Everyone left town early, until it felt like it was just G and myself, the rest of Glover Park entirely empty. Smoking on my porch before bed one night, I thought: even the lights on the horizon look dimmer. We took to the porch again the next night, finished a bottle of wine nestled in second-story beach chairs. We went inside, then away for our holidays. I left the bottle out there for months.
I am the kind of asshole who clutters a perfectly lovely back porch with unwanted furniture, disintegrating cardboard boxes, discarded books, bags of clothes for Goodwill. Why bother with a table and real chairs when we could just sit on this old desk? You're too good to sink your ass to the floor into one of those terribly awkward canvas chairs? Of course you're not, I'm just kidding. I'm aware it's a terrible system. I've thought about changing it, about throwing all the shit away and making it a pleasant space to sit and chat. I think about it for two minutes before declaring: 'Isn't it already a pleasant place to sit and chat simply by virtue of being a porch? Just let it be a porch!' So it stays how it is, and yes, I see that's pretty bullshit and mostly a function of my general laziness and because sometimes I am a shit friend who does not care about your comfort. You know who is not a shit friend? Kyle.
A few weeks ago we were standing out there while I determined the proper outerwear, and Kyle, as he has done in the past, handed out the gentlest of porch shamings: 'It's so nice out here; 'Chairs would be awesome'; 'I could help you take the boxes down'. Wonderful, kind hints to which I typically respond "Come on Kyle, then I couldn't throw my garbage out here" because I am the kind of person who will regularly throw a bag of garbage or empty box of wine out onto the porch rather than carrying it down to the cans. Then, as usual, he left it alone. There are only so many times you can ask an adult to throw her trash away properly before you start wondering why you're still friends with this lunatic.
I had to go to New York last week for work. The Saturday before I left it was sunny and kind of nice and I opened the porch door hoping maybe it was reading weather. It wasn't. Even if it had been, the environs weren't exactly conducive to relaxing. Unless broken pieces of ashtray, scattered dead leaves, crumbling boxes and mildewing bags of clothes are part of your preferred spa experience. I picked up the months-empty bottle and accompanying glasses, took them inside to the kitchen. Got a garbage bag. Went back and swept up the leaves, the shattered bits of lacquered ceramic*. I pushed the broom under the a/c unit in the window, and noticed something protruding from the largest bag of Goodwill clothes, an enormous black canvas duffel bag, characteristically unzipped. What initially looked like a stick, was, after closer inspection, clearly a leg. A small, furry leg.
My first thought: How did one of Baylor's toys get in there?
My next thought: Oh that is not a toy that is not a toy that is not a toy that is a dead fucking squirrel and it is super dead, super dead, all the way live dead, how do I get it out of...do I reach in...are there more...OHMYGOD NO, OH MY GOD DEAD SQUIRREL TOUCHING CLOTHES THAT USED TO TOUCH ME.
I went back inside and had some wine and decided it was time to start packing. And I did. And I shut the squirrel out of my brain for the rest of the afternoon.
A few hours later, Kyle came over. We were hanging out, deciding where to go for food, and I actually considered not saying anything, but then I did: "Want to hear something really horrible that happened to me today?"
I finished telling him, and I think I assumed it would be like confession - once it was out there, the squirrel would magically disappear. I said "I didn't know what to do about it, so I just did nothing." Without judging the ridiculous words that just came out of my face, he said, clearly, reasonably: "Okay, you have to do something." He was right. I did. He helped.
What happened next was Dennis the Menace masterful, something I never would have thought up on my own. It was Kyle's idea to put garbage bags on our arms, Kyle's idea to position the giant outdoor trashcan directly below the porch, to maneuver the monster duffel over the porch rail together, heave it at the can. When the bag failed to land as aimed, crashing face down onto the patio stones a foot away, scattering clothes but concealing the squirrel carcass, I want to say it was my idea to get the snow shovels out of the utility closet and scoop the clothes into the trash can, but that was probably him, too. I invented the term 'Squirrel Bomb', although I also invented the situation that created said Squirrel Bomb, so I'm not sure what kind of pride to take there. Regardless, the squirrel bomb was successfully diffused. And then we went to Surfside.
And my goodness, if the porch doesn't look so much better without that giant bag of unwanted clothes! And their attendant dead rodent limbs! Who knew? I'm thinking about getting rid of all the boxes now. I'm even considering a table and chairs**.
Happy Birthday Kyle!
*Sorry, D, I really did love that ashtray.
**Where do people get tables and chairs?
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