Friday Night on The Back Deck
When smiling and dialing just won’t do
Behind me on the hill that steals two-thirds of my backyard, a pair of oscillating sprinklers are doing their thing, showering remnants of the Truckee River over the ornamental landscape, man-made raindrops visiting life on the evergreens, poppies, junipers, and ice plant—green interruptions in the brown earth that slopes away and upward from the redwood deck to the back fence line. The hill is a fifteen foot rise over forty-five feet that would give a Billy goat pause let alone a middle-aged overweight reformed smoker with sneaky chest flutters and suspect knees.
The colors on the slope are ever changing: the scotch broom was budding vibrant yellow a week ago; fractions of color remain. A combative lilac bush has yet to succumb to the bugs that inevitably change the smooth oval leaves to variegated stubble, little bug bite marks circumnavigating the bush each spring and summer. A good dose of Malathion 50 would probably hold the bugs at bay but I’m loath to make a contribution to the coffers at the garden center and bugs gotta eat too. . .All God’s creatures, you know.
Inside the house, the sole heir is happily munching four cheese pizza, grateful to be spared the “Grammy’s Greatest” CD that serves currently as a pleasant underscore to the barking dogs, passing car sounds, and chirping pre-sunset aviary that fills my backyard with a pleasant cacophony on a late Spring Friday night, a moment somewhere between “Thank God it’s Friday” and “ Honey, have you seen the remote?” It’s a ‘girls night out’ for my wife and her friends so with my daughter fed and looking forward to a Pixar marathon beginning with A Bug’s Life to be followed by her choice of Monsters,Inc., Toy Story, or Toy Story 2, I’m scratching a Friday night itch to reach out and touch someone, as the AT & T ads once suggested.
In the not too distant past this pocket of time between the work week’s end and the mowing of lawns on Saturday morning was often filled with phone calls. Hopeful dial-ups satisfying a need to hear distant voices again, to catch up on the latest news. To compare thoughts on topics du jour: sports; vacations, kids, parents, the book on the nightstand. Even politics (Danger, Will Robinson!) How’s your 401(k)? What’s your daughter /son / mom / dad / sister / brother been up to ? Full-fledged conversations. Voices talking to one another, not some abbreviated acronym-filled email shorthand passing for communication sent off at the click of a mouse, electronic graffiti destined for a soulless “in box,” pausing a short while on its way to the “deleted items” folder.
When we were teenagers we could pick up the phone and shoot the bull for hours at a time, especially if something out of the ordinary disrupted the monotony of the school day: hallway fights, home room arguments; news from the first round of cuts off the varsity team. Adolescent angst fueled by too many hormones and too much junk food. In our 20s, the phone calls evolved into talk of new jobs, new loves, false starts, broken promises, optimistic passion-filled convictions that “our time” had finally arrived. When we became thirty-somethings, we feigned wisdom, shared insights, exchanged opinions via touch tone dial up urges as they struck; we called one another and commiserated. Things have changed. The era of yakking over one of Ma Bell’s copper wire landlines has gone the way of listening to 33 rpm albums one side at a time. Picking up the phone and “calling out of the blue” has largely been discarded, a behavior set aside like last year’s sneakers, left to stiffen inside the deck box only to be worn when there’s manure to spread in the garden vegetable planters.
Life takes us in so many different directions. Our weekend calendars fill up fast with graduations to attend, anniversaries to mark, birthdays to celebrate. Saturday morning tee times dictate a good night’s sleep. Weekend chores beckon and the inevitable trip to Home Depot ( or God forbid, the COSTCO ) looms on the Saturday horizon. The rain gutters need cleaning. There are lawns to mow and edge. There’s fertilizer to spread, damn it! How do we keep the dandelions at bay if we don’t get out the Weed N Feed ? The bookcases need dusting. There’s laundry to sort, wash, dry, fluff, fold. Our garages await the burst of organizing energy that rarely comes, the surge that begins with a simple push of the broom and ends with a trip to the landfill. And there’s the nefarious hall closet, hider of unused clothes, rarely used baggage, unseen photo albums, and other ephemera, closets that habitually transmogrify from tidy examples of organization to mosh pits of chaos. On and on the list of THINGS TO DO goes and grows. It’s no wonder curling up in front of the big screen with a DVD and popcorn bowl has become more of a symbol ritualizing the time between hectic work week and busy weekend than picking up the phone.
Dusk has given way to a moonless night. Stars begin to blink and the fading western horizon turns to shadows of nightfall. The awning of the wrought iron gazebo interferes with star gazing though the tan canvas makes a great backdrop for the gnats, moths, and what-have-we heres drawn in by the light of a camping lantern that allows this missive to continue. Some of these winged visitors will end up as random bug splat punctuation marks on the stationery. Others light on the page for an instant, taking in the lines and words briefly before flitting on to bigger and better things. A few end up in a nearby glass, drowning their sorrows before settling to the bottom. The night music sings alive with crickets chirping. Houses north and south of mine are dark. No TV tube glows peering through the mini blinds tonight, no stereos cranking out tunes. Three or four doors down a young man laughs and a sweet woman’s gently giggling voice follows after.
A motorcycle crests the hill of the thoroughfare that runs past my neighborhood, heading north beyond the strip mall grocery store, past the mini-storage, down the road to yet another freshly minted gathering of mortgages also known as a subdivision, landing spots for first time buyers and trader-uppers. Northern Nevada urban planning at its stucco clad, split-rail fenced, satellite dished pinnacle. Another water-starved, tax base enhancing incursion in the desert erected on a wing, a prayer, and a swarm of sub prime real estate loans. Now a Harley-Davidson, its unmistakable growl announcing its presence, barrels southbound over the hill, towards the Interstate 80 freeway on- ramp three miles away, the rider heeding nary a speed limit sign. I wonder what the monthly payments are for a sweet ride like that, a two wheeled escape from the wife, the kid, the job, the world. There’s a price to be paid for everything, be it dollars or sweat, worry or energy. Our toys take a toll on us, either through our checkbooks or our emotions, sometimes both.
A sable colored collie lies at my feet as these thoughts continue. He goes by “Cooper” and he enjoys the cool night air, thankful the ninety degree heat of the day has passed, replaced by the high desert night. He gets his relief from all that fur during the day when no one is home by lying across the front door with his snout nuzzled against the air conditioning vent in the foyer. It’s too cool to move, he’s too big to care, ninety five pounds of neutered Lassie waiting for his small human herd to return. When I come back in the next life, let it be as a dog: Crap in the yard. Pee on the lawn. Lick myself whenever and wherever (because I can.) Drink from the toilet. Scrounge from the garbage. What a life. And no monthly payments on a Harley either. Cooper wonders what the hell is up, why at this hour closer to midnight than to suppertime, is the hand that feeds him bent over a glass topped patio table, pen in hand, scribbling away beside a moth- attracting, noisily humming propane camping lantern. The answer’s in your hand, my friend. I would have called instead but I didn’t want to bother you on a Friday night.
© 2014
