As I usually do on Wednesday nights, I picked up a little before I vacuumed and mopped the common areas. I like to leave things clean for the girls.
Then I packed my overnight bag and my work satchel. It was late, and the house was quiet. I couldn’t help making some noise opening and closing the garage door, and then the Mini Cooper was rolling through the familiar nightime streets that lead to the freeway and the bridge.
I set the cruise control and made myself relax. In an hour, I’d arrived at the river house and was on my way to bed.
The river behind the house.
In the morning, I got straight to work. About 5:30 pm, my project done and sent off to the client, I went down the stairs to check how the river was doing.
Returning, I stopped to dig, idly, at the roots of some English ivy that’s clambering up the redwoods at the corner of the house.
That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone.
I don’t know why the two young men were hanging out in the backyard, a little on my side of the line, standing in the bushes. I didn’t really care. The neighbors’ house is full of activity, and I purposefully give little mind to the comings and goings. I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me, except for the cars and trucks and travel trailers parked everywhere in and around the lot. And the derilect washing machines waiting to be taken to the dump. And the occasional explosion. And the loud knocking every weekday morning at 5:00.
Live and let live, I say.
We exchanged greetings, though the bushes, without really being able to see each other.
“How you doin’ man?”
“Good, how are you?”
I went back inside and took that hot shower I’d been wanting all day. I put on a sweater and started out on my 20-minute stroll to the pub.
It’s a nice walk–only a little of it is on the shoulder of busy River Road, and part of it goes through a County beach park. And you can look down at the river from the historic Hacienda Bridge (an unusual camelback truss, built in 1914).
When I got to the pub, the bartendress asked if I wanted my usual pint, and I looked around for a table.
And there were my two young neighbors.
I sat at the table next to them, as it was the only one open. We exchanged small talk about canoeing the river–where to put in and take out, and how you can canoe down to the Blues Festival and watch the acts from the river without having to pay.
I thought it was nice that they knew the bartendress. After a while she stopped by their table to say she was ready to check out what they had, and they all went out into the parking lot to do some business.
When they returned, my neighbors’ take-out order was ready.
Me, I ordered another beer and watched the Giants get beat by a run, and then walked back up the road in the dark.
