It's late October, 2001. I
am walking through my subdivision on the way to Catheryn Rose's house
on Trousedale. She's a leggy blonde, but due to her interest in
athleticism you probably want to keep that comment to yourself.
Otherwise you might find yourself filing a claim against your car
insurance (assuming you carry a policy). If your deductible is $500
of more then it might benefit you to preemptively look up the phone
number of a local retread tire distribution company. You might also
want to see if you can find a front driver's side window at a junk
yard. They are priced very reasonably an will often be easily
replaced by a Step-Dad or local shade tree mechanic.
The trees were dancing off
their remaining clothes and leaving crunchy orphans along the
declining sidewalks. Catheryn has an aversion to battling the army of
autumn soldiers. She thinks that some clan destine para troopers
might invade her intake manifold with disastrous consequences.
I turn the corner at 8th
Ave and Trousedale at the Volunteer Fire Station. They must have been
practicing fire quenching. The concrete in front of their massive
garage doors was dark with the fresh stain of runoff. Enough so that
my grey low tops slurped up the excess as I forged the wet
obstruction. I left several quickly fading tracks behind me.
Something a couple blocks over was teasing the sharp senses of
several neighborhood strays. I could hear their objections bouncing
down the alley that runs perpendicular to Catheryn's street.
It seemed kinda desolate
for such a nice weekend. Usually Mrs. Beverly's out pretending to do
seasonal yard work. She singlehandedly heads up an unofficial
neighborhood watch program. It has no other members or any
affiliation with any established security entity. There are normally
a bunch of tweens forming complex social systems driven by the
availability of consumer goods. Relationships go from interest, to
love; dive into deception; and resolve in mutual amnesty between 3rd
Ave and Main St. Anthropologists could complete their doctoral
dissertations in three blocks.
But not today. Besides the
canine echos, a faint car alarm, and the crunchy victims; it was just
me and the wind. Weird. I should have been devoting more of my
ancillary senses to the route. I stumbled slightly over the jutting
sidewalk blocks. I cursed the theory of plate tectonics (which
probably could not be substantiated as the root cause of the craggy
intersection) and pivoted onto Catheryn's lawn. With no signs of a
Dodge Charger or Kia Sedona in the carport, I began to reconsider the
intelligence of arriving unannounced.
I rang the doorbell...
I rang...the doorbell...
I...rang...the...doorbell...
…
..
.
I turned and began
re-plotting my route in reverse. It was warm enough that my hoodie
was becoming burdensome insolation. Maybe I would just tie it around
my waist on the way back up Trousedale. I wondered if I had enough
change and time to catch the metro downtown. I began unzipping my
trappings.
“Hey!”
I turned to see Catheryn
standing in her threshold, propping open the storm door.
