excerpt
Memory Sandwich
The Monroes migrated from nobody-knows-where just as the
swallows were turning up famished at our backyard feeder. A
van with lilting shocks and unfamiliar licence plates deposited their
belongings on the lawn of a neglected two-bedroom. By the time the
leaves on the poplars in Falaise Park had begun to coil, just as the
wings of the leatherjackets started to sag, the family up and moved
away, a memory.
Afterwards a succession of temporary tenants occupied the bungalow.
There were couples with children and couples without.
There were lessees, owners, renters and loners, none of whom were
able to do anything about the air of despondency permeating that
sullen cedar structure.
Fresh paint, a garden — nothing worked. For years it sat empty,
victim to vandals, rodents and mould, roof shingles scattered, windows
lost to target practice. The day it was bulldozed that house
looked much as it did the day the Monroes moved in: unloved.
Besides the adults, Nelson and Connie, there were three kids:
Gus, the eldest at 16, had a purple birthmark splashed across one
eye; Lana, a year younger, was a quiet girl whose attempts to conceal
sprouting mammary glands were unsuccessful.
Shortly after their arrival the youngest crossed the street to where
I was fanning my collection of baseball cards. I had been aware of
Freddy observing me from a bedroom window. He introduced himself
with the assurance of someone accustomed to the role of
stranger. There seemed a precocious savvy in those squinting eyes.
– Wanna be friends? he asked.
To facilitate camaraderie Freddy faked an interest in baseball. He
misused terms like line drives and pop fouls, cannily eschewing…
Manolis Aligizakis 