some small houses that made up the neighborhood west of Caruthers known as
Little Okie, Fleming Family Homes owned six. Neda turned off the pavement at
the second dirt road, which formed an irregular loop with the first. The lots here
were as variously shaped as clouds, as if the original surveyor had been lying on
his back when he drew up the boundaries. Several salvage businesses operated
out of the neighborhood, the peculiar cubbies and knotholes in the lots perfect
for storing junked cars, dead appliances, and pallets of rusting scrap, but her
father once said that no one who lived in Little Okie could afford to throw things
away. He’d grown up in this neighborhood. Now she drove with her foot riding
the brake, reading the house numbers as she passed.
She stopped in front of the Hillsickers’ rental, the house hardly visible for the
junk in the yard. An old fridge, long defrosted, crushed cans spilling from inside.
A gutted lawnmower. Concrete blocks and offcuts of plywood made into low
workbenches, with greasy parts spread on top. The hulk of a ‘sixties-something
Suburban, the big tires flat, the body shades of bondo gray. A trail, trampled into
the dead grass, detoured through the mess. She took it. The door stood open,
dented and scuffed black, as if people kicked their way inside—she saw a runner
of dirt and grease in the carpet, a continuation of the path taken through the
wrecked yard, ultimately leading to what, she guessed, would be a landlord’s
nightmare: pot plants, vats of cooking meth, a den of every vice.
Neda called from the doorway.
A woman answered, wailing in a smoker’s voice. Coming down the hallway, she
pulled her ropy hair into a ponytail. “I was in back,” she said. “I didn’t hear no bell
ring.”
“I was just—the door was open.”
“Doorbell’s the only way I can hear when I’m in the back.”
Fanning herself with an open hand, the Hillsicker woman took in Neda’s loose
black jeans, her white tucked blouse, and long, fraying braid. “If you’re here about
Jesus, we’re all pretty much Christian in this house already.”
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