Righting a Wrong

“Who is the most boring person you know? Imagine that person committing a crime.” From the Creative Block by Lou Harry.


"Righting a Wrong"

Albert Mertz could be described as an ordinary, average American citizen. He lived in the same house he’d grown up in as a child, having inherited it from his parents upon simultaneous death due to carbon monoxide poisoning years ago. His neighbors all described him as a solitary, eccentric little man with little time for anything other than his beautiful rose garden. “He’s just about the most boring man I’ve ever met,” said little Johnny, who lived down the street from Mr. Mertz.

Each morning when he awoke, he would immediately head to his bathroom to shower. Before turning on the water, he always checked to make sure that the bar of soap in the tray was enough to fully cleanse himself with, and that he had a dry towel ready for him when he was finished. When he went to turn on the water, he would turn each dial to the specifically marked spot he made on his wall so his water would be just the perfect temperature. He would wash his hair with his bar of soap because, to him, shampoo was just too much of a hassle to bother with.

After his daily morning shower Mr. Mertz would comb his hair, put on his dry, clean clothes (folded the night before to prevent any sort of difficulty), and walk the ten steps from his bathroom to his kitchen to put his bowl of oatmeal into the microwave. Served with only one teaspoon of brown sugar and a third of a cup of milk (he measured every morning), he would eat slowly, trying to waste time before he would don his cap, pick up his pre-packed sack lunch, and head off in the Pinto parked in his driveway to work.

After each hard, grueling day of sorting mail at the post office, Mr. Mertz would return home to microwave a Lean Cuisine meal from his freezer for dinner. He would sit down with his steaming plate to watch Jeopardy from his favorite rocking chair situated directly in front of the television. Right after his show, he would make his sack lunch for the next day, brush his teeth, settle down in bed to read a few pages of whatever novel was recommended to him by the pretty Saturday afternoon librarian, and go to sleep around 9 p.m.

Each day was almost the same, except for Saturdays and Sundays. Saturdays, Mr. Mertz would attempt the crossword puzzle in the paper (to no avail), go to the closest bookstore to purchase the Cliff’s Notes on the latest book he’d have been in the process of reading, and then read the Cliff’s Notes before walking the three short blocks to the local library to return his book to the pretty Saturday afternoon librarian, to whom he’d rave about the book she recommended to him and ask for another for his next week. He would always try to talk to her for a bit before he would ultimately get so discouraged by her dismissive countenance that he’d pick up the first book she mentioned (along with a few choice words) and leave as quickly as possible. He’d go home, eat a microwave dinner, read the blasted book, and go to sleep. His Sundays, however, were quite different.

Sunday mornings, he attended church, but not for the same reasons you or I may attend church. Mr. Albert Mertz was not a religious man. He was a man with a mean, vengeful streak. He attended church every Sunday to listen to the sermons promising brimstone and hellfire, all the while envisioning his own personal chamber of hellfire, brimstone, and torture for the Reverend.

Despite all outward appearances, Albert Mertz was not a dull, simple-minded man. He remembered every person that wronged him, and remembered them for as long as he could. When his memory started failing him, he’d write down the names of the especially rude wrongdoers in a little notebook he’d keep in his inside coat pocket. The name at the top of his list: the Reverend Francis Cook.



“Come on, Albert. You can’t just walk up to the girl and ask her that without having ever spoken to her before in your life!”

The young man looked up at his acquaintance. “And why not?”

Francis Cook, quarterback for the Varsity football team at the town’s only high school, sat down next to the class loser, Albert Mertz. Albert liked to think that Francis was a friend to confide in, but Francis Cook was hardly a friend. “Honestly, Albert. Would she have any reason to say yes? She wouldn’t even know who you were if you tried.”

“The least I can do is try. Who knows, Francis, she could even say yes!”

Francis shook his head, smirking inwardly. The poor fool didn’t have a clue.

“Go ahead then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Taking this as an affirmation, Albert put his bottle of soda down beside his books and strode purposefully over to where the lovely Dorothy Bell sat with her friends. As he drew closer, all conversation stopped at their table, all six pairs of eyes locked on the approaching figure.

“D-Dorothy?” Albert sputtered. “Could I, uh, t-talk to you for a minute?”

Not wanting to be trapped in a conversation with the Nerd, she replied, “You can say whatever you want in front of my friends.”

“Oh. I, uh, was just wondering…” Here, a large pressure grew in Albert’s chest and rose up from his stomach to lodge in his throat. He could taste the bile at the back of his mouth. “Would you like to go with m-me to the Spring Formal?”

