To be honest, the neighbors had just gotten too close to the old man. He certainly couldn’t hide in a hip downtown where might be able to get lost. And they refused to put him deep in the woods, where he fancied he’d find himself. He had only spent half a year in law school. – somebody had a grudge on a professor; job paid for a Five-Series BMW – but dropping him in a gated golfing country club, deed restricted to seniors, that certainly seemed to qualify as ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’
The old man had raised this issue. You are not being punished, you are being protected. They told him that. He had done things and they knew things but nobody could convict. They said they didn’t have enough on the old man. Like that was a bad thing.
So, those motherfuckers put the old man and the young redhead in the middle of a cul-de-sac up against another cul-de-sac. Back to back. The old man thought cul-de-sac was French for ‘dead end.’ Maybe ‘turn-around.’ That or baroque sexual interests.
The winter was the worst. The snowbirds migrated and the roads filled up with orthodox Canadians and stroke victims from Cleveland heavily medicated. Can’t see too good but the car will do forty. In the Wal-Mart parking lot. Restaurants would fill with people who didn’t know what they were talking about but loud enough to hear three tables away. And never interesting. The old man was still puzzled, you’d think you’d hear something fun just by accident.
They can’t walk, some of them, but they always seem to be in the way. The old man knew that might be him someday. Which he also knew was crap because he had a secret nickname for himself. The old man knew he was his own Last Target. He discounted any sudden surprise. Prayer so important.
Before you could say, unknown causes, his was the only occupied home on the circle.
The neighbor behind drove a cart shaped like a nineteen-fifty-seven Chevy, candy-apple red and a lot of chrome. With a long horn, blared over his yappy dog’s shrill bark. Usually, around nap time on a Sunday afternoon, they’d come racing around the intersection. And the old man would be startled to think how any twelve-pound creature could call up such a wail.
The wife said she didn’t notice. And she could hear a demure squirrel break wind half-mile away. The wife said maybe it was just the old man’s mood. Maybe it was time for him to get rid of whatever was bothering him.
Now that he had permission….
Cleaning out his own cul-de-sac hadn’t been much of a problem. Too easy actually. Turns out the elderly die all the time. Some of it was sad, some not so much. The old man had a feeling he should have felt bad about the widow from New York. Slave all your life, finally get to retire and move south, flee all that snow and noise and traffic and two weeks after moving in, boxes still piled on the lanai, the husband drops dead.
FOR SALE in the front window the next day. She never wanted to come here in the first place. At least she didn’t have to repack everything. Seemed like a nice lady.
The neighbor next door in the pink house with the plastic flamingos and concrete pelicans, she was maybe not so nice. When her husband croaked after a four-day bout with cancer – got the news on a Tuesday, didn’t get to Sunday mass – she simply painted over the “Mr.” on the mail box. One pale schmeer, you could see right through. The old man thought she must be one cold bitch.
Which made it all the more fun.
The old man had to stay busy. Had to. Otherwise, he’d go crazy.