Friday, December 2, 2011

Obstacles (a short story) by Jeremiah LongBear



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.  

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