Thinking about Home Alone from old man Marleyâs POVâŠyouâre a hermit who volunteers countless hours of his time in the winter salting and shoveling the sidewalks to make the neighborhood safer. Despite your kindness, the neighborhood kids whisper rumors about how you mustâve murdered your family, which are even crueler for how they remind you of your estrangement from your son.
Itâs almost Christmas. The neighborhood is deserted, and you could swear you overheard some commotion about your next door neighbors, the McCallisters, going out of town for the holidays the morning after that storm that knocked the phone lines out, but you keep running into their youngest kid. Heâs so spooked by you (rumors) that he accidentally shoplifts a toothbrush. Your inability to smile (estrangement) and bloody hand (shovel?) arenât really helping the situation. But what can you do? You keep to yourself too much to know these people, and you donât have any reason to suspect something is seriously wrong. You mind your own business and shovel your salt.
On Christmas Eve, you go to the local church for your granddaughterâs choir concert, because itâs the only way you ever get to see her. You encounter the neighbor kid again, aloneâand itâsâŠweird? Thatâs weird, right? Maybe youâre not so great with estimating kidsâ ages, itâs been so long since your son was a kid, but this one looksâŠroughly elementary school-sized? And sure, you live in one of those Mayberry neighborhoods where nobody locks their doors, but whatâs this little boy doing out all by himself after dark? Come to think of it, heâs been all by himself every time youâve seen him in the last few days. And what kid would choose to come to a boring ass church on their own? You ask him if he knows your granddaughter, thinking maybe he must have some connection to one of the performers, but no. Heâs just here because he feels bad. Maybe about that toothbrush he stole?
Youâre a little concerned, so you keep him talking. His answers to your questions are a little evasive, but he doesnât say anything that alarms you, and he comes across as surprisingly mature. Maybe you misjudged his age? Or maybe the parents are into that new-age, free-range, Montessori parenting stuff thatâs supposed to foster independence, or whatever. Considering your relationship with your own son, youâre certainly not in any position to judge othersâ parenting. The kid even ends up giving you advice, nudging you to swallow your pride and reconnect with your family.
You go home. The phone lines are finally fixed, so you call your son for the first time in years. The conversation goes far better than you expected. Tears are shed on both sides, cursing all the precious time lost to pride. You make plans to see him and properly meet your granddaughter for the first time ever tomorrow. Then you hang up the phone because you hear a commotion outside. Two men shouting? This is a quiet street, and never moreso than on Christmas Eve. Something isnât right. You yank on your gnarly-looking boots, grab your shovel in case shit goes sideways, and follow the raised voices across the street to the Murphysâ house.
The front door is open. Not a thing people do in Chicago in December. Looking around, the place has been ransacked. Youâve got a bad feeling about this. You tread lightly, but statistically speaking, you probably fought in one of the Big Wars, so youâve seen some shit before. Youâre not just gonna turn tail and run. You detect the sound of water running somewhere, but thatâs not nearly as disturbing as the threats youâre hearing from the two male voices in the kitchen. You find these grown adultsâwho look like they mustâve gotten beaten up by a third guy?âabout to hurt the neighbor kid. So you look at the shovel in your hands and decide that if the local kids are gonna call you the âSouth Bend Shovel Slayer,â you may as well make it count for something.
You can already hear the sirens approaching, so you donât stick around to deal with the flood or see what happens to those twoâyou know how incompetent the cops are in this town, and youâd rather not get mixed up in some trouble when youâve got plans to see your son tomorrow. You just wanna get this shaken-up kid home safely. Except...he's really not that shaken up? In fact, he's weirdly chipper. You know kids are "resilient" or whatever, but four hours ago, this one was telling you a story about being afraid of the furnace in his basement; why is he less rattled right now than you are?
You're so mystified that at first, you don't even notice nobody else is home. The kid ropes you into helping him "clean up some stuff" around the house. You gradually piece together that this "stuff" is the aftermath of an elaborate network of booby traps that would make the VC blushâJesus Christ, kid, punji sticks are against the Geneva Convention!âand get a sinking feeling about the injuries those two guys had. Did this kid single-handedly fight off a pair of home invaders? Why is he smiling? You know the phone lines are back up again because you called your son earlierâwhy didn't he just call 911? Why is he smiling? Howâd they get across the street, anyway? At the church earlier, when he said he felt guilty for doing bad thingsâwhat sins has he committed? Montessori parenting my ass! Why is he smiling?! What the fuck happened here?!
You don't want trouble. You donât. Want. Trouble. All you want is to see your son and meet your granddaughter tomorrow. Clearly this kid is more than capable of handling himself if he can beat a couple of grown men half to death with unconventional weapons. Sketched the fuck out, you wish him a merry Christmas and go home, glancing over your shoulder the whole way.
You chalk it all up to some sort of A Christmas Carol-ass weird dream. Pretend it never happened. Reunite with your son. Mind your own business and shovel your salt. Now, though, whenever the neighbor kids whisper about you, you just eye the McCallister house uneasily. There is a dangerous monster on this blockâbut it sure as hell isn't old man Marley.
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