spiders and flies, with reverence, but I can’t ignore the fact that
spiders and flies bugs and worms and wriggly things in general will feed
on me when I’m dead. I don’t feel compelled to treat any creature as a
fellow citizen of the planet, with rights equal to mine and deserving of
all courtesies, if it regards me as dinner. I’m confident that Mother
Nature understands my attitude and is not offended.
The front door, its peeling paint somewhat phosphorescent in the
moonlight, was ajar. The corroded hinges didn’t creak but rasped like
the dry knuckle bones of a skeleton making a fist.
I stepped inside.
Because I had come in here for the express reason that I felt safer
under a roof than in the open, I considered closing the door.
Maybe the birds would suddenly shake off their eerie stupor and come
shrieking after me.
On the other hand, an open door is an avenue of escape. I left it open.
Although I was wrapped by silky blackness as effective as a blindfold, I
knew I was in the living room, because the hundreds of bungalows that do
have porches also share exactly the same floor plan, with nothing as
grand as a foyer or front hall. Living room, dining room, kitchen, and
two bedrooms.
Even when well maintained, these humble homes had offered the minimum
comforts to the mostly young military families who occupied them, each
family residing here for only a couple of years between transfers.
Now they smell of dust, mildew, dry rot, and mice.
The floors are tongue-and-groove wood covered with many coats of paint,
except for linoleum in the compact kitchen. Even under a self proclaimed
master of stealth like yours truly, they squeak.
The loose boards didn’t concern me. They ensured that no one could enter
from the back of the bungalow and easily sneak up on me.
My eyes adapted to the gloom enough to allow me to see the front
windows. Although these panes were set under the porch roof, they were
visible even in the indirect moonlight, ash-gray rectangles in the
otherwise pervasive blackness.
I went to the nearest of the two windows, neither of which was broken.
The glass was dirty, and with a Kleenex I polished a cleaner circle in
the center of it.
The front yards of these properties are not deep, between the Indian
laurels, I had a view of the nearby street. I didn’t expect to see a
parade go past, but since I find majorettes in short skirts to be as
much of a turn-on as anybody does, I thought it wise to be prepared.
I switched on my cell phone again and keyed in the number for the
unlisted back line that went directly to the broadcasting booth at KBAY,
the biggest radio station in Santa Rosita County, where Sasha Good all
was currently the disc jockey on the midnight-to-six air shift.
She was also the general manager, but since the station had lost the
military audience and thus a portion of its ad revenue with the closing of
Fort Wyvern, she was not the only one of the surviving employees to have
assumed double duty.
The back line doesn’t ring in the booth but activates a flashing blue
light on the wall opposite Sasha’s microphone. Evidently, she wasn’t
doing on-air patter at the moment, because instead of leaving the call
to the engineer, she herself picked it up, “Hey, Snowman.” I don’t have
sole possession of the back-line number, and like many privacy-minded
people, I directed the phone company to prevent my number from
registering on caller ID, yet even when the call doesn’t come through
her engineer, Sasha always knows if it’s me.
“Are you spinning a tune? ” I asked.
” A Mess of Blues.”
“Elvis.”
“Less than a minute to go.”
“I know how you do that, ” I said.
“Do what? ”
“Say, Hey, Snowman, before I speak a word.”
“So how do I do it? ”
“Probably half the calls you ever answer directly on the back line are
from me, so you always answer Hey, Snowman.”
“Wrong.”
“Right, ” I insisted.
“I never lie.” That was true.