A Walk Around the Block

A Walk Around the Block

Half Naked and a Light Rain

The house next door to me is a clothing house. Boxes and boxes of clothes. An old man comes a couple times a week, loading and unloading. I heard from someone somewhere that his wife died only a few years ago, I have never bothered to ask him for his name. They have so many clothes they don’t know what to do with them all. Sometimes when I am taking out the trash I’ll find women’s clothes there in the dumpster, so much dangerous curiosity for a lonely man like me.

I turn the corner to walk barefoot down those old brick roads. you never really see them until you touch them with your barefeet in the dark. At least half of the bricks are broken in half, and it’s not so flat and you can see the weather worn pits reflected from the streetlight on the corner. I make my way, the street grows dim, to my left, a woman I used to work with at my dad’s restaurant, her house. I tried to convince her that Santa was real, up until the day my grandpa died. Neither of us had changed our mind, but that’s when I was fired. Two weeks later I was baptized, and two more weeks later, my other grandpa died. Would you believe me if I told you that my baptism scheduled in advance, would turn out to be the exact day between their deaths? I saw both of them earlier today.

Baptism being it’s own kind of rebirth, I wondered how many days it was that I had been alive up to then - 10,077 days - whatever that means. Looking again, I am three days away from my 11,000th day (6-24-25), whatever that means. By some bizarre accident, their funerals were on the same day, those families only knew of each other, as my parent’s were divorced before I could say a word. Furtunately, I didn’t have to take off work.

I make my way to the next streetlight on the corner, I linger there for a moment. Not on purpose, just enjoying the summer night. Walking in circles, stretching my arms out wide and over my head, I look there at that house on the corner, I stand to face it. I think that’s the house where that little girl was murdered.. and more. I know that woman who lived there had something to do it. There was also something about a mexican man and a fire.

I make small circles, washing my feet in the little puddles there. The thought comes to mind, that little girl’s tears as the puddle at my feet. Even approaching the thought is a dim silence - a huff that you can’t get out and you know the right thing to do is cry. I cover my face with my hands instead.

There’s something so grim the way we look away from such a tragedy. I should know more about it than I do, but I don’t ask. I could say we do the same with Christ, but that feels like I’m avoiding something here and there at the same time. This is not a one or the other kind of thing. but one, a little one at that, that reveals to me the other. It’s my own shame that makes me look away. And that little girl who washes my feet with her tears, who invites me to look again.

What does it mean to look away from such a tragedy? What does it mean to forget that little girl? And maybe more, what does it mean to remember her?

I start walking again, past the alley to the next corner of the block, I’ve only met that man once, a nice man from what I remember. He has nice travel trailer from what I can see. I turn the corner, there across the street I touch eyes with a woman for just a split second though her glass screen. They have lots of chairs there in the yard, they are good about getting together. The next time I see them all, I’ll go and introduce myself. As I’m walking, the smooth brick turns into rough asphalt. A worn out repair, that hurts my feet to walk on before turning back into brick. Down the road and around that last corner, I see my old work truck parked in front. I quit that job out of protest for the poison water they were giving to kids. I managed to convince them before I left, glory to God.

A month ago I was laying in my bed, soaked in sweat. There’s a girl screaming “Help!” “Help!” still dizzy from my nap, crawling towards some wrinkled mismatched clothes on the floor. Still unsure if this is just in my head but my body is pulled towards the cry anyways. “Somebody help!!” My head spinning, putting on clothes as I’m walking towards the door. Gun? Knife? There’s no time to look. “Somebody help!” the little girl cries again. Out the door and towards the cry I go. I stumble past Shorty’s house and there behind a chain link fence are two girls, one younger and one older, there’s a dog holding another dog by the neck. Jaw clenched. She is trying to get the one to let go of the other. Her crying eyes meet my tired eyes, she yells again, “HELP!”

