Walter Jesup held his shotgun tightly against himself. Even at four in the afternoon, an uninvited visitor on his front porch was suspicious. He could hear someone creeping just outside the door, fiddling with the mail slot. Walter cocked his weapon with a clean, swift stroke. The mail slot closed abruptly, followed close by the flutter of falling mail. The stranger stomped down the porch steps.
Pulling away the steel-reinforced hatch, Walter peered through the thick glass port he’d installed in his front door. The substitute mail carrier strolled away some four hours after the usual guy did his rounds. After a few quick glances left and right and a slam, the column of natural light of Walter’s den eclipsed into darkness.
From the outside the ranch-style house he shared with his wife appeared derelict, heavy blinds drawn down every window. Prominent signage warned that the home was protected by “Smith and Wesson,” and the owner had six good reasons to stay away. The spot for a doorbell camera lay open like a wound. Inside the den, the loaded revolver he carried everywhere sat on the coffee table. The shotgun remained empty, tucked into the coat closet as a friendly deterrent. Walter Jesup didn’t need to spray and pray. He was a crack shot ever since his service days.
The recliner in one corner was perfectly broken into. Walter eased back into it, adjusting his body until he felt everything fall into groove. The short-wave radio crackled at modest volume; the television was even quieter. One provided the running sports updates, the other showed the news. Another attack, this one just a few streets away. He could just make out the neighborhood from the news camera panning from the moving van.
“Aww, even in our community.” Walter turned to see his wife standing in the doorway, gazing at the television. “Terrible,” she continued. “Just terrible.” He noticed her shoes and jacket. “Where you about to go?”
“To church.” Walter strained forward in his recliner. “Weren’t you just up there to cook? Haven’t you done enough for people?” Eberly Jesup softened her expression while her posture became more stoic. “They need help making deliveries. We added more to the list.”
On Thursdays the Living Waters Baptist Church served free hot dinners openly to the community. Now they were bringing them to the elderly and disabled. “You know what they used to call a woman like you?” asked Walter. Eberly turned and left before he had a chance to answer. “A church mouse!” he called after her. “A poor broke woman who got no husband, got nobody left but her church. You…” The backdoor shut followed by the metallic sounds of locks and bolts being closed from the outside.
Walter was sick of eating church food for dinner and the prior conversation just confirmed that’s what he’d get. Not just cheap soup kitchen food, but cold, cheap soup kitchen food. The shit they let her take home after everyone else had eaten. Another load of soggy glazed carrots and he’d scream.
Every day before marrying his wife, Walter had fought to be at the emotional center of a woman’s life. Eberly had been his happy ending, and his first few years of marriage were like blissfully watching the credits roll, hoping for some cutaway scenes or bloopers as some final bonus content. Then a new movie started about children, extended family and community. It put him back at square one. That’s life, he heard his own mother say in his mind. Only thing you could do was try.
The chamber-like den was cast in a piss orange glow, aging bulbs reflecting off nicotine-stained walls. Radio wire twisted around the room below the ceiling while old newspapers were piled in boxes pushed up against blackout, film-covered windows. College sports emanated from the radio through static. The news was covering something else now, a local hotshot was under investigation by the Feds. Walter cackled as he watched the embarrassed executive shrink from the cameraman pursuing on foot. “Dogs,” he laughed. “Dirty unwashed dogs. Every last one of them.”
Hollers from outside now. Walter had grown up right next to train tracks and guests always complained about an unbearable racket he never noticed. Loud voices from outside his current address were similar but with one difference; a voice he recognized would fire into his consciousness like a bolt. One of the voices was a neighbor he knew, a woman who had a no-good son. People only hollered at her when that no-good son was back in town.
Walter stood up with a grimace, his knees hyper-extended. Sensing them hold steady, he started walking to the restroom, pistol gripped in his right hand. The toilet was when he felt most vulnerable, besides asleep in bed. Party pop-its were taped to match strips glued to window blinds but not in the bathroom or bedroom. Eberly claimed the aesthetic in those rooms, and it wasn’t security themed. Walter thought about his bowel movements as scented wax melted beside him. Autumn. Why did it have to smell like autumn inside when it already smelled like autumn outside? he thought.
A loud crash interrupted Walter’s throne meditation. This time he got up too quickly and went right back down, gritting his teeth as he cried through the pain. His wife’s cat pattered past the open restroom door, pausing to look at him without showing interest. “I’m going to kill you cat!” he yelled as he worked his way back onto the toilet. Not even in the bathroom could he realize peace.
