“Excuse me, excuse me sir? Sir!”
Isaac turned around slowly, slightly surprised to hear someone speaking to him.
“Excuse me sir, can I help you?”
“No,” Isaac almost chuckled. A middle aged white man with a big hat and sun glasses was walking quickly towards him. Racing along next to him was a small brown dog, the kind Isaac’s brother James called “weener dogs” and his Uncle Greg called “datschunds.” Isaac generally called them “annoying little yippers” and tried to stay away from them without worrying about breed or specifics. The spectacle of the angry man with the little yipper asking how he can help Isaac seemed strangely comical. The thought flashed through Isaac’s mind, “Can I help you?”
About an hour before, Isaac was sitting on his porch, letting the sun warm his bare feet. The first day of barefoot weather. Isaac took out his manuscript paper and a pencil and stared at them, brightly lit in the midday sun. After watching the blank paper with his pencil in his hand, Isaac put them down forcefully, showing his frustration. He got up and walked down the street to clear his head, and give him something to do. He thought about the feeling of the warm pavement under his feet with each step, focusing on the ground to avoid the rough or shady patches of pavement. As he passed beneath blossoming dogwoods and oaks, the ballad of suburban life, “Rabbit in Your Headlights” rose spontaneously to the top of his consciousness. He suppressed it. Another song surfaced; he pushed it away. He didn’t want any music running through his brain, he wanted to listen to the birds sing and chirp, he wanted to let his mind wander. He smiled and brought to the surface the two melodies he was trying to use in his newly begun piece and let them weave and dance in and out of each other. He tried to keep both melodies running in his head simultaneously, but after a few minutes of holding them together, they both began to disintegrate. Not long afterwards, Isaac’s mind was completely clear. He watched people washing their cars, mowing their lawns, talking on cell phones. He heard televisions inside houses; he heard radios and car sirens and motors and birds. In the mean time, he was walking all over the street and sidewalk heedlessly. A stray thought broke his reverie; I’m approaching her house. She was one of Isaac’s mythical people; her house was one of his mythical places. Isaac’s mind slowly ran down a mental list of some of his favorite mythical people. One of them lived on busses and in hallways. One lived only in Spanish class. One lived in a slot of the band hall. One lived in the evening hours. One lived on a plaque on a wall. And one lived in a house just around the corner. The one from the halls and busses began to speak to him as he walked. “My brother never used to do that,” she said. “Have you played your solo yet?” Her smile is flash bang and mystery. Then the one from the slot in the band hall floated fleetingly by, saying “It all depends on my mother, honestly.” The one from Spanish class was nodding his head and saying, “That’s very good, I like that.”
Suddenly everything in his mind vanished as the house loomed into view, imposing only in its mythical normality. It’s a small house with a minivan and a pickup truck in the driveway. Its inhabitants were some of the least real of the creatures who wandered through the worlds of Isaac’s mind. Family of three: mother, father, daughter. The daughter is young, a summer girl, beautiful and shy, at home in the heat and light of the sun, glorying in its warm touch. Fresh and inexperienced, when that heat rises through her body like lightning, fiery and impatient, she shivers and shakes, just like Isaac.
Isaac chuckled. This is right, I’m at home. He silently thanked God for his soul of warm summer rain, for the bird of the sea, and for his mythical companions that circled like the ocean currents swirling through him.
Isaac passed the house and continued up the street. He admired the dogwoods and listened to the riding lawn mower engine. A minivan came barreling towards him. He hopped onto the sidewalk. When the minivan was closer, it slowed, and turned into the driveway in front of Isaac. He could hear the Backstreet Boys pumping through the auto as it passed, and as he kept walking, he heard the doors open and watched the middle aged dad, his teenage daughter and his very young son climb out of the doors. The trio looked so typical it almost hurt. The dad was balding and greying, average size and gait. The girl was wearing school athletic clothes of some kind, perhaps volleyball, and was very attractive in the most carnal sense of the world. Not really beautiful, or cute, but very carnally attractive. The little boy was rambunctious and energetic and had a chili bowl of bright blonde hair. Isaac turned back up the street, mentally cursing the viscous little bits of reality that kept breaking and subverting the flow of his thought. He fell back into himself for only a moment, then he reached the end of the street, turned around and headed back. A boy and girl who looked to be brother and sister came onto the street. The boy was bouncing a basketball, the girl was holding the leash of an “annoying little yipper.” They far outdistanced Isaac in seconds, but the boy with the basketball kept turning around and looking at Isaac.
Just in front of him, the boy with the chili bowl burst out of his house carrying a small metal thing, what James calls “fadmobiles," Uncle Greg calls “Scooters," and Isaac calls “a waste of metal and hardened plastic.” Watching the little kid zipping down the street, hoping onto and off cubs, Isaac wondered why kids didn’t ride bikes anymore.
As Isaac was passing the chili bowled boy's house, the girl in the volleyball shorts came out and grabbed her brother from the sidewalk and began to talk into his ear. Isaac turned around to watch her, still walking away from them. She saw him see her, stood up, and pushed her brother away. She rubbed her hands over her hips and started to turn back to the house. Isaac turned around and walked without thinking, listening to her bare feet on the pavement leading to her door. Down the street, a bunch of kids came out of their backyard in bicycle helmets, carrying their “fadmobiles” and screaming. One little boy, who appeared to be about four, came out wearing a plastic football helmet and running after the kids with the scooters. The kids with the scooters hit the street and began circling up and down, up and down, talking loudly. As Isaac went just beyond their area of play and began to turn the corner, away from her house, he heard a grown male voice.
“Excuse me, excuse me, sir? Sir!”
Isaac turned slowly to face him, slightly surprised to hear someone speaking to him.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man said, “can I help you?”
“No,” Isaac said, and almost chuckled, even though this man was disturbing his thinking and ruining his mood. The toenails of an annoying little yipper were making quite a distracting little ruckus. The combination of this and the a long time in the sun had the effect of bewildering Isaac. His half-shut eyes flit about from the man to the kids watching them from the sidewalk to the weener dog to the girl in the athletic shorts a hundred yards or so up the street watching him still.
“I’ve never seen you around, do you live around here?” the man asked.
“Yes, I live right over there.” Isaac pointed towards his house.
“How long have you lived there?”
“Seven years.”
“That’s funny, I’ve lived here three and a half years and I’ve never seen you before in my life.” The man was cross-examining Isaac.
“Funny.” Isaac smiled at the word and laughed humorously.
“What are you up to around here?”
“It’s the first day of barefoot season,” Isaac replied, as if that explained everything. “I just walked up the street and now I’m walking back down it.”
“Well you can understand my concern. I’ve never seen you before,” the man said intensely.
“Huh…”
“My son Logan said you were following him, so…”
“I’m not following your kid,” Isaac responded quickly, “I just walked up the street, now I’m walking down it.”
The dog was running in circles and barking; the girl and the kids were just watching, and Isaac started to get nervous. He swallowed. The man smiled.
“Well, you can understand my concern…”
“Huh.”
Isaac turned away without a word more and resumed shuffling aimlessly down the middle of the street. The man walked back to the sidewalk; the children began shouting and skating around again. Isaac shuffled into the shade of the sidewalk, the sinking sun pushing shadows farther and farther into the street.
Huh, Isaac thought to himself, ‘can I help you?’ Right! What did he expect I would say? Do I look as if I need help? ‘What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you before.’ Might as well ask, ‘Justify your existence.’ I was thinking, that justifies my existence. Why don’t you justify your existence! Why are you here, jerk!? He wouldn’t have an answer, he’s living out of habit, just like so many other people. ‘Justify your existence… justify your existence…
