Chasing Shadows

America: Ventura Highway remix


The hour was late.  I didn’t have much time.  The shadows were growing long.  The cicadas had begun their banshee screech.  The orange hue of the sky marked that the sun was at the midway point on the horizion.  I had to get home before it disappeared.  The rules were simple.  My parents wouldn’t bother me during the day as long as I was in the front yard by twilight and inside the house by dark.  As I was six who could have asked for more.

I had had a day.  The crinkled pack of Willy Wonka’s Bottlecaps I had picked up from the quarter rack at 7-11 had lasted me all day.  On my trusty steed provided by a Huffy Thundertrail I could go anywhere and see anything.  It’s black Iron Frame was ready for any punishment I could dish out.  A fact evidenced by the scuffs marking the frame like battle scars, or the strip of duct tape that ran across the cushioned seat repairing a tear.  Where did the scuff marks come from?  Perhaps they marked a tumble after a jump taken off a homemade ramp fashioned from a board and some bricks.  If Evil Kenievl could brave Snake Canyon, I could survive a vault into the air as well.  Or maybe that time when I tried to pop a wheelie and I it the curb.  It mattered little.  Unlike my older brothers stylin’ Schwinn banana seat bike, my ride could take whatever adventure I undertook. 
 
I was well prepared for my trek.  I was wearing my Toughskins. Though my Mother might have appreciated them for their utilitarian use, I liked the fact that my Toughskins were jeans that were ready for whatever rough and tumble adventure I might undertake.  The knees wouldn’t wear out.  Not so fast.

As it was summer, I had gone up to my Sudie Williams.  Why was I going to my elementary school during summer break?  Well although I’m not sure Huck would have responded to your question, as you asked it out of curiosity I will tell you.  It was for the playground; specifically the swing sets.  I had mastered the art.  I would laboriously raise the swing to the highest point I could.  You remember that point, just before the chains would lose their tension and start to snap on your descent.  Well I had figured out that exact moment, almost at the peak of the ascension it was,  where if you leapt off the swing it would maximize how for you could go vertically and horizontally  away from the swing set.  I had spent some time doing it.  But now I had to be back home. 

On my return, as always, I would pass by the Harrison’s.  At least I think that was their last name.  It was a single home house.  It was a white stucco bungalow style house that had to have been built in the late 40s or early 50s.  Almost every time I passed by they would be seated out on the front porch swing.  “Hey Joe,” I would always yell.  He hated it when I called him Mr. Harrison.  His face would light up, color would flush to his cheeks, and his wife would merely demurely smile.  She never really talked much. 

After placing my bike on its kickstand, I asked “Mind if I get some water Joe?”   “No, no,  help yourself.”  He said as he slowly made his way down the stairs.  Rushing to the exterior faucet on the side of his house I turned it on.  Although I would let the water fun for about 30 seconds to get out the heat from the original waters travel through the tube, it never really got rid of that metallic twinge of trust that seemed to accompany every drop.

“Ready for an Aggie Joke?,” Mr. Harrison would ask.  This was part of our ritual.  He would tell me jokes.  I would tell him jokes.  We would laugh.  Often we told each other the same jokes, but he loved to laugh.  Although I was too young to understand, I think he just loved having someone to talk to.  By this time I would usually be done with drinking from the hose.  I would hand it to him and ask him if he wanted me to turn it off.  His wrinkled hand would grab the heavy plastic.  “No, Vivian would like it if I watered her flowers.”  He would say looking at his wife alone on the swing.  She would silently and simply nod in affirmation.

With the joke period over we would talk about History.  I think he may have been a vet, as he really loved to talk about World War II and Korea.  Seemed to know a lot about those like from a man who lived it, didn’t just read about it.  But his smile was ever-present.  He had someone to talk to… even if it was a ruddy six-year-old boy whose hair may have been a little long and whose jeans were always dirty.   

Anyway I drank enough to “whet my whistle” as Joe might say, with the loud sucking off the side of the steam.  The whole time we talked the shadows would lengthen.  By the time the shadow made by his mailbox was just beginning to touch the third separated segment of the walk I knew that it would be time for me to go home.  I could linger no longer.  “See you tomorrow, Joe.”  “Go chase the shadows!,”  He would exort as a battle cry I would leap on my bike desperate to make it home in time.   Breathless I would ride home making it back just in time to see my Mother’s smiling face glance out the sink window.

We moved away from that area a few years later.  When I did make a journey back, I passed by Joe’s house.  It was still white, but it was now different.  Some children’s toys littered the front yard.  It seems as if the new owners had bought a new post box.  Plants now sat upon the porch.  The porch swing was still there.  But it was empty.  I smiled knowing that wherever Joe was, he would be telling someone a joke no doubt.  He would be happy, just being with others.   He would be happy.  “Go chase the shadows Joe!”, I softly said with a smile.  “Go chase the shadows!”