence of the empty house. As luck, or fate, or coincidence would have it, the dog abruptly stops and lifts his leg up against the fence, as Justice cracks a smile and laughs a bit as he veers up at the empty house.

     Part of it was the anger and stress still billowed in his belly, part of it was the influx of comic relief, and another part of it was the temptation to push the bounds and limits of his fascination with the story. After all, when an adult draws a line and warns a child against treading over it, the child will take the warning as an intriguing dare. Does this really change as we age? The physical and mental manifestations of challenging authority for the most part do subside as we begin gainful employment, tie the knot and become mortgagors. However the spirit remains intact, and if one is pushed far enough, the apparitions may very well return on occasion.

     They did at this moment for Conrad Justice, as the old spirit deep within rekindled itself, stirring up the emotion of the three aforementioned milestones in a symphony that listed but a moment, as he reached for the lock, and gave it a great tug...

     To his surprise, it had come undone rather easily, as if it had not been locked in the first place. Shaking his head as he examines the lock in his hand, he places it back on the gate and sets it in place. No alarm bells had sounded, and no ghosts had appeared to confront Justice, who felt relieved and at peace. The weak neighborhood “legend,” well, story, had been just what he had needed to loosen up and release steam. Apologizing to his wife as he climbs into bed that night, he knew everything was going to be all right...

     Not thinking much initially about what he had done, the peace of the next morning is shattered when the boss calls Justice into his office. The compliance reports, of which Justice had been in charge of, were routinely audited for quality control purposes. However, this particular audit had revealed several errors in the reports. His superior declares to him that although he was not accusing him of any embezzlement or misappropriation, that actions must be taken in light of the recent Sarbanes Oxley Act in order to protect themselves. Somebody must fall on the sword for what has transpired, and as luck would have it that man was going to be Justice. Assuring him that he does not believe that any criminal or civil sanctions are forthcoming, the boss explains that they are reluctantly forced to let him go.

     It couldn’t possibly be because of that damn lock, could it? Of course not, Justice had begin to feel the rising heat and pressure from work sweltering in recent weeks, they were protecting themselves at the sake of his employment. They knew what they were doing, their response was carefully crafted and calculated, not simply a kneejerk reaction. The timing was nothing more than a coincidence...

     The hits just kept on coming that week, as Justice and his wife argued back and forth as if they were candidates in a heated political debate. Topics on the agenda included economic matters, regarding who was at fault in the dismissal, and what course of action should be taken in light of it. The job market and employment scene was heavily discussed, in light of where he would be working next.                                                        Most importantly though were the domestic matters, which would take center stage following the tension filled week at home. The shouting of anger in the voice of the wife soon turns into a sob as she buries her head in her hands and begins crying. Moving towards her in an effort to console his wife, she pushes away before collecting herself, as she reveals to him a secret that she had been harboring for far too long. She is in love with another man, and now knows that her marriage is irretrievably broken, leading to her desire to dissolve it. Remaining still for hours, paralyzed in shock and heartbreak, Justice can only replay those words over and over again in his mind, unable to move on from them as he attempts to gather himself over the succeeding hours that slowed down to a crawl.

     When it rains it pours, and the deep blue sun drenched sky that was his life a mere matter of months ago, was now smothered and clogged in a thick coat of ominous clouds that relentlessly drenched him with cold rain and sharp pellets of hail. It was over and there was no going back. In the wake of what he was told, he asks for answers, and was provided with them, only each one felt like a knife placed into his back, each more rusty and dull than the last. The marriage was over, his job was extinguished, and for all he knew his career would be over by the time the investigation reached its conclusion. The elegant, suburban neighborhood and lovely white and blue Dutch Colonial had become a house of horrors, and Justice wanted no part of it any longer.

     When his wife left to go to her sisters, Conrad Justice rested his arms on the window ledge as he watched her car squeal away down the rainy street. As his eyes came back towards his end of the block, he could not help but notice the lock he had tampered with, affixed to the fence sopping wet and dripping with raindrops. In a temporary moment of madness, he imagines that both the empty house and the lock were looking back at him, chastising and teasing him, giving off a vibe that resembled an arrogant smirk. If the spirit of the man and his curse was present, it was certainly taking delight in the downfall of Conrad Justice, celebrating his plight.                       