Albert heard giggles from the far side of the bench. Betsy and Sally Mae were trying hard to keep from bursting out in laughter. He would not let them discourage him from his goal.

He turned back to see that Dorothy had a look of sheer horror upon her face and was making not effort to conceal her disgust.

“No, thank you, I would not.” Her cheeks had a slight green tinge to them.

At that, Albert Mertz retreated to the safety of the library where he hit himself among the stacks of reference books.



To this day, Albert Mertz remembered that look on Dorothy Bell’s face. She was repulsed by him, and could hardly stand to look at him after that. He later heard that his friend, Francis Cook, took her to the Spring Formal. Albert certainly wouldn’t know; he stayed at home.

After the incident, Albert avoided contact with his peers, especially with his former “friend,” Francis. Albert’s antisocial tendencies prevented him from getting any real job, leaving him with little choice than to apply for a job at the local post office. He’d been sorting mail every since he graduated from high school.

Francis had gone on to college, at first hoping to attend law school and then become a lawyer. For some bizarre reason, he’d instead attended a well-known school of theology hundreds of miles away . After trying his luck at finding a congregation to preside over, he returned to his hometown in hopes of beginning his own church. Now, years later, he had his own small building in which a good majority of the town’s Methodist population could fit and listen to his sermons each Sunday morning.

There had been little chance for interaction between these two men, but every chance Francis Cook had had to reconcile with the Albert Mertz, he’d refrained from even talking to the man. He’d avoided any and all conversation with Mr. Mertz, usually with the excuse of tending to another “sheep from the flock.” That’s what the rest of them were to the Reverend Cook: sheep. Almost as bad as lemmings, in Mr. Mertz’s mind.

The Reverend’s name had been at the top of Albert Mertz’s list for years without any change. Finally, one incident sparked old man Mertz’s creativity to ignition.



“… So you can see, my friends, that the Lord does not intend for any injustice upon us to go unpunished. Any evildoer will be given justice upon his death, and will be given trial at the entrance of the gates of Heaven.”

From his stiff, backless wooden bench toward the back of the small sanctuary, Mr. Mertz listened skeptically. What about a priest, like Francis Cook? Surely he would not receive justice for something like betrayal of a friend. Not with the life he’d led, helping so many others to accept the Jesus the Lord as their Savior. No, Francis Cook would not receive justice from the Lord for such an infraction.

Albert Mertz would have to act quickly, for the Reverend was starting to look a bit frail, even for fifty years old.



Albert had known for years that his neighbors were hippies clinging to the principles of the sixties. The couple, Barbara and John, grew cannabis sativa in their backyard. On several occasions, Albert had seen their son, Matthew, selling small baggies of the leafy green flora to other teenagers just blocks away from school. Surely people as indifferent as those crazy hippies would hardly notice if one of their smaller plants happened to disappear.

These thoughts drove our hero to creep from his house in the middle of the night. Holding a large mason jar with a bit of dirt in which to transplant the plant, Albert moved stealthily through his neighbor’s yard, sometime around eleven o’clock in the evening. He knew firsthand that his neighbors were often asleep by this time, and rarely strayed from their schedule. Tonight, their bedroom lights had gone off around nine, including their son’s.

It was no problem for a seasoned gardener such as Mr. Mertz to dig out one of the smaller plants and nestle it almost lovingly into the jar before sneaking back across the lawn to his driveway.

Taking his keys from his pocket, Albert unlocked his Pinto and got in. He started the car and pulled out his driveway, bound for his destination.

One obvious perk to sorting mail at the post office was that Albert knew the address of just about everybody in town, including that of Reverend Cook.




Albert let a month pass before he called the federal agents with an anonymous tip. The next day, a Saturday, after departing in quite a hurry from the library (once again), Albert decided to walk the long way home. As he approached Milan Avenue, he could see the lights flashing in front of a large brick house with a flagpole out front. Quickly moving behind a nearby oak tree, Albert watched as two large, burly men dressed in black escorted a cuffed, confused Francis Cook down his front walkway to an unmarked car and situated him inside. Another man came around from the back of the house carrying a large box with large, green leaves peeking out from the top.

Albert smiled. They’d managed to find where he’d planted the marijuana behind a few common bushes. From the size of the box, he could tell that marijuana truly earned it’s nickname: weed. It certainly grew like one.

Once the cars drove away, Albert resumed the walk back to his home, whistling. He pulled out his notepad and crossed “Francis Cook” off his list and returned it to his inside coat pocket.

‘Now, what to do about that uncouth librarian?’ he thought as he turned a the corner of Milan Avenue, headed back towards his home. A wide, wicked grin spread over his face as the wheels began to turn in his mind.