The problem was that Clark had decided I wouldn’t do anything about it.
Maybe because I was seventy.
Maybe because I lived alone.
Maybe because I had spent years being the neighbor who avoided arguments.
Whatever the reason, he had mistaken patience for weakness.
I still gave him one final opportunity.
I printed two photographs from the camera.
I wrote down the dates I knew gasoline had disappeared and calculated roughly how much he owed me.
Then I brought the papers to his house.
Clark looked at the bill and laughed.
“You’re invoicing me?”
“Yes.”
“For gasoline?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head.
“What are you going to do? Call the police over a few gallons?”
I looked at him.
“If that’s what it takes.”
For the first time since this started, his smile slipped.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Then his irritation came roaring back.
“Enough, Frank. Get off my porch. Stop acting like some old Scrooge.”
And he slammed the door in my face.
I stood there for several seconds staring at it.
Years earlier, Nancy would have been furious on my behalf.
Then she probably would have been furious with me for allowing things to get that far.
I could practically hear her voice.
Are you going to keep complaining to yourself, Frank, or are you finally going to make him uncomfortable?
So I went home.
And for once, I stopped asking nicely.
Part 4 — The Box on Clark’s Porch
I spent that evening gathering everything.
Security-camera photographs.
Dates.
My itemized gasoline bill.
And something else.
A list.
Not just of the gas.
Of all the things Clark had borrowed from me over the years and never returned.
The extension cord.
Socket set.
A few smaller tools.
Things I had asked for so many times that I’d almost stopped thinking of them as mine.
I put everything inside a cardboard box.
I also tossed in an old Monopoly “Get Out of Jail Free” card I’d found in a drawer.
Nancy had kept an ancient Monopoly set in the hall closet for years.
I figured she’d appreciate the joke.
Across the outside of the box, I wrote in thick black marker:
SINCE ASKING NICELY DIDN’T WORK.
Then I taped an enlarged security-camera photograph of Clark standing beside my truck to the front.
The next afternoon, I placed the box on his porch.
