SILD

I could have said that we were just bagging pumpkins. The kids on the playground might buy that, but their parents who were already offering sideways glances and biting double-speak dialect would know the truth and probably not appreciate having to be the ones to later sit down and explain the serious facts in a dismal tone to their four year old when it came up in conversation while pulling to the McDonald’s order window.

I could have said we were just bagging pumpkins, the bags were bright orange enough to be seen as such from across the road, but something made me think they were bright for the purpose of being seen from across the park, or in this case from across the parking lot where the van was parked. Also, there were no black haunted smiling faces on the bags; they were in the van as well. I could have said that we were just bagging pumpkins but I knew better to just keep my damned mouth shut and not utter a fucking syllable.  

In the van it was alright, I suppose, to talk. On the way over the driver was gabbing to the person in the passenger’s chair. Chatting up a storm. Jawing out every random cock mouth thing that popped into their pea sized noggins. It didn’t take a genius in linguistics or a sociologist to figure out that in their words were the kinds of low tact, distasteful and otherwise unintelligent banter that spawns from ignorance. I was content though knowing I was only wearing an orange vest and contained in the van instead of imprisoned in either of their minds.

“So I finally buried my cat yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah?”                                              

“Yeah, after a few days the ground was finally soft enough to dig a shallow hole and then I used potting soil and covered the hole and put two heavy stones, you know, two heavy stones on top of the top soil…”

“God dammit! I’m always looking for the shifter. Every time I drive an automatic, even the van I am always looking for the shifter. Where’s my shifter? I’m just so used to a standard. See?” He points to the speedometer on the dashboard and mimes shifting gears. “Vroom, vroom.” The van sputters accelerating with the traffic.

In the lane next to us was a beat up red car with a Raiders football logo on the sides were letters F and C-K. Below it read “the rest”. Two small Mexican guys were in the front. There were fuzzy dice hanging on the rearview. The driver of the vehicle was looking around them to talk to his neighbor in the passenger seat.

Our driver snorted from his perch high above in the captains chair of the van, “Bangers, yeah you’ll gang bang the rest…”

“Yeah, trouble, we’ll be seeing them soon.”

“Would you look at this big piece of shit?”

“What is it, a bridge?”

“Nah. Most people think it is a bridge but it’s the fog lights for the airport. Millions to build that piece of shit, 

and it took ‘em three years. I guess if you make enough money off the air port it pays for itself. I can see that.”

“But a lot of time…”

“A lot of money and a lot of time.”

“Look at that house. Can you believe it is being sold for that much?”

“A crappy house like that for that much? It’s not even a good location. Although when you figure…”

I didn’t care about what they had to say about the real estate of Boise. It was a crappy market with crooked people. The way I had figured it was in the late 80’s early 90’s the Californians who didn’t strike gold with their bogus ideas migrated to the Midwest to take advantage of the cheap land and a couple of building contractors. Those who stayed recreated their money making schemes as lawyers and real estate agents, crooked ones who cracked their safes instead of a book. The standards of practice reduced to writing a check instead of composing a business proposal. They broke their piggy banks instead of records. Now that there are no more high rollers to forge the state of the economy the city had to face the fact there is a recession in America. They acknowledge it by laying off workers.

“…take for example a family bought their home and in a couple of years the refinanced their home and it is worth more so they buy a boat and take a trip to Disney world and a couple of toys or whatever, then in a couple of years lose their house or have to downsize, I see that they didn’t lose anything, they made out. If they would have gotten something else, not refinanced they would be working pay-check to pay-check, no boat, no trip to Disney land and no toys. They made out. I only see the good in it. They didn’t lose anything.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Okay, after the next light make a right I want to show you the house I bought and tell you how much I paid for it and how much I sold it for and how much I made. Turn on Camas Street. No not this one the next one.”

“Camas?”

“Yeah it is the next street.”

“I know where it is.”

“Oh it looks like someone is  moving into it…”

“Yeah there’s a van there.”

“Oh, it’s the one beside it. See there. Its small isn’t it? I advertised as ‘a pertinent bench cottage’. And the guy I bought it from was a firefighter.”

“Really a firefighter…?”

“Yeah he said to me, ‘you are probably wondering why I am living in such a small house with my pension and retirement and all,’ and I was like, well I was thinking, no that is more information than I need to know I just want to look at the house…”

“Well, yeah that is his business…”

“He said he his wife had taken a lot in the divorce. After I sold the house I found out he had died and it was one of those deaths that was quick and kind of a shocker.”

“Oh yeah? Heart attack?”

“No I think I heard he was shot, well it is like the one guy we heard about, he was shot ten times and they never found the killer. He was like chief eagle beard or something.”

“Oh yeah.”

“He’s probably dead now.”

“That’s why you hear about these stories and never find out what happened ‘cause they didn’t catch anyone.”

“Yeah they get away. But they’re all probably dead by now. That’s when you hear about bodies turning up in the river.”

We had traveled across Orchard and were now going down Americana, past the cemetery. When we reached the junction at Emerald our driver’s head turned 90 degrees going through the light to follow the ass end of a girl crossing the street. Then he opened his dumb mouth.

“Keep struttin’ it girl but nobody’s buying.”

“Yeah, she’s workin’ hard.”

“Yeah but nobody’s buying.”

Then his attention was diverted to a semi ambling up the narrow road.

“Whoa, where’re you going boy? Uh-oh, he was black he probably wouldn’t like being called boy. Some black boy, he probably wouldn’t like that, but I didn’t know he was black till I turned my head.”

There was little more said the next hundred yards as we reached the entrance to Anne Morrison Park. Then our driver opened his big damn dumb mouth again in an attempt to recover.

“You ever come down to this park?”

“Ann Morrison? I watch the fireworks.”

“No the Albertson’s. My daughter had her wedding there and it was a nice reception.”

The kid behind me on the bench seat tried to chime into this conversation but his words were lost. Seems he bore the last name of Albertson and wanted to make known this fact that he was somebody other than a kid trapped in a vest and van and deserved better than their tactless gibbing. It was no use though, nobody would respond to him.

In the park we were given rakes and a box of big orange bags.

“Why don’t you start over on that hill and work your way back to the bathrooms.” She turned to her partner in the driver’s seat, “Does that sound good to you? Let them start with that?”

“Yeah they can do that and then we can probably call it good, huh?”

“You and I can stay here and continue to work?”

“Yep. We’re workin’.” He adjusted the clear plastic bud of his radio device over the folds of his ear.

I could have said that we were just bagging pumpkins but I didn’t. Our vested group scattered beneath the trees. I imagined myself one of the parents with my own child, free to enjoy the nice weather.