My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 125

I had sprinted across the lawn and into
the house to get a plastic bag in which
to slip my fallen comrade before I
thought to survey the area for the
perpetrator. There was no one in the
front yard, no one in the back yard, no
one in Jeff’s yard. I buried it/him in a
shallow grave on the far side of the
garage, which divided my house from
the David’s on the other side. Several
healthy legustrum bushes separated
my detached garage from theirs, so the
area was private and away from the
rabbits’ warren. When Janice returned
from choir practice, I told her what
had happened.
“Pop! Then, another pop, and he was
lying there in the grass. Janice, he had
no right to fire into my backyard! We
have a right to live here! I’m going over
there and tell Jeff this time he’s gone
too far!”
“William Brandon Jarrett!” Janice
placed her hand on my arm. Get a
hold of yourself!. He told you he was
going to put a stop to the rabbits.
“It’s not his yard!” by now I was
mumbling.

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“It’s not his yard, but maybe that’s just
what he did. You should have spoken
up for yourself. Come in the house
now. You’re trembling” said Janice as
she led me back into the house.

After that night, I didn’t go sit on Jeff’s
deck of an evening to listen to his
war stories or his stories about Comity
Grove or his stories about his old
customers. I’d made up my mind not
to say anything to him, until I could
find a way to bring up his trespassing
on my property.

“As a matter of fact, we’re not moving.
We’re staying right here, even if it means
taking a new job,” I said to my father.

Evening and the full moon stood
guard over Jeff’s colonial with its
white columns and my Cape Cod.
Jeff’s house sat far back from the curb,
looking imposing and historical, with
its manicured shrubs. I gazed back at
my own renovated house with its blue
shutters. Even with the addition we’d
made a few years ago, it seemed to
stand with its hands behind its back.
Damn it! I’m moving! My father would
have asked his neighbor, man to man,
if he had done it. Just then, my father
materialized on the grid of the lawn,
cap in his right back pocket. He pulled
it out and wiped his face, then stood
there waiting with his arms crossed. A
haunchy cat strolled right through him
and kept loping down the lawn toward
the back of Jeff’s house. Its owner, with
raised shoulders and bandy legs, came
up beside me.

“Yeah, I said we’ve been missing each
other. How’d you like those fresh
carrots I sent over? They’re from my
son-in-law in Goochland. How’ve
you been?”

“Did you say you’re moving?”

“Hey, Bill. I’m right here. Look behind
you. We’ve been missing each other.
“Jeff! That was you talking!” I said.

I didn’t want to turn around and face
my neighbor just yet, so I spoke with
my back still turned, “Just business as
usual, I guess.”
“In d.c.?”
“Right,” I said, while walking back
toward my own house.
“Janice tell you about the trouble we’ve
had with some of these kids in the
neighborhood?”
I turned to face Jeff. “What trouble?”
“They’ve been shooting rabbits and
with bb guns! I call the police when
I see them near my yard, but they’re
quick. They come through here in the
evenings on their bikes and take aim
at anything that moves, cats, squirrels,
rabbits. Yup! Racing those red riders
like Grant through Richmond! Pop!
Pop! Pop!