Sunday Journal

By JOHN M. ANGELINI

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001

Waking up from the dream house

We entered the living room of our new home through the two French doors. A stone fireplace on the far wall extended two stories high to the roof. A stairway to the left led to a balcony and two bedrooms.

My wife, Liz, and our two young boys, Kenny and Danny, instantly loved our "dream house." The lake community was a year-round playground for the boys.

We had paid no attention to the wasps buzzing around the garage below our bedroom.

It all happened 32 years ago. One early morning I looked out the window to glory in the sun rising above the horizon, shrouded in a mist that created a scene to touch my artistic heart. Behind the bed's headboard was a closet covered by a draw drapery, which I opened to get my bathrobe.

"God help us,"I cried, faced by a swarm of wasps. "Liz, the room is swarming with wasps. Pull the covers around your head and don't move!"

I sprayed the room with bug killer and closed the door. It worked. Entering the room, I called Liz in a husky voice.

"John," she answered like an echo, from under the bedding.

"It's safe now."

She threw back the covers, sending dead wasps in all directions.

"Oh, my God," she whispered. We walked out to the balcony, paused by the railing and looked down into the living room -- quiet, peaceful and bathed in warm sunlight.

The exterminator found a wasp nest in the garage the size of a football. The intruders had found their way up the studding and through an opening by the window as we slept.

Weeks later, on a cold winter day, the old furnace hiccuped, backfired and covered every inch of the house with a layer of black dust.

"Liz," I said.

"John."

A team of five men and women in white coveralls, wearing white gloves, sanitized the place.

One night after tucking the boys into bed, we lit a fire in the fireplace to share a quiet evening. Liz and I sat opposite each other, separated by a cocktail table. I went outside to get another log, returned to the living room and dropped the log on my foot. A dormant wasp, revived by the warm air, stung me in the palm of my hand.

Having endured the sting, I sat with Liz and enjoyed the fire. Soon I arose from my love seat, bent over the table for a handful of nuts and sat down. At that exact moment, I heard a wrenching sound, followed immediately by the Mach II descent of the heavy glass light globe that had been suspended by a metal chain two stories above us. It hit the table with a resounding crash and shattered.

Liz and I stared at each other speechlessly, wondering whether to ask forgiveness for all past, present and future sins. Was a diabolical force at work here?

Our wonderful landlady, June, a recovering alcoholic, had converted one side of the porch into her private living quarters. It was not unusual for June to zoom out of the garage in the middle of the night to rescue a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The roar of the engine echoed like a howitzer in our bedroom above, jerking us both out of a deep sleep.

One day June announced her pending marriage to a gentleman member of AA. The day before their departure to Pennsylvania to meet his family, he borrowed June's car to do some banking while his Jaguar was being serviced.

The same afternoon Liz noticed a procession of men in dark suits surrounding the house. One man knocked on the porch screen door and asked in a very authoritative voice whether June lived there.

"Yes," Liz answered feebly and pointed to the side of the house. What happened next is best described in a report in the following day's newspaper:

The FBI and local police were informed that a northern New Jersey bank was about to be robbed. The modus operandi of the robber included attaching several Band-Aids to his face as a disguise. This notorious robber, known as the "Band-Aid Bandit,' eluded the police cordon and entered his vehicle, triggering a fierce gun battle. He was captured unharmed. The vehicle in question was a 1965 Chevrolet with four blown-out tires and riddled with bullet holes.

June's car.

The year-and-a-half occupancy of our dream house came to an end not by choice but by design. June wanted her house back. Liz and the boys were saddened by the move, remembering only the good times. I was ambivalent. June's good-bye wave seemed more like a shooing gesture.

Anyway, we rented a bigger house close by, built in 1861. We later discovered it was once a house of ill repute. . . .

John M. Angelini is retired and lives in Hudson. He travels, paints, draws and writes.

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