The Knock on My Own Front Door

Vern Dahl called on a Wednesday afternoon in February, and the first thing he said was, “Gordon, I hate to bother you down there.”

I was standing outside our rented park model in Mesa with a cup of coffee going lukewarm in my hand. It was eighty-one degrees. Somebody two lots over was playing a Charley Pride record on a radio.

Vern is 75. He lives across the street from us in Iowa and has since 1981. He does not call Arizona to talk about the weather, because the weather in Iowa in February is not news.

“You’re no bother, Vern,” I said. “Is the house all right? Did a pipe go?”

“The house is fine,” he said. “That’s not it.” Then he was quiet long enough that I checked whether the call had dropped.

“Gordon, there’s a fella living in your basement.”

I set the coffee on the little railing by the step. I remember that, because a grackle landed next to it right away, and I did not shoo it.

“Brett’s girlfriend moved in around Christmas,” Vern said. “The girl with the dark hair, works at the care center. That I figured you knew about. But now her brother’s in there too. Since the first of the year.”

“In the house,” I said.

“In the basement. He told me so himself at the Casey’s. Nice enough young man. Said he pays Brett six hundred dollars a month for it and it’s the best deal in the county.”

I did not say anything for a while. Vern let me not say anything. That is one of the reasons he has been my neighbor for forty-five years.

“I went back and forth on calling,” he said finally. “I didn’t want to be the old busybody across the street. But Ardis’s mother sat with my Arlene when she was dying, and I figured I owed your family the truth more than I owed anybody my good manners.”

“You did right, Vern.”

“I hope so,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on things. I won’t say a word to Brett.”

I thanked him and hung up. Then I sat down on the step of a trailer that was not mine, in a state that was not mine, and looked at my own hands for a long time.