We left off the tale of the adventures of our anti-hero as Tuesday night fell. It still felt like Tuesday night when his friends began to arrive Wednesday morning, probably because it was…still night.
4:05 am. Friends of neighbor begin to arrive.
6:00 am. The increasing volume of evictee’s efforts are an effective alarm clock.
6:00:07 am. Standing in living room window, spying on watching the “progress.” So far, they have succeeded in loading the defunct Harley in the FRONT of the trailer. This took no small effort, as merely days before, neighbor had lost a key part to the bike in his lawn. It happened to be essential to starting that lovely piece of…work.
We did not offer to help him find it.
6:45 am. Two bicycles have now joined the Harley in the front of the trailer. I spy a cardboard box on the premises. This is promising. How long can it possibly take to pack a crack pipe and several empty Jack Daniels bottles? And once the 4-year-old’s stuff is packed, dad’s stuff can surely fit into an additional few boxes.
7:25 am. I leave for work. Trailer contents remain unchanged. Evictee + friends huddle on front porch in a scene more than slightly reminiscent of the beginning of 2001: Space Odyssey. You know, the part where the early humans stare uncomprehendingly at each other and long wordlessly for, I don’t know, fire. Ability to walk upright. More freely available raw meat.
3:30 pm. Home from work (I have a late call with some people on the other side of the blue planet, and thus have taken off early to drive home. Plus, I was all agog to find out what the hells was going on). Truck is still there. Harley has now been moved to back of trailer, but contents have not otherwise been much altered. A few boxes are packed.
3:35 pm. Men trying to hitch trailer to truck. This is hard work. Much consternation is obvious on their part, as the weight of the 3,000-pound Harley in the back of the trailer is causing the front to lift up beyond a height where they could conceivably hitch it to the truck. I laugh maniacally.
6:20 pm. Much progress has occurred! There are now possibly ten boxes loaded, the Harley is lovingly swaddled in a sleeping bag, and the boys are contemplating the various options for loading the couch in on top of the load.
6:35 pm. It appears that putting the couch on upside down, on top of the Harley, is the winning choice. We watch from the living room; a small, dilapidated crowd has gathered. Skankiness abounds. Two cross over to our yard and (really, I am not making this up) steal a handful of bark mulch.
6:40-7:20pm. We go for a walk to the St Johns Bridge and back. Brooks bets me a beer that truck will still be there. Ever optimistic, I accept.
7:21 pm. The truck is in fact still there. Numerous meth-y looking people loiter promiscuously about. Motorcycles are of course being ridden up and down the side walk. We note that there are no beds on the trailer.
This is a bad sign. I open a beer for Brooks.
9:00 pm-ish. It is now dark enough to take up our customary seats in the living room and settle in for some more eviction watching. Michelle cannot resist the draw, and abandons her studies to join us. We attempt to decipher the cell phone calls, listen shamelessly to conversations with some of the more mentally ill neighbors, and note that child is running wild, in and outside of the house.
Fortunately, neighbor’s hooker friends are around to keep an eye on him.
11:30 ish. We grow tired, mainly of not being able to make out every word, and head to bed. Pillow talk revolves around the possibility of the truck being gone in the morning.
That’s enough for now. I’d love to say that things are as exciting Thursday morning as they were Wednesday morning, but…you’ll have to wait to hear about the climactic third-act duel.