End

End1

I had gone back to Colbert City to make sure it was gone. The houses could still be there, but I needed to know, for sure, that everything I had known was gone. I went up between the old crumbling homes and peaked in windows. None of the homes were all that old, built in the early 70’s, but like everything from back then it was cheap and done for speed and temporary use…we were all on the move. On the move and leaving so much behind2

Looking in through the permanently glazed window of a small stucco one-story I remembered exactly who had lived there. Ricky Summers. The house had always smelled like baked things and flowers, his ma was a classy girl. When she and Ricky’s old man had moved in it had been quite the scandal. Ricky’s pa was a mechanic. They all said it wouldn’t last; they were too different, she would realize her mistake. But to be honest, this couple who seemed so odd, with Mrs. Summers soft and lovely and classy and Mr. Summers hard and dark and always covered in car fluids, was the happiest in the neighborhood. Which made Ricky a favorite target for most kids. I remember beating on him just like all the others, following the pack, and wondering how a kid who had such a great support system at home could end up so weak. It turned out all Ricky needed was something to defend beside himself, which he got in his little sister Melissa. After that, mess with Ricky, or worse, Melissa, and he’d burn you. Literally. The kid set you on fire. After Ricky developed his fire habit most kids left him alone or befriended him. I befriended him cause he was spazy and I figured it was always best to be on the good side of a spaz. We got along well for a while, all through Middle School and most of High School. He was one of the coolest pyros I knew. Until pretty little 11-year old Melissa’s body was found in a trashcan, beaten in every way. After that he was put in jail. Not for Melissa. For locking the boys he figured were the culprits in a shed and burning them. I had come by in the middle of it (I have a bad habit of happening into things in the middle) and found him sitting in a lawn chair in his swim trunks, seeming to be sunbathing by the fire. He didn’t seem too fazed by the smell. Now Ricky’s house was empty. No pretty Mrs. Summers baking cookies. No harsh Mr. Summers trying to steal one. No Melissa singing something sweet and childish. No Ricky staring longingly at the fire of the stovetop. 3

The next house was the oldest I could remember. Jackie Lash’s Old House. Sometimes the “old” was substituted with “whore”. I was never sure, but rumor had it Jackie’s ma had been a prostitute down in LA before moving here with Jackie’s step dad. Apparently he had a lot of money (or Jackie’s ma wouldn’t have married him) but all I ever heard of him doing was drink. He died when Jackie was about 13. After that her mom took up her dads old position of drinking. A lot of people contributed this to Jackie’s “declining character”. But I knew different, Jackie hadn’t been the sweet child she looked like since she was 10. Most of the boys said what she was was genetic. Her ma had groomed her for it. Maybe that was true, she was most definitely highly skilled in making herself seem skanky. But if you waited long enough you could see that look. That tired, fed-up, look. I see that look on lots of people, everyone I’ve ever met in fact. But it always seems most intense with long repression in girls like Jackie. In the end I guess Jackie finally got it all out. She became “The Scarlet” as the newspapers named her, lovely killer of men. They glorified it, hyped it up: “The silky supple temptress of the streets”. She was really just a girl tired of being used, not by everyone else I like to think, but by her self. Her house was still being used. A poorly looking family of one frail woman and three bawling children sat in the kitchen. One caught site of me and let out a howl, but the mom slapped it and shoved broccoli in its mouth. 4

I walked across the street; mind too centered on what had to happen to think of the rain that was coming down. In most places when it rains there’s a sweet watery smell, and afterwards everything smells deliciously fresh. Here rain made the smell of the decaying cars and their dripping liquids twice as strong, and the only smell left was wet dog and depression. Somehow it was comforting. I checked over five other houses, thinking of all the tragedies that struck at them. Making sure that they were empty of the people from my world. Luckily I didn’t have to climb anything to assure vacancy. All these homes had one story. One story to tell, all sad as hell. I just had a few more to go. The most important few. 5

The First of my Few was the Gaul’s home. I knew they wouldn’t still be there, but I checked anyway. Their house was the most mismatched in the neighborhood. Mr. Gaul had been a sporadic builder. He’d wake up one day and decide they needed a third sunroom, so he’d build it in a week. He felt also that the house didn’t have enough unique architecture, so each thing he built was from a different time period and region of the world. Though Gaul had never been outside of California and hadn’t properly graduated High school it still had a worldly clashing effect. Missy Gaul hadn’t come out much, only to throw a beer bottle at her husband (or brother, no one was ever sure). She did seem to like Melissa and would teacher her harping songs that she claimed came from “the old country”. Though Mr. Gaul would make faces and tell anyone near-by that Missy was eight generations from Utah and just liked to jibber because she couldn’t sing in any proper language. The year I went into Middle School the Gauls were found lying peacefully on their lawn one morning, frozen. Theories spouted about what had happened, and like so many secrets of this neighborhood, for some reason I bore the truth. I had watched poor Missy Gaul from my window. Mr. Gaul had died in the night. Somehow Missy deduced that he shouldn’t be kept indoors. He hated that house, that’s why he always worked so hard to change it. So she dragged him out onto the lawn where he spent most his time sitting, laid beside him, and let herself slip away too. This struck out from my muddled memories as most important because I think it was the beginning of my growing up. My losing the belief in fairness. That misshapen house had had the worst crime committed against it that I had ever seen. Someone, some uncaring monster who never knew what it all had meant, had torn the house down to its original frame. And was using it for storage. With a sadder heart than when my walk had started I went on to my Second Few. 6

