Asunder

BRICKS

I AM OUT THE WINDOW TODAY.

The dog is behind me eating the raw chicken back I fed him for lunch. The woman I share the house with brought the dog home one day after work. She didn’t say where she found him or what his name is.

This is my wife we’re talking about so none of it surprises me.

It’s my job to feed the dog and take him for walks during the day. Today, though, we’re going nowhere. I don’t even want to fetch the mail.

There is no trace of life out the window.

This is when an old lady drives up and parks her car in front of the house. She has no business parking her car there so I know she’s trouble. I watch her walk and sweat the way old people do like when they are about to fall over and die in front of your house.

She opens the back door of her car and picks up the three bricks that were lying on our front walk and places them each one in the backseat. How she does this is by cradling the bricks in her arms like a baby. I don’t know how the bricks got to our walk but they’d been there a few days. This is the kind of neighborhood where this happens. Bricks. Last week it was an air conditioner. Another sort of person would’ve taken the bricks and thrown them away or maybe built something with them but I am not another sort of person and neither is my wife.

We don’t know what happened to the air conditioner but it’s not out there anymore. Maybe this same old lady took it. Maybe she drives by here all the time, scavenging like a vulture. Maybe we should thank her.

After she finishes loading her car full of bricks she wipes her forehead with a green sleeve and falls back into the driver’s seat. Then she drives off and leaves me out the window with the dog still eating behind me.

When the heat breaks I will find myself some bricks and maybe an electric fan and place them out on our walk for when she comes back.

I tell this to the dog. I tell him it’s a good idea, that something will come of this. He agrees by hovering over his bowl and lapping up blood.