The Neighborhood is Really Going to the DeadGrossman’s house was a blight upon the neighborhood. The windows were all boarded up, the top of the chimney collapsed and overgrown with weeds, and cars littered the front and back lawns in a parody of a castle wall. It was impossible to navigate the front yard without getting snared in the makeshift wire fence he’d strung like a labyrinth across the grass, or stepping on the leftover rusty nails and screws, or getting tangled up in the hoses, or falling into the pits he’d dug for one abandoned project after another. Compared to the pristine gardens, the manicured Bermuda grass, the sealed driveways of the other houses on Swan Tail Lane, Grossman’s property was an embarrassment. An ear torn off a starlet; a gash on a baby.
It was Halloween, and