This one was mine. Though it was not the most important on this trip. My own place, my house, and I wish I could say “my home”. I didn’t bother remembering. You don’t need to remember your own particular childhood. What went on in my house went on in dozens of houses. An angry abusive father, a sniveling mother who didn’t have enough strength to remove herself or her kids from the situation, but could still take her feelings out on you, and numerous siblings with all their small tales of rebellion and woe. And then mine of course, but I knew mine too well to have to remember. I grew up idealistic; over analyzing everything, and thinking I’d beat it all into being “right”. I ended up in jail for 20 years. I could go into the long transition, but I won’t. You can hear that anywhere. It happens to most of us. Maybe not the extremes that I got, but it’s a classic tale. I don’ think it proper to retell my falling-from-grace story when the point of all this was to look at all the other stories that had happened around me. I went around the entire house; I needed to be very sure this house was empty. I hadn’t heard from any family since I “went away” when I was 19. Either they were dead or still slouching through life somewhere else. All this old thing held was a timid stray dog with a bundle of straggly pups. No doubt some coarse kids would find them and practice shooting later. For now I left the old bitch and her little ones to the comfort of my old hell. 7

These steps were hard. I’m not sure if it was going away from the biggest icon of my past, or going towards what I knew would be the biggest icon of my end. 8

It was the Last of my Few. The most important. As the most important it was the biggest surprise. All the other houses had fallen into worse decay than they had been in when I’d known them, but this one seemed newer. This was Ophelia Horton’s home. Opie, as I had called her, was the main goal of my mission back here. Throughout my entire life she was a guiding force. Not my girl next-door, she lived about 3 blocks from me, but she was my girl. We had been (or had thought we had been) the only halfway sane people for 30 miles. We would sit up on a roof or run down to a beach if we could, and discuss all our people watching. How Mr. Shem on Magnolia Ave. mowed his lawn everyday, at the exact time Mr. Palp across the street would trim his hedges. Both would perform their gardening duties shirtless. Mrs. Shem and Palp liked to sit in one or another’s kitchens squawking on how their men “raced” each other through chores. Both seemed oblivious to the heated glances or overly throaty “good-natured” calls. Or how Mick Bornens would beat on every little kid he could find, then go into the privacy of his backyard and cuddle a brown rabbit that he seemed to call “Shnuffles”. After discussing local characters we went on to detail our Utopia. How it would work, why it would work, why it never worked for anyone, but would most certainly work for us. It would work for us because we wouldn’t let it not work. We were logical. Now her house, which had always seemed surprisingly dreary for the moderately happy girl she was, seemed to have begun reflecting its old owner. Or current owner? For the fist time this day I snuck up to a window. Inside it was even brighter. Completely remodeled, painted in all shades of desperately cheery yellows. A soft smell of a roast beef came wafting through the slightly lifted window, and I could hear a television playing somewhere in another room. With a start I realized there was someone in this kitchen. A woman who looked a little frazzled and over worked but healthy, and had somehow stolen Opie's face. Trying hard not to move from shock I realized it was my Opie, and she was staring right at me. Except that she wasn’t. She was just staring absentmindedly out a window. And didn’t see me. She didn’t see me. 9

The girl who had been as perceptive as I couldn’t see her childhood sweetheart crouching in her kitchen window, nose stuck under its open crack to steal the smells. It did make sense, for however heartbreaking it was. I had lost my sight, my perception, my feeling, a long time ago. She looked like she still had feeling, her eyes still glittered in a lifelike way, but she had lost all perception. Luckily I had already learned that being without perception doesn’t mean being without happiness. I would have been doubly crushed then if I hadn’t. If I had thought, “Oh she’s so unhappy, I’ll go in and change it all!” Right then a little girl, a little Opie with lighter hair and darker eyes came screeching in, perused by another more boyish Opie with red hair and Opie’s eyes. She gathered them both in an easy swoop, and she smiled. I won’t lie that it did sting. For many reasons, but besides the obvious one, that that smile was more free and unclouded than any she had had with me. She had lost her perception, but she had gained comfort and contentment. I had lost my perception, and I was standing in the rain watching the woman I had loved cuddle someone else’s kids. How had we both come out so differently from losing our youthful idealism? I’m not too sure. I suppose because I was bitter that I couldn’t change the world. Bitter that I could see all that was wrong but couldn’t do anything. She saw the same things, saw she couldn’t change it, and she had relented. She had gone on empty, but had filled what she could with whatever she could find. Family, a home, maybe a job judging from the work suit she wore. With a sigh I stepped away. In a hurried kind of way. I told myself I slipped, but in reality I was desperate not to see who had filled my place. I didn’t need that much closure. She was my girl, keyword “was”. She is happier like this, keyword “is”. And I had nothing to keep me here, keyword “nothing”. 10

I made my way slowly back out of the neighborhood. Savoring the senses, if only to rid myself for once of all the thoughts. The jagged sides of tired houses, the feel of dirty rain, the smell of hard life, the sound of cars far away, people busy with their days. It was such a relief that I didn’t have to be busy or have days. Not anymore. I got in my car and drove out to the motel I had been staying in. Carefully cleaning all my things up, leavening a quick note. Citing that I was a convict and my parole number, not really to obey anything, but more to let whoever found me ease their mind in knowing I didn’t matter all that much. I used the shower because I didn’t want the poor maid to have to clean anything up, or whoever got the room after me to wonder if those really were blood stains, or just wine or tomato juice or some other odd fluid. I had imagined sighing, getting some great epiphany, feeling regretful, maybe doubtful. But I didn’t. It was all rather businesslike. I had done all my thinking, my reasoning, my remembering. This was my logical conclusion. This was my End. 11