I don’t know what to do, but I know that it’s better me than her in whatever - I run around to the gate. There’s another dog in the yard, in all the commotion, there’s a good chance that dog is going to bite me. Without missing a step I go in the yard. The dog with a mouthful of bloodlust comes towards me, and I towards him. I grab the top of his neck and pull with both hands, thinking this would work to make him limp, even if for only a second. The girls are still screaming and crying, begging the dog to let go. And what I’m doing isn’t working, so I go to put the dog in a chokehold, maybe I can knock the dog out.

Sitting in the mud, the dog’s neck in my arm and other dog’s neck covered in blood - then I remembered - water! “Water!” I said. “Go get some water!” the older girls relays my instructions to the younger one.

I’m not looking, but I can feel the younger girl’s hesitation - not wanting to get me wet. The hesitation is quickly snuffed out, the older one says “Just pour it on them!” and I imagine her not grabbing the cup from her but grabbing the cup with her and they dump the water on both of us. The dog let’s go immediately.

I stayed there with the dog for a few minutes, still holding him under my arm, until the shock wore off. The girls had already gone inside to doctor the bloody dog. I told him that he really messed up this time, I thought for sure they’d put him down. I let go and touch eyes with the neighbor across the street who stepped out on her porch to see everything unfold. I let the dog go and let myself out the gate and stumbled back home past Shorty’s place. I made it with only a scratch on my foot, the dog’s claw must have got me in all of the commotion - and consequence of being barefoot.

There’s one house between me and the dog house, my neighbor Shorty. He’s a short old Mexican man, his English is broken, but I think his Spanish is too. He listens, he has a way about him, we even shared a church for a short time. He left before I did.

He mows my yard and I’m always short on cash. So he’ll come knocking, stick out an open hand, as a sign of payment due. Nine times out of ten, I don’t have the cash and he’ll give me a disappointed grunt. I either don’t have cash on me or I am broke as a joke. But he still mows and I still pay pay him when I can. Come payday, Shorty is top of mind.

Pay day was a good day, I wish they wouldn’t keep my money every day. Still, there’s a spring in my step, having the other half of rent and Shorty’s twenty in my pocket. I pull into the driveway and he is pulling at a broken branch on a tree in my yard. I sneak up behind him and start pulling at his waist, as to comically ‘help’ him pull the branch down. He turns around smiling and laughing and asks me about the branch. “Was it windy last night?” he asks in his way, wondering what caused this. We’ve had several storms lately but that last night wasn’t one of them. Brushing off his question with the equivalent of a shrug and I start to pull on the branch myself. And in all the fun, I start to hold myself up like a vine and then I swing and jump over the hedge between our yards. Jumping from one side to the other, both of us laughing.

And then, some memory of twisting and pulling a tooth, I twist and pull the branch until it comes off. We cheer in our way and he walks with me while I carry the branch to the dumpster. I set the branch there beside it and to put the icing on the cake, I reach into my pocket and pull out the twenty that I owe him. Both of us laughing.

Home from my walk, I decide to write a little poem about this midnight walk. Wanting to structure it around the four corners of the block. After 3 or 4 lines I get stumped. I can’t remember the name of that clothing house. I tried searching it on google, but it’s not online. So I looked at the streetview map but I was too blurry to read the sign. So I light a cigarette and decide to take another walk around the block and go read that sign. The sign itself not a hundred yards from me. Clothing House is the name, sponsored by the Church of Christ. I walk again down that dark brick road and stop again at that awful house. I flick my cigarette in the driveway, stare for another minute. Thinking again of how that little girl should be remembered. I heard from somewhere that trial added up to over a million dollars, while that house just rots. I can't say for sure how much it cost, there's so much legalism around it the story still isn't known years after the fact. I don’t know, seems like twisted priorities. Something should be made there. My feet standing in a puddle.

I walk along and there I see my porch cat sitting at the tail of the alley, watching me. I had just made her some food not an hour before, but she still won’t get close. I walk up to her, slowly, but she walks away and down the alley.

Some fairytale of following a crow comes to mind, so I follow her down the alley. As we get to the end, she gives me one more look before disappearing behind a broken fence and unkept grass to the abandoned house behind mine. I step into the street and wash my feet with a small puddle of water and go inside. Home.