Neighbor
The middle-aged man left his breakfast and wife at the table to go smoke a cigarette on the front porch. He didn’t have the urge, but in the past few weeks the front porch had become much more interesting.
On the front porch, the man sat in his favorite chair with a cigarette pressed between his lips. He leaned foreword, squinted, and at last stood and walked to the end of the porch.
Across the street, an expensive house — recently purchased — had a large window on the front, bottom story. Inside the house, in the kitchen, probably the only black man in the neighborhood sat, eating breakfast. His wife sat with him. They both laughed. Then the black man kissed her goodbye, exited through his front door, got into his car, and drove off.
The middle-aged man mad-dogged the black man until his car disappeared from view. The black man never noticed, unfortunately. Finally the middle-aged man rubbed his cigarette out and went inside.
He rejoined his wife at table. She must have been watching her husband on the front porch as he stalked the black man because she said, “I talked to our new neighbors yesterday.” Yesterday, she must have snuck over to their house when her husband went to the drugstore.
He put his glass down and asked sternly “And?”
“They want to have dinner.”
He knew she would do this. “Damn it!” He smacked the table with his palm.
She said, “You need this.” She said it softly like she hadn’t done anything wrong. Like she hadn’t gone behind his back.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “Stop trying to take care of me.”
She looked away and said, “If you won’t, someone has to.”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” he said.
He left the room and as he upped the stairs she yelled from below, “They’re coming tonight.”
“Perfect.” He entered his office room and slammed the door. He stayed there until the evening, alone, organizing legal documents and old photographs.
At five o’clock the middle-aged man’s wife knocked on the door and said, “They’ll be here in thirty. Please, get dressed.” For a moment she was silent, then added. “I just want to help.”
“Thanks” he wanted to say, but he only waited until he heard her footsteps fade down the stairs.
He dressed himself slowly and properly, imagining the jokes he would have to laugh at and the smiles he’d have to fake. It all sounded exhausting and tormenting. Once he finished lacing his shoes, he sat down at his desk and watched the clock. Five twenty-seven. Five twenty-eight. Five twenty-nine. Five thirty. Five thirty-one. There doorbell had not run. Maybe they had forgotten. Maybe the black man had crashed his car.
Five-thirty-six. The doorbell rang. The man closed his eyes, breathed in deep then let it all out. Time to act. He rose from the chair and headed downstairs.
He came down the stairs smiling. His wife was greeting the black man and his wife. When the middle-aged man neared the bottom his wife introduced him to the strangers. He said hello, shook their hands, all while maintaining that weak smile.
The black man was taller than he looked from a distance. He was wearing dress shoes, light grey slacks, a fresh white button up with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a tie. He smelled of fancy cologne, something expensive. He was trying too hard to look like a good man.
They all exchanged small talk for quite sometime. The middle-aged man avoided talking as much as possible. At last his wife escorted them all to the dining room. They sat down at the dinner table and conversed again, but this time for what felt like thirty minutes. Then, his wife finally stopped the conversation, did that typical apology and “time-flies” bit, and hurried off to the kitchen to grab dinner. The middle-aged man was alone with the black man and his wife.
“So,” the black man said, “What kind of work do you do?” He himself had spent the last thirty minutes talking about all he did. He attended multiple ivy league schools for his bachelors, masters and doctorate. He became an open heart surgeon. Then, after his education, he had apparently ventured through Turkey for a year, offering free open heart surgery for poor children and orphans. That’s where he met his wife. She was a nurse working in the same organization. They returned together to the states, got married, and now currently work at Saint Augustine’s Hospital for the Youth.
The middle-aged man answered his question. “I retired a few years ago.”
“Well, what did you do?” The black man and his wife chuckled.
“I taught high school,” the middle-aged man answered.
“Down at West Gilson’s high school?” The black man asked.
“Yeah.”
Then he asked, “Did you teach your son?”
“What?” The middle-aged man thought he sounded offended. He liked that.
The black man had some kind of calm smile on his face.“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He pointed towards the living room. “I saw a picture of you and you’re boy. That was your boy, right?”
“Was.”
The black man softened his tone. “Oh. Man. I’m sorry.”
“Sure,” the middle-aged man whispered to himself.
“May I ask how?”
The middle-aged man snorted. “Car crash.”
The black man’s wife shook her head and said “That’s awful.”
“You know,” the black man added, “there are so many accidents nowadays. I seen them all the time.”
The middle-aged man wanted to correct him. It was not an accident. It was a crash. But, instead he looked at the black man intently and said, “A black man murdered him.”
Excuse me?”
“He murdered him. T-boned him going fifty, straight through a red light.” The middle-aged man demonstrated with his hands. “The black man died on impact. My son was in the hospital for weeks. I watched him day and night until he couldn’t hold on any longer. I watched him suffer. And suffer. But the black man,” he pointed his finger at the black man, “he died right away. He never suffered.”
The black man responded, “Okay.” He took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. Then he breathed out between his lips dramatically. He stood up and said, “We’re gonna go. Tell your wife we’re sorry.”
“Good. Get out,” the middle-aged man could finally say. “You’re no good here. No good anywhere.”
The black man’s wife cursed, “Screw you.”
The black man only closed his eyes and slightly shook his head. They both turned around, walked away and through the front door.
The middle-aged man went to the front door and began watching them walk to their house through the peep hole, but before they got off his property —
“What’s going on? Where are they?”
He turned around and saw his wife. She carried a pot of turkey in her hands. Her face was red and her brow severe.
“They’re going home.”
“Why? What did you say?” She accused.
“I said what I always say to you.”
She raised her voice. “I can’t believe you. Oh, Christ, I cannot believe you!”
“I had to!”
“You know what? No. No you didn’t.” She slapped the pot onto the table. “You always act like you can’t, but you can.” She normally never got like this.
He shouted, “You think this is my fault? I don’t have a choice!”
“Oh, did the black man make you say it? Did he grab your tongue and make you say it? Did he torture you until you said it?” She was waving her arms around.
“Yes! He did. He said it was an accident. An accident!”
“God, it was an accident. Why you can’t you just see that.”
“It wasn’t and you know it.”
She put her hands on her hips and looked at the floor and, as if she were talking to herself, said, “I can’t handle this.” She looked at her husband and said. “I’m going to our neighbors house to apologize. While I’m gone you can think about this.”
As she walked towards the front door he started clapping and mockingly said, “What a hero we have. The peacemaker.”
She ignored him. Walked past him. Opened the door. Just about closed it and added, “While I’m gone maybe you should think about us.” And like that, she was gone.
He was still. Silent. He wanted to yell, to punch a hole in the wall, to pack his things and leave. Instead he found himself wandering over to the picture of his son, his wife, and himself. He picked it up, walked over to the living room couch and sat. They were each smiling. It was from their camping trip to Yellowstone. His son had just caught his first fish. He was eight at the time. God, he looked so happy. They all looked so happy.
The middle-aged man cried.
There was no justice. It was unfair. The black man died instantly. Someone had to pay. Someone. Or maybe the middle-aged man was just a fool. Maybe it wasn’t the black man’s fault. Maybe he was mad for nothing. Or maybe it was his sons fault. Maybe it was God’s, or the Devil’s, or Nature’s fault. Maybe it was his fault.
Then, he rose and put the picture back. He stared at it a bit longer and, when he was done, went and sat on the front porch. He wiped his cheeks. He lit a cigarette. He puffed. He looked at his neighbor’s house and imagined his wife inside apologizing, explaining the whole story.
“Maybe,” he said, “it just happened.”
