Kenny
a short story about that neighbor no one tries to know
This is Officer Kirk reporting a 12-9 at Essex and Delancey. Victim looks to be a white male, middle-aged. We found sneakers and a wallet on the platform that might be his, but the face isn’t recognizable by ID. If verified, though, the guy’s name was Kenneth James Wells.
KENNY
i used to do yoga every day in the grass before the park closed down and the cranes came in and the cardstock protest signs from cvs (too pink, too yellow, covered in ladybug stickers and washable marker: there is no planet b, eric adams started the fire) all got warped from the rain and starched from the sun and tore like loose bunting along the chainlink till some good samaritan or construction worker finally took them all down. now i don’t go out that much except for eggs and beef and gluten-free challah and glass jars of mt. olive kosher dill chips. before the pandemic i walked the thirty minutes to the wholefoods in union square, stocked up on butternut squash and long-grain rice, but the keyfoods down the street is closer and no one gives you weird looks if you shop in tabasco-stained pee-jay pants. the cat food is mealy and the toilet paper only comes in one-ply but my pets and i don’t seem to mind.
the dogs and i try to go out most days (i may not take care of them as well as i want to but they really do have to be walked) and it always feels a bit like a festival, like a fulton street debutante ball. i put on my cleanest shirt and clip the girls into their harnesses, trying not to put the thick leash on the small dog or the thin leash on the big dog or make some other catastrophic and irredeemable mistake. we take a breather at the doorstop, dressed to the nines, and practice our lines for the neighbors (she grew up like crazy / yeah, i saw what he tweeted / sorry sir, i don’t carry change) and after seven minutes when the girls start pawing at the door we turn the brass deadbolt and walk downstairs. sometimes the doorman mr. bart waves hello and sometimes a stranger outside looks at us and then looks down but mostly we’re left alone, our little team of three, sniffing at pee in the street. while we walk i sometimes look at the forty-something man who follows me in the lacquered steel of parked subarus and hondas. he warps from beanpole to midget to beanpole again as the tires eat into the doors. he is tired and and gaunt and stringbean skinny and his mountain goats t-shirt droops off of his collarbones and his maintainable buzzcut is moldy with grey and i wanna kindly ask this man to get his act together but i hit a no-park zone and he disappears.
sometimes i run into angie with one of her kids at her knees, a crayon or something shoved into its nose, and she’s always rushing, rushing, rushing somewhere but still gets so excited to talk to me. i say hi how are you angie and she says i’m good im good yknow a little all over the place i’m baking muffins for carla’s class their bake sale is on friday which do you think they’d like better chocolate chip or raisin and i weigh the options in my head, quietly agonizing over which is the lucky lotto winner, until she says what the fuck am i talking about they’re fourth graders of course they’ll want chocolate anyway kenneth how are ya doing? and i say good i’m good just hanging around with the girls i like to say they keep me young even though i don’t really say that to anyone except for maybe angie. i smile a little and i can tell that my smile looks pathetic but she smiles right back without any hesitation and it’s so big and bright that mine can’t help feeling a little less bad.
then i go home with the minty-fresh eyes of a man who has just been outside. i look at the house and i want to clean it up real nice, take the boxes off the couch and the dust off the lampshade and really make the whole place feel open, and then maybe i’ll invite angie and mr. bart over for dinner and make them a very nice veggie lasagna. so i unleash the girls and i take down the duster off the cabinet over the tv but the dogs come up to me panting and shaky and i remember i haven’t given them water yet today and maybe the day before that so i put down the duster and go to the kitchen and pick up the porcelain bowls that i bought as a two-for-one deal at keyfoods. they have the wrong names on them, fido and spot, and my dogs names are darlene and postman pat after my aunt who died when i was a kid and a television program i loved growing up. there’s a dead fly in one of the bowls so i wash out the bottom with soap and a sponge and then fill them both up with water and then lay them back on the tile and then wring out the sponge and place it back in its laissez-faire spot on the lip of the sink. the dogs drink all sloppy because they were real thirsty and sometime i’ll have to wipe up the puddles of water on the floor but right now i’m starting to feel quite exhausted like the helium let out of a birthday balloon. i think i’ll just lay on the floor for a minute and then i’ll get back to the dusting. the tile is lovely and cold and a little bit sticky and when i rub a finger over the grout my skin comes up smeared with grey. i should probably mop for when angie and mr. bart come over but they aren’t coming over, really, and even i know it, me who doesn’t even know the steps to make a passable lasagna or have anyone to show me how.