The Street That Watered at Six
“Morning, Carl,” Gary sang out, when the car came by. He had practiced it. You could tell.
By the next week I lost track of who came when.
Jim from the corner, the widower, who carried mail for thirty years and has opinions about unstamped letters. Brenda and Mike, the young couple in the rental, with the baby in one of those bouncing seats on the porch. Kim, the night nurse from Hutch Regional, still in her scrubs, watering a single hanging basket with a coffee mug because she did not own a hose.
Nancy came out on the tenth morning with the big thermos and a sleeve of foam cups, and poured for whoever walked up.
I counted on the third Tuesday. Me, Nancy, Mrs. Lang, Bob, Joyce, Gary, Donna, Jim, Brenda, Mike, and Kim.
Eleven.
Eleven people in robes and pajama pants and one set of hospital scrubs, standing in the wet grass at six in the morning up and down a street of ranch houses, in the worst dry spell in six years, every one of us holding a hose or a can or a coffee mug.
And every single one of us waved at that man.
Nobody jeered. Nobody said a smart word. I would have shut it down if they had, and they knew it. It was “Morning, Carl,” and “Going to be a hot one,” and Mrs. Lang with her royal wave, and that was all.
You would not think that would be hard on a person.
But picture it. Picture walking out of your house every day into eleven of your neighbors being glad to see you, when you know exactly what you did, and they know, and not one of them will say it.
He could have handled a deputy. He could have handled a shouting match on the lawn. He had a letter for that.
There is no letter for good morning.
One evening in the third week, he came to my door.
It was after supper, still ninety-four degrees, the cicadas going like a table saw. He was in his office clothes with the tie pulled loose. He did not come up on the porch. He stood on the walk at the bottom of the steps.
“Call them off,” he said.
“Evening, Carl.”
“I’m serious. I know what this is. You’ve got the whole block out there making a fool of me and I want it stopped.”
“I didn’t call them on. I can’t call them off.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I’ve never asked one of them for a thing. Ask them.”
“I’m not going to ask them. I don’t know them.”
It came out of him faster than he meant it to. He heard it too. He looked off down the street, at the Hendersons’ porch light, at Mrs. Lang’s empty hook where the chimes used to hang.
“I got your check,” he said, after a bit. “Linda put it on my desk. She hasn’t said ten words to me since.”
“It’s a fair price for a polish.”
“I’m not cashing it.”
“That’s up to you.”
“I don’t want your money. I want,” and he stopped, and put his hands on his hips, and stared at my boots. “I had a point. About the car. I had a legitimate point and I told you politely and you ignored it.”
“You did have a point. I said so in May and I’ll say so now. I should’ve fixed all six and I fixed one. That’s on me.”