The irony.
We have lived in this house for exactly 3 years. In that time, we have been continuously and increasingly bedeviled by cars and trucks crowding our driveway. Our side of the street is posted no parking, but that has never registered; there is almost always someone out front--no problem unless they make it difficult for us to get in or out. In those cases, we have grumbled, pointedly asked people to move, slapped an equally pointed note under their wipers, but generally, we adapted, because there is usually no other reasonable thing to do. This has been going on for 3 years, and since the market on the corner has been expanding, its construction has made this part of the block an occasional bottleneck.
One thing, though, that has never been a problem: we feel safe here. For us, early morning vandals, thieves, or worse have not existed. We lock our doors, of course, but even though we only live a hundred feet or so from a well-traveled arterial, I have seldom locked Fast Eddie, our car, feeling certain, albeit naively, that it resides within a circle of protection.
Last evening, we all thought our weather was the last reprise of summer—warm and still with a golden sun setting. It was our neighborhood’s monthly Artwalk and all the galleries, taverns and restaurants were doing booming business, beginning about six.
A little earlier my friend John had brought his old scabrous Econoline over for me to use transporting boxes to our new home. John was also going to take my faithful steed of many haphazard work years—good old Trucky, a small grey (I was opting for nondescript) Toyota pickup. I was giving Trucky to John. John is a mechanic, so I knew he could do the amount of work it would take to make Trucky cool running. I also wanted to keep Trucky in the family, so to speak, for that’s how I consider John. So he was dropping off his van—which BFF has since named Morrison—and picking up Trucky.
I had arisen early yesterday—not long after 4AM—just as I’d gotten up early the previous two days. Between the first week of school and this move to a new house, I had become tired and almost frazzled. BFF as well; she has been doing yeowoman’s duty, packing for at least an hour every day after work. Plus, when it comes to cleaning and organization she gets completely compulsive. So, when John came over, we neither of us had much gas in the tank, so to speak. John had recently injured himself again, falling downstairs at his semi-permanently under self-construction house, so he wasn’t at the top of his game either.
John was stoned when he came over and we started drinking beer and, after catching up on news with BFF, and giving me lessons on how to keep Morrison running (although he did not, I remembered later, remind me to lock Morrison), giving me lessons on how to run the rest of my life, after all that we went outside to smoke and drink another beer. A little later, by the time John had gotten around to trying to put legal tags over Trucky's illegal ones, we were both in a state. I was pawing through packed boxes from my workbench while he was swearing at a stuck bolt.
John was also late for dinner with his in-laws who were visiting for a few days from Back East. He didn’t like the old geezer who had married his mother-in-law (and been unspeakingly rude to John) so I guess it wasn’t a big deal for him. He did recognize the potential for a familial imbroglio, though, and at some point in the evening placed a call to his (often considered long-suffering) wife for an update before he he went outside again to begin cursing at switching the license plates. I spun around aimlessly, except twice when I had to politely--but pointedly--remind two different drivers that where they were planning on illegally parking (although the infraction was never enforced, which I did not mention) was also blocking my now overly full driveway. But finally, our own illegal deed done, and amid hugs and vows, John haltingly drove Trucky away. Farewell friend and faithful steed.
Now, I just had time to grab some money from BFF and hustle down to Mr Gyros, before it closed, for our regular Friday takeaway treat. The sidewalks were bustling on Greenwood Ave. but I was running on empty. Back home with the food I shook my head at all the cars crowding my narrow driveway and decided I’d have to eat before I had the fortitude to angle in next to Morrison. Besides, I wanted to mark the driveway as my territory so I paralled Fast Eddie to claim the front. I didn’t consider pulling in to block the sidewalk; with the overgrown chamaecypris there wasn’t any easy way around for pedestrians.
I stumbled upstairs with our orders and BFF and I collapsed into our somewhat Spartan folding chairs to eat. God, that food tasted good! Here it was, the final dinner in our beloved home! As usual, we spun stories about Ellen, Chester, Stormy and Cleanhead--elaborating on our fiction for their lives. They were out just then, in their driveway across the street along with the aging gay couple who run the corner gift store. They were all setting up for their part in tomorrow’s huge celebration of thrift at our annual neighborhood garage sales.
But something began to look out of place outside—a car idling, someone walking around purposefully in the street. I looked closely. It was a lady wearing pressed pants and a white shirt with some sort of epaulet on her shoulders. I looked more closely. She had the blinkers on her car, parked in the street behind mine. The car was white and looked biodegradable. The lady was from parking enforcement. She was leaving me a ticket. Without a thought, I rushed outside. She backed away from me as I prefaced my explanation and implied plea for relief with acknowledgment, which I hoped she would share, of the irony of this situation. How long we'd lived here and never seen anyone ticketed, how put out I'd occasionally been with illegal parkers, our last night blah blah weird person blah maybe a threat blah...
She did not appreciate irony, the ticket had been written, she said, and couldn't be taken back. For some reason she thanked me as she sidled to her flashing vehicle. I came back inside. The phone was ringing. It was John, asking me if I remembered the location of the restaurant where he was supposed to meet his wife, her mother, and her mother’s rude husband. We suggested Googling it.
Putting the long day and its strange ending behind us we went to bed and read and cuddled. We performed the ritual sharing of four Ricola herbal lozenges. As always, we turned on the Noise That Blocks All Other Noise--our air cleaner. We slept deeply and I awoke early, for this was the first day of our two day leave-taking. This was the day we would move all of the nearly 100 boxes arrayed along the walls of every room in the house. Leaving BFF in bed for a few more winks, and before putting on the coffee, I opened the front door to get a feel for the day. It was beautiful and peaceful outside in the early late summer morning. Stuck in the front door jamb, however, was a card with writing on it.
Officer Barron had left his business card dated 5:50 that morning, less than two hours earlier. An Incident Number was written in blue ink. On the back of the card was a straightforward recounting of inexplicable events that had taken place in our front driveway while the sun was still below the eastern mountains. This was so out of the realm of my experience here that it took me a few moments to make sense of what the officer had written.
What I later learned from the market employee who had called the police was that, on arriving to open the store, he had found an obviously disturbed woman pulling bags of ice from their outside locker. Asked for an explanation, she said she had "declared war on the neighborhood." She fled from him a short distance down to our driveway where he observed her opening Morrison. That was when he placed the call. She was gone by the time Officer Barron arrived.
What the officer and I both found on inspection was an odd assortment of objects taken from Morrison's dash and strewn on the van's floor and an obscene note scrawled on our basement window sill. After puzzling over some obvious questions, like, "What's this mean? Why us? Why now?", we concluded that this had been one of those Cosmic Messages. The events of the previous evening, it seemed, had been but part--a prelude if you will--of a small, but odd, and yes, ironic, concatenation of events that were clearly delivering the message: "You are no longer welcome here!"
It was, indeed, time to move.