  Rising to his feet, Justice let it all out once again, throwing a bottle of beer against the wall and watching it smash into a thousand pieces. Settling down, he gathers a bottle of liquor and sat down at a table, taking one shot, and then another. Never one to drink heavily, whatever notions of alcohol Justice may have had dissipated as quickly as his sobriety on this day. Drinking to escape from reality? You bet he was. Only Justice envisioned purchasing a one-way ticket on the blackout express, no return to reality was needed nor desired. Crying for the first time since the ordeal began, and continuing to sip liquor, he put something else atop the table--a pistol along with one bullet in the chamber.

     After staring at it for about a minute, he slams the gun on the table, gets up, and begins sobbing some more as he realizes just how close he came to pulling the trigger. Scared from the shattering glass earlier, the dog enters the room adhering to the instinct of comforting his master. Conrad Justice begins petting and scratching underneath the chin of the dog, loosening the tense grip in his chest with each tickle of the beloved pet as he begins to speak.

     “You know boy, I used to think that life was like an amusement park. Fantastic, thrilling rides that made your heart beat in your chest in excitement as your hair flowed in the breeze. Beautiful scenery everywhere, complete with gorgeous women. Some rides may have long lines included, and some of them were not worth the wait, while some of them were, and those more than made up for it.”

     “Instead, life is more like a carnival. Here for but a short while, and the rides are broken down, they make you feel dizzy and nauseous and sick to your stomach. The operators are nothing more than a pack of negligent, uneducated slobs. The women in the crowd are just as trashy as the carnies, and the games of the midway are rigged, and if by chance you do get lucky, you win a prize that is just as cheap and broken as the rides. We still have each other though, boy, we still have each other,” Justice says as he continues to rub his best friend, for what at the moment seems like his only friend.

Losing your career and your wife in the same week, in the matter that he had lost them—scandal and adultery, provided little solace at the moment. He knows that the worst of the storm was yet to the pass, and it would soon be descending upon him in the form of sanction and divorce.

     The worst aspect of it all was how Justice could not help but feel responsible for his own downfall, as if that lock may have kept his life together, and unlocking it opened up a Pandora’s box of pain, misery, and his undoing. The wheels of the financial scandal and infidelity had been set in motion for weeks, and they were inevitable anyways, Justice reasons with himself. The timing was just one fantastic coincidence and nothing more. He did not believe in black magic or curses or any of that hocus pocus nonsense, why, he had never even met the deceased homeowner.

Still, the regret of his actions were thick, and the consequences, if they were real, were swift and harsh. Conrad Justice would never know for sure whether there had been a curse, and that possibility would plague his mind for the rest of his life, as he would never find peace. In that sense, Justice was cursed for life, in a way that would evoke the envy of a Pharaoh...

     The following morning, the clouds cleared up-—at least outside of the Justice home, as inside the rains of regret continued pouring down. Early on this Saturday morning, several kids from the neighborhood have gathered around across the street, at the chain-link fence of the empty house.

     One begins telling the others a portion of the story of the cursed locks, and how somebody broke one of the locks and trespassed.

“What happened to him?” asks one of the kids.

“The ghost of the crazy old man rose from the grave and killed him!” replied the storyteller, as the others laugh sarcastically.

     “Oh yeah? Does anyone here dare disturb the slumber of the ghost? Who here has the guts to break this lock?” the storyteller asks as the scene grows quiet and no volunteers step forward.

     “Very well, I’ll do it,” says the storyteller, as he reaches and grabs the lock, somewhat surprised that it’s locked.

     “Well, what did you expect?” he is asked.

“I’ll level with you guys, I’m not holding here the real lock. I placed this “fake” lock here a few days ago, in order to play a prank on my little brother. Somebody must have locked it in place,” reveals the lead child.

     “The real one is over there,” he said pointing to an old-fashioned lock at the other gated entrance to the yard, a lock that had been rusted and ivy covered.

     “Maybe the ghost locked it up, and you’re cursed now,” someone explains to the leader.

     “I don’t remember what the combination is, I hereby curse whoever locked this lock!” the leader says as everyone in attendance laughs.

     At that point, the laughter is shattered when a gunshot is heard in the distance, causing the kids to scatter away in fear...

    

END