The men who live in the woods behind my house have been getting out of hand for some time. They are all in their midfifties, golfers formerly, and meat eaters — jolly men in general — but since their wives sent them away to live in the woods they have become grumpy and discontent. At night they bellow and howl. They want their televisions and ice makers and chairs beside the vents. They live like animals now in badly made straw huts and eat anything that wanders too close to their turf. We know what’s happening to our dogs and cats, but there’s nothing we can do: some of these men are very powerful; all of them belong to the country club.
Last night from a window I saw them leaving the woods and marching, single file, toward my home. They knocked at the door.
“What is it?” I said, staring at their wretchedness through the peephole. “What do you want?”
“Your telephone,” they said. “We’d like to use your telephone.”
“That’s out of the question,” I said. “You can’t come in. My wife—”
“Your wife?” one said.
“She won’t allow it.”
“His wife won’t allow it!” said a second man.
“His wife says no,” added another.
“She must be wonderful,” the first one said. “Really, I bet she is.”
“She is,” I said. “My wife is wonderful.”
“We knew your father,” one of the men said. “You’re not your father.”
Then they went away, grumbling, back into the woods.
Later in the night, in bed, I told my wife what had happened.
“They came here?” she said. I nodded. She was appalled. “I want you to go down there and tell them not to do that. Tell them never to come here again.”
“Now?” I said. “It’s like midnight.”
“Now,” she said. “For me.” She kissed me on the cheek.
I walked down the little trail which led to the woods behind our house. I saw a light, followed it. The men were cooking squirrel around a fire. They were drinking coffee from old tin cups. They bellowed and wailed. But they seemed to be having a pretty good time.
“Hey, fellas,” I said, and all the bellowing stopped, and they looked up at me and smiled. “Please don’t come around our house anymore. Okay?”
They looked at each other, then into the fire.
“Okay,” they said, shrugging their shoulders. “Fine.”
It didn’t seem to mean that much to them. All they had wanted was the phone.
When I turned to go I could see my house on the hill above me, and watched as one light after another was killed and it was all darkness. It seemed I could even hear the doors shut and lock, as my wife prepared for sleep. My house seemed to disappear into the black sky. I paused.
“Going away so soon?” one of the men said. The fire was bright, warm.
“Yeah,” said another. “And just when we were getting to know you.”
The Junction Boys
by D. Winston Brown
Ensley, Birmingham
Colesbery Simon had been home three months and seven days before he decided that the way to get his life back was to deal with his ex-girlfriend’s father. Years since they’d seen each other, but her story had become his, no matter how long it had been, or how far away he was in the world. He and his ex, Chelsea Gradine, first met in a small side room of the library in their high school, a connected but isolated spot with walls of dusty books and a few shoulder-high shelves lined up in the middle, which created a space where Colesbery met Chelsea frequently in the months that followed. That first day he’d been looking for The Invisible Man, the Wells book, but Chelsea gave him the Ellison one with its near-identical title. He read the prologue that night and the next day asked her was she trying to be funny. She told him no, that her choice had nothing to do with them being different races, it was only that she had a crush on him and thought he’d like the book. She’d been like that about most things, direct, except when it came to her father. That, Colesbery learned on his own.
He didn’t make a plan. Instead, he called Lincoln Fontaine, an old friend who’d always had a knack for knowing what needed to be known. They were meeting at a pizza place on Birmingham’s Southside, a few blocks from his old high school. When Colesbery turned off University Avenue onto 20th Street and headed up the hill toward Five Points South, his mind entered a maze of memories, most of which involved Chelsea. A minute or two later he passed the new coffee shops and restaurants, the Storyteller’s fountain, the pizza place, and then turned right. The street was narrow, with cars parked on both sides and a canopy of trees that cast everything in shade until near the intersection, and when the reddish brick of the block-long high school finally came into view, Colesbery felt his breath, momentarily, snatched. He found a parking space, and stared through the windshield. The school rose up like a brick horizon, one that had not changed since he graduated five years earlier. In reality, the school both had and hadn’t changed. A few buildings had been added on either end, some cosmetic niceties done, but the main building was the same, still with the brick ramp that curved up and in front of the school and spanned much of its length, before curving down and back toward the street.
“Thinkin’ of a master plan.”
The voice was a smooth baritone and came from behind Colesbery, and he knew who it belonged to without turning around. “’Cause ain’t nothin’ but sweat inside my hands,” Colesbery replied. By the time he finished the lyric, Lincoln Fontaine was standing next to him. Even though they’d seen each other a couple of times since Colesbery came home, they grasped each other’s right hand, smiled at each other, then leaned in and embraced.
“What’s up, army man?” Lincoln said.
“Like I told you last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, just happy to be home, bro.” Somehow Lincoln had found out Colesbery was home two days after he got there. He stopped by the apartment the next day with a slab of ribs from Rib-It-Up and a prepaid cell phone for Colesbery, told him it was for when he needed something. Lincoln had kept his distance since, stopped by once or twice, mainly just called here and there to check, a minute conversation at the most.
“Thanks again for the ribs,” Colesbery said, turning back to stare at the high school.
“You don’t want to know,” Lincoln said.
“You found her?”
“I find everything.”
Lincoln was one of those people who could always make money, who could always talk to people, anywhere, and get them to talk to him. He was wearing jeans, an Ensley High School sweatshirt, and a pair of Converse, but he was equally at ease when in a pinstripe suit. He’d started his own computer consulting company out of college while he worked at Alabama Power, but he quit Alabama Power when it took off.
“Tell me,” said Colesbery.
“Tell me how you are,” said Lincoln.
“I’m good. I already told you that.” Colesbery turned toward Lincoln now. He’d heard some rumors about Chelsea having come back, and he wanted to know what Lincoln had found out. “How long since you seen her?”
“How long you gone play games?”
“Bro, relax.” Lincoln turned his head toward the high school. “You remember being there and—”
“Of course.”
“—how we use to sit in the parking lot after school listening to old-school rap. Remember when we first heard Eric B. and Rakim, drinking Thunderbird and smoking that good Bush Hills bud.”
“Of course I remember.” Colesbery knew Lincoln wasn’t stalling, but rather, trying to figure out if Colesbery really meant to do what he’d told him he was going to do. They’d been friends since they got into a fight on the playground as second graders at Holy Family Elementary. They had already known each other, but fighting made them respect each other, especially because neither of them had really won, just sort of knocked each other around and down, then wrestled to a stalemate.