When somebody hijacked my beatup old garbage cans the other day and dumped garbage all over the yard, it brought to mind the sad fate of my neighbor Al, and how after he died in his shabby Sulphur Springs bungalow, penniless and alone, somebody purloined one of his few possessions -his slop pail- which was full at the time.
As any longterm resident will tell you, Sulphur Springs isn’t what it used to be. When I moved here in the 1970’s, it was quiet and peaceful, and the rent was dirt cheap. They say Kerouac lived here once, although no one seems to know exactly where or when. I’m pretty sure he didn’t live in my house, which was a tiny shack in the shade of a magnificent live oak. I never liked the house much, cheap as it was, but I loved the tree, and spent a lot of quality time in and under it. Mrs. Dillon, who was ninety-five, lived next door. She passed away after a year or two and I acquired her place, which had a new roof and by Sulphur Springs standards was pretty cozy. I’ve lived here ever since.
Al lived across the street. He was about sixty, with skinny legs and a bloated belly. Another neighbor, Larry, looked after Al, and supplied him with beer, smokes, and surplus pastries from the Entenmann’s outlet on Hillsborough. Al had no electricity or water, and when he needed to bathe or drink he went over to Larry’s house, or mine if I wasn’t home, and filled a couple of gallon jugs from the tap outside.
Mrs. Dillon warned me about Al. “Don’t never give him no money”, she said. “Money goes through Al like soup through a goose.” She was right. Once he offered to mow my lawn and I naively paid him ahead of time. Weeks dragged by and the lawn remained uncut. Al made excuse after excuse. His lawnmower was busted. His back hurt. He needed gas. After a couple of months I gave up. I didn’t have much use for him after that.
Al was remarkably adept at maintaining a low profile. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who circle these streets like hungry vultures, left him alone. His front yard, although perpetually weedy, was uncluttered and inconspicuous. There were no trash piles, abandoned appliances or cars on blocks, nothing to draw one’s attention. Most days he could be seen sitting on the steps. His clothes were always clean, his white hair was always neatly combed. After awhile I forgave him, kind of, for the lawn episode, and although we didn’t talk much, we were civil when we did.
One day I was taking a shower and I thought I heard Al yell my name. “Ah shit,” I thought, “I really don’t want to talk to you.” I shut off the water and listened, but heard nothing more. So I went about my business.
The following week Al was nowhere to be seen. Then one morning there was a stench in the air. It was faint at first, but pervasive and inescapable, growing worse as the day wore on. I turned on the AC and cranked the jalousies shut, trapping a number of big green flies. I thought something had died in the attic or there was a problem with the sewer. Around two in the afternoon Larry knocked on my front door. He seemed dazed. “Hey Jim“, he said. “Al’s dead.”
“I guess I should call the police.“ he mumbled, gesturing toward the house. “You don’t wanna go in there.”
We stood in my driveway and watched events unfold. First a firetruck came. Two firemen wearing some kind of scuba gear went inside. After a minute or two they left and a young cop went in. He stumbled out moments later and staggered to his car. Then the Medical Examiner arrived with his assistant. They looked like Jake and Elwood Blues. For them it was business as usual. As they toted Al down the steps in a body bag the postman, looking a little nonplussed, delivered his mail.
Larry opened what windows he could and let the cottage air out overnight. The next day I peeked inside. I couldn’t believe my eyes. In every corner, trash was heaped to the ceiling. One room was inundated with thousands of beer cans, another so packed with rubbish, mostly newspapers and empty Entenmann’s boxes, you couldn’t open the door. The bathroom was indescribably filthy. In the living room, where Al died, there was a hole in the ceiling big enough to drive a garbage truck through. It was the rainy season and everything was soaked. There was a waisthigh mound of soggy butts and ashes -it must have been years in the making- against one wall. Thumbtacked to another wall were a pair of Playboy centerfolds ca. 1973, Al’s only attempt at decor. Beneath them, stacked on a splintered cabinet, were about a hundred dogeared paperbacks, all westerns, mostly Louis L’Amours.
Al rode into the sunset on a spavined leatherette divan in the center of the room. Next to it there was a galvanized bucket filled with excrement. Larry made a little joke about it, about how glad he was Al hadn’t kicked it.
These are the things I saw, before the smell drove me outside.
Larry let the house air out another day. The next morning he stopped by with a bizarre update. “You ain’t gonna believe this,” he said. “Last night somebody stole that bucket.”
That sort of mischief, while not so unnerving as a drive-by, doesn’t bode well for any neighborhood. But I wasn’t really surprised. Like I said, Sulphur Springs isn’t what it used to be.
Al died hard. Felled, according to the Medical Examiner, by some sort of massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in Bushnell. He left the house to Larry. Not counting the paperbacks and the bucket, that was the extent of his legacy. Larry told me the last time Al worked was over thirty years ago, as a caddy. We decided he'd been dead for many years, he just hadn’t realized it.
-walkin' tree
