"Ain't Got to Lie, Craig"

About three weeks ago, I emailed my flute teacher and asked her if she knew anywhere I could get my flute serviced. She told me about Paul Rabinov and gave me his contact information. I set up a day and time to take my flute to his house and get an estimate on the price of repairs. Later that week, I drove up to La Crescentia. Being the first time visiting La Crescentia, I did not know what to expect, but when I arrived the neighborhood was intimidating in the most surprising way.

Small, clean streets sloped down rolling hills and were crowded with personal gardens and the native flora. I arrived at my designated hill and made the ascent. The higher I went, the nicer the garden displays along the street grew. Regular pedestrians in baggy jeans and t-shirts were replaced with runners or bicyclists clad in bright spandex and water bottle back packs. Cross guards held their posts at almost every street corner, waiting for the kids that would soon be getting out of school. All in all, Paul Rabinov’s house was in a beautiful, well-kept neighborhood, but I could not help but feel uncomfortable.

Finding parking proved to be a challenge at Rabinov’s house, and while driving up and down the private street a few times I noticed the man living next door was now standing in his doorway and casually looking in my direction. Out of embarrassment, I chose a spot in front of Rabinov’s house and parked. By this time, the next door neighbor let his dog into the front yard and the dog proceeded to stand half over the gate that confined it and bark at me, the owner standing silently in the doorway. At Rabinov’s front door, I spoke into an intercom and met the repairman at his garage. Walking back to my car, I noticed the neighbor was still in the front yard with his dog and that more people had ventured outside during my absence. This could obviously have been coincidence, but I was certainly able to draw parallels from the inhospitable vibes I felt here to the cold disposition of the citizens of Hadleyburg in Mark Twain’s short story, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” Hadleyburg resembles my experience in the wealthy neighborhood inside La Crescentia, which was interesting in retrospect considering the Hadleyburgians were exceedingly conceited over an impressive reputation that fell away at the first sign of temptation.

Mrs. Richards, one of the more honorable and esteemed citizens of the town is the first person to realize the façade everyone strove to perpetuate when she told her husband, “…it is my belief that this town’s honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours is. It is a mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn’t a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty ever falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards” (Twain 430). At this point, any doubts about Hadleyburg’s integrity should be confirmed. This town wanted very much to be seen as a beacon of morality to those in the surrounding area. However, when Mrs. Richardson is given the sack of money, her first thoughts, “Mercy on us, and the door not locked!” (Twain 421) and “…the money is still here, and it is fast getting along toward burglar-time” (Twain 423) express her fear of someone in the town breaking in and stealing that sack.

As the story progresses, more model citizens are sucked into the plot of a vengeful stranger and prove to be selfish and dishonest until the town has little to show for its once spotless record. Despite the town’s efforts to be more honorable than everyone else, the people living in Hadleyburg were normal, imperfect beings. They still had the typical fears of strangers coming into their homes and doing harm. There was still greed, “Why we’re rich, Mary, rich; all we’ve got to do is to bury the money and burn the papers. If the gambler ever comes to inquire, we’ll merely look coldly upon him and say: ‘What is this nonsense you are talking! We have never heard of you and your sack of gold before;’ and then he would look foolish…” (Twain 423). And people still fought, sometimes unreasonably, “Bilson: ‘I did!’ Wilson: ‘I did!’ Then each accused the other of pilfering” (Twain 446). However, I do not think this made the citizens of Hadleyburg evil people, and the same goes for Paul Rabinov’s neighbors. It is probably just beneficial to know that you are human and that imperfection is ok.

*The title of this post is a quote taken from the movie, "Friday" by F. Gary Gray.