The backdoor opened just as he exited the immaculate restroom for the shadowy hallway. He held his breath but a moment before he recognized Eberly’s footsteps. “Walter?”
A surge of hope rose inside the man as he pictured her asking him what he wanted her to make for dinner. It sank as he saw her set down a white clamshell food container on the kitchen counter. Smelled like turkey and dressing, only not the good kind. It also typically came with glazed carrots. “Back so soon?”
“I need you to go check on someone,” his wife told him. Walter slowly raised his hand to his temples, rubbing in agitation while the little woman peppered him with details he wasn’t listening to. She stopped talking and he looked up again, hoping she was finally finished. “Joneses have been good to us before, so now we can afford to be good to them.”
Walter returned to his wince. He didn’t remember Joneses ever doing anything good for him before.
“Take this over. Get someone to open the door, don’t just leave it. Everyone down at the church is worried sick. Hurry back.” She thrust the foam container into her husband’s hands. “I’ll bring you yours home when it’s over.”
Walter watched as his wife’s dingy foreign car rattled out of the driveway. His own American car backed out shortly after. The car radio gave him the news of a politician out west who got busted for soliciting minors. “Stupid ass,” he muttered. He wondered how long they’d been watching him first.
His street was a living contradiction. Legally domiciled homes were tidy and neat, those infested with squatters rotted beneath old garbage and new overgrowth. Empty lots marked the spot where condemned structures had been euthanized via bulldozer. Tyrell Robinson was outside hanging stringed bulbs out to his mother’s backyard pavilion. He called out and waved to Walter, Walter returned a tired scowl. Before he married Eberly he’d been chill with Angela Robinson. Good memories. Very good memories. The beautiful young woman was but a memory forevermore; a big round woman replaced her. At least Eberly knew how to put down the fork.
The Joneses were Harlan and Estelle, a couple older than they were who had welcomed them to the neighborhood when they first moved in many years ago. Harlan had lost his mind to dementia and Estelle was more and more reclusive as a result. Several months earlier Harlan left the house to walk to work. He had been retired for years, and his old job was eleven minutes away by car. The July heat nearly killed him, and the first responders called it in as a drug overdose. They would have charged him had their pastor not made the right phone calls.
Estelle now lived as Walter lived, at home and out of trouble. She kept her eye on Harlan; Walter kept his eye on everyone. Only Estelle and Harlan Jones hadn’t been seen by anyone in more than a week, and they never answered their phone.
Walter turned onto the next street over where their clapboard duplex sat. Joneses lived on the lower level. No one knew the people who lived on the upper level. The porch was cluttered with old furniture and piles and piles of glass jars and bottles. Walter made a mental note for the next time Eberly bitched at him for the newspapers that were piling up. The recycling center was just not a common place for a black man to spend his time.
“Walter Jesup! Here from Living Water!” He didn’t expect a response. Sneaking up on a black person was risky. Walter understood that as well as anyone. A polite knock.
A gentle note pushed under the door with one more knock.
Walter walked out to the street and stood facing the building, holding the clamshell up as if offering it. A minute passed. A familiar gentleman hailed him from a passing bicycle. Walter waved back with his right hand while carrot water spilled out the clamshell’s left side.
No signs of life from the downstairs. Checking over his shoulder to see who was watching, Walter stealthily made his way to the rear of the building while carefully minding his knees. Empty dog bowls and a tangled lead lay by the back door. The back door was ajar. Walter hadn’t heard anything about the Joneses getting a dog, although he hadn’t spoken to either of them in months. Sliding his hand through the narrow opening he yelled for Harlan. After a moment of staring into the empty silence he gently asked for Estelle. Did he wander off and she go looking for him? he wondered as he opened the door wider. A stench of old dog poop reached his nose at the same time soiled newspapers came into view. Then epiphany. Why wasn’t the dog barking at him?
Walter jolted backwards. The prowler had hit just two streets down from where he was standing. The wind blew piles of leaves against the chain link fence at the back of the property.
Wobbling back to his vehicle Walter looked up as the streetlights came on. Every day would get darker sooner until the Solstice. He got in his car so quickly he almost set the drippy clamshell directly onto the passenger seat. Walter kept grocery bags in the center console for a reason. The drive home was spent rehearsing how he’d explain things to Eberly. “Nobody came to the door” was easy. Justifying that he’d been through enough without getting involved if there was a problem was harder.
