Home
I sat in the Neon, staring at the enormous orange wall, which was right where my house was supposed to be.
Me, Rhonda, confused and pissed off.
"Problem solved," little-Rhonda said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't have to burn it down."
"You ever seen Poltergeist?"
"Have you?" he said.
"Obviously, if I'm asking."
"If you've seen it, I've seen it, remember?"
"Do you have to antagonize me right now?" I said. "Can't you see I'm a little rattled?"
"You were saying," he said, faking an apologetic tone.
"Poltergeist is about a housing project that's been built on top of a graveyard. But the land developers only removed the headstones and left the bodies in the ground. The bodies got mad and haunted the houses."
"There aren't any bodies buried here."
"I know that. What I'm saying is that the ground might be contaminated. The ground might still be haunted."
"With what?"
"I don't know. All I know is that the sidewinder's bite told me the only way to end all this was to burn the place down."
"How are you going to burn down a concrete building?"
"I'll need an explosion." I got out of my car.
"Right now?" he yelled after me. "You're going to blow it up right now?"
First thing I noticed when I walked in the automatic doors was a young woman wearing an orange vest, her hands in front of her bellybutton, folded into a prayer position. She smiled at everyone who walked in, which right now was just me, so she and I had a moment where we stared at each other, and it was hard to read her face, but I think she looked concerned.
"Twenty percent off area rugs today, sir," she said. "Are you thinking about purchasing an area rug?"
"I might be," I said, trying to fold my hands, too, but because of my bent arm, they didn't fit together like they were supposed to. A flip of the switch and furtive electricity wormed its way through my good hand. I put my fists in my pockets, fingered the book of matches.
This orange-vested woman and I kept staring at each other. She looked at my crooked arm, my eyes, crooked arm again before she said, "Area rugs are an instantaneous way to transform a room, sir.
Saying, "Sir, it turns something old into something new"
And finally, "Sir, you won't even recognize the place!"
I couldn't believe that most of Home Depot used to be open desert, couldn't believe that I used to hop over the fence in our backyard and spend hours trudging through the sand, shooting doves with shotguns. Bruise on my shoulder. Mark of a man. Letch pushing on it and smiling, proud of me. I couldn't believe that the sand took over our house, as the rooms moved away from one another, as they couldn't stand to be this close to us, the rooms splintering and leaving me alone to fend for myself.
Now I'd give the house what it deserved.
I decided to track down someone who worked here and ask some questions. I meandered down an aisle; its sides were displays of different drapes and curtains. I was surrounded by all the different shades of purple. Walking toward gray. Off-white.
About thirty feet ahead of me, there was a store clerk talking curtains with another customer. I lagged there, waiting for him. I touched the different fabrics. I wondered what was behind all these curtains. Lifted one up, expecting to see something unexpected, expecting to see Letch, but there were just hundreds of drapes, rolled up, waiting to be taken to houses and hung up in windows, to keep all the lewd secrets trapped inside.