A BIG HELLO

TO

HAVERHILL

A Short Fiction

By

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

10/19/2006

I had heard how nice it was. Haverhill was touted as a grand little town in the way that a mini grand is comparable to a grand piano.

Everyone knew each other at least by sight... and a goodly number of "back door acquaintances" could be noted.

A person could say that it lacked nothing. Left not one thing to be desired as far as townships go. Preferable places to live.

This town stood out from all of the other perfect examples of communities in one pronounced and very secret way. It is a which had much to do with the back door familiarities that no one wanted anyone else to even pretend they knew about. Even while participating in such extra-everything activities.

You would never know that for some reason, the town was full of sex maniacs. Sex maniacs that were in such a state of denial that they would never bring themselves to admit even a brief interest in sex in any way.

It appeared to be the uptight, even "W.A.S.P.y" community.

But that isn't the outrageous secret. The secret is even better.

All of these people... most being involved in the most interesting of quickie back door excursions with everyone from the mail man, to the kid happening along the obstacle course of backyard fences, they all shared a secret that none of the other of them knew about.

For some strange reason, they all tended to blame their activities of that sordid sort on the local public greens keeper.

If you asked any of them why, they would not have a response of any sort resembling anything which made sense.

It was and is still, a genuine phenomenon.

This peculiar tendency has been passed from generation to generation.. with no explanation and no effort in doing so. It was only revealed to a few people in a recent common investigation of rather nice places to live and the histories around them.

Everyone interviewed, had separately mentioned the promiscuity of that gardener. Regardless of how old the people being interviewed were, they all noted in some passing manner, the distasteful habits of the given gardener from their particular generation.

Something which makes this all the more interesting, is in the fact that no linear relationship has ever existed within the position each generation found some inspiration to blame as it were. No familial ties. No prestigious lineage to speak of.

Just the title and position of being the local, public gardener.

Some of the people which discovered this momentarily speculated that perhaps it had been something in the water, or maybe remnants from very early witchcraft. But no one could come up with a good reason for this apparently crazy, though rather segregated and anonymous tendency.

The people didn't seem all that different from any other people of similar communities.

There weren't any signs of "Alien Invasion" and definitely no signs of cult like activity.

Only a huge, generational coincidence pertaining to insisting that the gardener was the person involved in the back door excursions, and not themselves in any instance. Sometimes even including those activities seen as normal with their legal spouse.

Something further that became a notable amazement, was that every third or fourth child from every generation ended up looking just like the gardener from that era. Without any actual sexual interaction beyond the occasional fresh cookies or some other token in a common neighborly manner.

Just as they were about to publish their documentary of interviews, they received just as mysterious of a visit informing them that it was in fact a government experiment which involved technological advances and psycho-active drugs that no one had ever heard of and wasn't about to.

Timothy Leary would have to move aside, as the quiet community of Haverhill now had a corner on the "tripping" market.

And a magnificent gardener, to boot.