Something A Bit More Intimate

This is one of my more recent pieces, about a neighbor who I knew only briefly. CW; there are mentions of blood and injury in some detail.

The Fence

The fence still has the garnet stain of your handprint.

Cemented on to it just like the ground beneath where we found you.

I had been at this new house with my mom for a couple months. After years of foodless, mess-filled living with my dad. And some almost 6 years of not living with her. It was some months after what I have dubbed “the flea incident” from which I was confined to the couch in the living room — I was still recovering from a broken back and some of the most depressed times I’ve had in my life. Though those months I wasn’t as depressed as those feelings were replaced with animosity towards my dad for his handling and lack thereof for the situation that preceded — that’s when my mom posed the question of us moving back in together. She had gotten all she wanted from van-life and had no qualms about selling it and us finding a place closer to school for me.

We toured a few places and after our first choice fell through, found another. It had just been redone with new floors, walls, ceilings, the whole lot. It was a nice place; it had the most spacious kitchen of any we’ve had since we moved out of my childhood home (though that isn’t to say much) it had a decent piece of yard that wrapped around the side and back, with space lining the edges for a small garden. With a weather worn reddish fence dividing us from the neighbor.

I remember when we first arrived, I was in my mom’s van (the first and last time I drove it) packed full of whatever didn’t fit into the U-Haul. Before we even unloaded the first box, I grabbed my bong, filled it with some water from the sink, grabbed a lawn chair, and took a rip; christening our new porch. It was also, in some way, the first time I met you; through the smell of all-time classics; Marlboro Reds.

It was after a month or so of us living there that you and I shared our first interaction. I was taking my lunchtime bong break, and you were there having what was probably your eighth cig of the day. “Hey man, how’re you?” I was still replacing the smoke in my lungs with air yet tried to answer through it. “Good, *cough* ho- *cough* how about yourself?” “Good, glad the weathers nicened up a bit. You smoke?” I told him only if you give me some beers and some friends, otherwise I’ll stick to my bong.

“Well, if you ever want any, I keep a pack under the fence so help yourself.”

“Thanks, preciate it”

Over the next few weeks, we would share small talk while indulging ourselves; me with my bong, you with your cigarette.

Then one night my mom asked me to come out and check something with her. She had heard a bang and weird noises from the other side of the fence and whatever it was, had worried her. Thinking it was some neighborhood cat, rabbit, or raccoon, I don’t throw on a jacket or shoes, choosing just the big-bird-yellow slippers with a smiley face already adorned to venture out.

Sure enough there was some weird breathing-esq noises coming from the other side.

So we walked down to the street.

Across the threshold made by the fence

Started up the driveway.

And saw the stream of your blood.

We continued up and saw the broken branches printed with crimson.

The handprints littering the concrete like a pre-school art project with the theme of vampires.

All leading towards you.

Laying there unconscious, smattered with blood, and it running from your head.

I never saw you before. Just the shapes and colors through the slits in the fence. Putting aside the blood and wounds, you aren’t who I thought you’d look like.

I remember my mom calling out asking if you were conscious. The police and ambulance pulling up asking us about you and your condition by your name because they knew you too.

I remember coming by the next day because my mom offered yours to clean up the blood.

That deep crimson which was encrusted everywhere; the propane tank, the sticks and branches, the sides of the house, the car port, the fence.

My mom had asked me repeatedly if I really wanted to come and help because I can’t handle blood, much less blood with bits of brain and bone mixed in. But I did. I felt like I owed it to you to help out.

I remember after we finished cleaning up, going out to the porch to hit my bong. Half expecting to hear you smoking a cigarette. Instead, I saw the handprint. Placed on the pillar above where you stashed your pack of cigs which you had offered to me.

My mom told me at dinner that your condition was stable, but you’d be in the hospital for a while.

She told me the next day, the instant I finished my last bite of food, that you had passed. I acknowledged what she said, went to my room, and after she went to hers, just sat out on the porch.

Looking at the handprint on the fence.