Blade by V.S. Kemanis
from Windmills: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
Whoosh…whoosh…whoosh… Tip of the blade, right there.
Winslow’s been an ass from day one. On his front porch, he eyed me under greasy half lids, his back to the construction crew on the hill behind his house. Hard hats swarmed, engines groaned, backhoes beeped, tailpipes belched. A ten-story crane punctured the clouds. “What the hell, Winslow?”
He arched his skinny chest. “Got a problem, Hiller?”
“Hilliard. You’re not zoned for this” —I waved an arm— “whatever this shit is.” I suspected an investment motive. Winslow owns thirty hilly acres and rarely stays in his two-story colonial that borders my own little piece of heaven—a single acre with a rundown prefab house. Peace and quiet are my reward for surviving five years of hell in Attica, the stench, threats, and aggression. Used my buried cash, barely enough, to buy the place at a foreclosure sale.
“Completely legit.” Winslow smirked. He spoke like a lawyer, and I would know, having run into my share of them. “I’ve leased it for a windfarm. A neat package. Three grand on signing, plus 3% of the value of the electricity produced. For each turbine.”
“You’ve got to be…” Un-fucking-believable.
He lowered his brow in fake confusion. “Don’t act all surprised. They sent you notice, more than once. Your time to object expired.”
Winslow’s upturned snout on the word “notice” tweezed out a memory. Something in the mail, months ago, legalese and fine print. Seemed like one of those worthless class action notices, so I tossed it in the recycling bin with the Pennysavers. “Well, I’m objecting now.”
“Too late. What’ve you got against clean energy, anyway?”
“Yeah, clean. I’m choking on the fumes.” Not to mention the noise and everything that would come later. “This is insane. Tear up the lease. Call it off, or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what?”
I clenched a fist but retreated before it could do me in. Walking away, I heard him chuckle at my back. The rage flared—that old feeling, my way of settling things. No one ever crossed me. I’ll just go back, take care of him now…
But I didn’t. The sun was shining the day they unlocked the prison gate and I reentered the world, a new man. Better to do everything nice and neat, completely legit, like Winslow. I called the only lawyer who ever did me any good, got me out of a jam once. “I’ll file something,” he said, “but I’m tellin’ you, not much chance of winning.”
My lawyer tried, maybe, while I witnessed the destruction from my ringside seat. Workers dug and laid the foundation for the first turbine, an enormous cesspool of concrete, a parade of mixers chugging up the hill, semis hauling miles of re-bar. Then came the real invasion, immense sections for the base and three white blades, each one the length of four tractor-trailers, cutting a dollar sign into the S-curve on the road at five miles an hour. Noise and diesel penetrated my walls as they delivered and installed these glistening monsters, longer than beached white whales and just as dead.
The turbine, now up and running, is closer to my house than his. A second one is on the way, trees felled and pit dug for the foundation. A shadow overlays my roof and extends across my front yard, ending in a Mercedes-Benz three-star logo on the road, slowly turning. Nothing can be done. When my lawsuit tanked, I started making house calls. Winslow is never around. Collected his measly three grand and disappeared.
Every day, I knock and ring into an echoing house. More is needed to get Winslow’s attention. With a hammer, I bang a few dents into his front door. Spray “CONSTRUCTION ZONE” in big dripping orange letters across the front of his house. Hang a dead turkey vulture by its neck under the knocker on his front door. Don’t know if the windmill killed the bird, but let him think so. I found it in my yard, downwind from the turbine.
Still, he’s gone, and I’m half gone from the soft whoosh…whoosh…whoosh of the blades, day and night, never-ending except for the merciful windless hours that dry up Winslow’s lousy three percent. A tease of false hope. Yet the sun shines, casting a shadow, and then the rotation and the sound start up again. That giant will outlive me, will even out-die me after we both become useless, permanent in a landfill as I decompose in my grave.
Finally, today is the day. Winslow goose-walks into my front yard on his bony legs, pasty in cargo shorts. “You did this?” He’s red-faced, waving something—his phone with a picture of my handiwork.
“Get off my lawn.” I squeeze the handle of my gardening shears.
“You’ll pay for this!” He pushes the phone toward me.
“No, you’ll pay. My property’s worthless, thanks to you.” My fist tightens, feels good. He’s no match for me but thinks otherwise and keeps coming.
And really, it takes nothing. A tap on his shoulder. The phone falls, he drops to the ground and scrambles for it. I’ve got him now, flip him over, knee to chest, and his eyes go wild. “What the fuck!” Tip of the blade, right there on his neck. It would be so easy, his grave already dug by his crew up on the hill. The whoosh…whoosh…whoosh of his pulse accelerates under my hand, overtaking the slow and steady pace of the turbine in a race to the end.
This story appears as part of Windmills, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series.
Bio
Short fiction by V.S. Kemanis has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Autumn Noir, Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Tribune online, among others. She has published six novels in the Dana Hargrove Legal Mystery series and five award-winning or nominated story collections. Her new novel Indelicate Deception launches April 5, 2025.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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