January 27, 2007
The Winter Evening. (The Sam's Blues)
The snow had fallen quietly for two days. I hadn't seen any of my neighbors since I returned to the States. To make my presence felt again, I went down to the basement apartment in the house beside mine and took the snow shovel that was leaning against the wall. I began shoveling. The snow was light and hadn't yet begun to melt. A thin layer of ice stuck to the bottom of the white blanket of snow like Velcro sticking to the sidewalks. I shoveled my neighbors sidewalk to thank her for allowing me to use her shovel that i never asked to use. Then I shoveled the sidewalk to the apartment above hers. I shoveled the stairs that rose to the street. Then I shoveled Maryland's front steps. Maryland is an older woman who religiously walks her shitzu that barks with failing vocal cords at 9:10 every morning. After her walk was cleared, I shoveled the sidewalk in front of my house and the front porch I share with my upstairs neighbors. And not leave anyone out, I then began shoveling back down the steps that led to the basement apartment in the house I live in.
It was just past 8:00 in the evening. The dark night was soft and quiet. Prada laid alone in the back yard in the fuzzy moonlight staring off into the darkness past the white pines in the neighbors yard. When I made my way back down the steps to the path to my basement neighbors, I continued to clear the snow towards their door. The shovel scraped the snow away from the concrete like Velcro being peeled from a long strap, revealing a dark stripe in the soft white yard. As I passed their stoop, I decided to continue down the walk into the back yard towards where we park our cars. As I passed their door, I heard heard their doorknob turn. I turned around to greet my neighbor with the type of smile that elemental humanity involuntarily creates when you present a gift of deed or object to another.
"Do you think that could wait until morning?" my neighbor's live-in girlfriend scowled. Her head leaning out of the door way towards me, with her nicotine patch pasted to her shoulder.
"I got kids in here trying to sleep."
Then the door shut and the lock bolt twisted shut like a flick of a middle finger on the end of a wrist.
"Sorry." I said to the closed door, and let the shovel full of snow fall back onto the walk.
The more I thought about what had happend at my neighbors door, the more upset I became. First at my neightbor for being so oblivious to me and what I was trying to do for her.
I took the shovel and walked across the block. Prada followed silently a few steps behind, gently walking within my foot prints. I walked to Christina's house and shoveled her back steps. She seldom uses them, but her neighbors walk up them to enter the laundry room in the back of the house.
The more I thought about what had happend at my neighbors door, the more upset I became, not my nighbor but at the human species. I wondered how people can be so off the mark. So self absorbed to not see what is happening around them. I wondered how people can not see something good or kind or even at least well intentioned when it is happening in at their front door.
I shoveled away the snow from around her neighbors car. When I was finished, I cleared her front porch and the sidewalk along her front yard.
I wondered how people can be so consumed and so narrow-sighted; so unaware of anything beyond their own perspective, so unaware of other's actions, even their own actions.
When I was finished, I set the shovel down and walked up to her porch. I opened Christina's front door and walked inside. I realized there are some people in this world that will never have a clue as to how to percieve any idea or even action but through their own two narrow eyes and one even narrower mind.
She looked up from her desk at me through the doorway to her front room.
"Todd!" she said with exasperation, before i could say a word.
"Take your shoes off, you are making a mess on the rug!"
I looked down. My boots were covered in snow and compressed plates of snow were sluffing off of the soles like shedding snake scales on her dark clean rug. I look behind me. My trail into her house looked like fine broken china shattered into boot-tread shaped fragments all the way back to the door. slowly melting into dark spots in the rug.
"Sorry." I said as is stopped and stood still.
People can be so off the mark; So self absorbed to not see what is happening around them.
"I just stopped by to say hi." I said as I gingerly walked backwards towards the door, and brushed the snow into her foyer.
Some people can be so consumed and so narrow-sighted; so unaware of anything beyond their own perspective, so unaware of other's actions, even their own actions.
Then I closed her door.
I picked up the shovel and waked quietly through the snow back towards home, with Prada following silently a few steps behind, gently walking within my foot prints.