When good things happen to good people, that's good.
When bad things happen to good people, that's bad.
When good things happen to bad people, that's bad.
When bad things happen to bad people, that's good.
(A children's verse used to remember positive/negative outcomes for multiplication and division.)
~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~
Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA.
January 2nd, 1984.
7:30pm
"Hello?" a thin lone voice faintly rang down the otherwise quiet street.
Randy shivered on his parent's front porch in the evening's darkness. At the far end of the block, opposite from where the thin voice had faintly come, his parent's aged Pontiac turned the corner to the right. A trailing snake of grey exhaust rolled after it before dissipating. They would be gone for hours, off to see his aunt.
He viewed the tired, monotonous scene of Woodland Avenue. Street lights on the corners, houselights and the occasional porch light lit the street for him. Nearly identical two story wooden houses, each with their own porch and off centered steps, sat shoulder to shoulder, right up to the sidewalk on both sides of the street. No space was left for anything except sidewalk, curb and telephone poles. Everything here was aging, fading, decaying. The winter grime and the peeling paint made it look all the worse.
He waited, flexing his toes inside his Keds in an attempt to keep warm.
Most of the house porches were decorated with strings of Christmas lights. These drifted to and fro in the occasional light breeze. Only a few were lit. Most second floor windows held a single candle, centered on the sill within. Christmas trees were visible in some first floor family rooms.
Randy slid his hands into the front pockets of his Sears-brand jeans and crunched down the frozen steps. He stood by himself on the sidewalk, alone in the night air. Cars, none of them new, lined both sides of the street. Remnants of the scant inch of snow Pittsburgh had received covered parts of the sidewalk. Time and cold had hardened most of the snow into ice, which then had been blackened by car exhaust.
"Hello?" again drifted the same voice across the cold, crisp emptiness. This, his lonely hell, stretched to the right and left. He glanced back behind at his own house, but the porch was empty and the front door was shut.
A renewed breeze stung at his face and gave the hanging Christmas light strands some movement. As Randy waited for Dale to show up, a lone wind chime gave off a series of brittle notes in the cold air. He thought about going back inside.
A car, a heavy American sedan, turned the corner and moved up the street.
He counted off his irritations with Dale. Randy almost wanted the guy not to show up. Three years ago they had been best friends. High school had been a blast and they had daily hung together. Mike and Robert had been part of the crew then. At least they were still cool. These days Dale was a pain to be around – if you could find him.
"Hello?" rang the voice yet again, quietly. This time he caught a movement, however slight, about four or five houses away. Somebody, a neighbor he did not know, standing on a front porch on his side of the street was looking into a picture window and tapping at it lightly. The angle of looking through the consecutive porches, each draped with their holiday lights and abandoned plant hangers, made it difficult to see who it was.
There remained no sign of Dale.
He turned and climbed back up onto his own porch. The heavy sedan chugged by as he watched distractedly. The leaded gasoline engine thudded and the frozen street surface caused the Lincoln's rumble to vibrate the cold scene all that much more. The exhaust hung in the air. It smelled different than the exhaust of the newer unleaded fuels. This smell was stronger, more caustic.
Dale, meanwhile, drove one of the Renault Le Car imports that had started to show up. The thing was a joke as far as Randy was concerned. But Dale had bought it with his parent's help and, well, Dale now had a car whereas he didn't.
The sedan rolled up past the porch where the unknown neighbor was standing by the picture window.
"Idiot," he announced into the night. Dale was late - yet again. No surprise. How could he and the others put together a band and make some money if their drummer was forever someplace else? He and Dale were to work out some of the parts for Daddy Don't Live Here Anymore. It was yet another awesome Donnie Iris song; the guy was a genius.
"Anybody?" drifted his way, the voice trailing off to a whispered cry. It was a girl's voice. The resignation was clear. He realized he should be able to see her and tried to peer through the darkness and the intervening porch clutter. He caught the movement of her turning and sitting down into a porch chair. A hood covered over her head and face, and as he watched her head drooped in defeat. He had no idea who she was. In fact he didn't know anyone that far up the street.
What annoyed Randy more than Dale's lateness was his choosing the Le Car. The tinfoil car. The dude should have bought the AMC Gremlin. Randy had found it a couple streets over, marked for sale at a good price. But the Gremlin was white and Dale wanted red, so Dale – Idiot Dale - had bought the pathetic Le Car.
"Hi?" came the girl's voice, louder. This time it sounded more hopeful yet without confidence. Randy looked. The girl had risen from her chair and was facing him directly, leaning on her porch railing. He could make her out only by silhouette. A porch light, turned on some distance behind her, allowed him to see the form of her shoulders, arms and head.
"Uh, hi," he replied, still not recognizing her.
"I'm locked out," she said after a pause.
He looked at her silhouetted form without much of any thought. His mind was a mosaic of thoughts with nothing connecting: A strange girl, No Dale, Parents away for the evening, their endless fussing over Aunt Carol's birthday, His lack of a job, His sister upstairs trying to ignore the world.
"Can you help me?" she continued when he didn't respond.
"Uh, yeh."
She took the steps down from her porch and headed towards him. This is going to be awkward, he thought. Over the blackened snow she steadily made her way to him. But as she got closer he saw she was barefoot. No socks. No shoes. Dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and skirt, she came into the light of his porch and stopped. With eyes that looked pained she squinted up at him and whispered in a flat voice. "You're going to think I'm stupid."
"Yeh, stupid," he agreed. "But you're talking to King Stupid, so don't think you're anything special."
That got a smile from her. She put a hand on the railing and stepped up onto the porch. The smile, although brief, was pretty on her face.
She ended up directly below the light embedded in the porch ceiling. The light put her face, cloaked by her sweatshirt hood, back into shadow. Yet he could tell she was looking away, avoiding his eyes.
She was shorter than him. If she was a teenager, it was but barely.
"Uh, you better come in," he decided, staring at her bare feet.
Sheesh, he thought, no way he'd be as calm as her, walking barefoot down the sidewalk like that.
"You have to invite me in." She said. He noticed how the lower part of her face tensed. There was an imploring quality to her tone. "You have to say it: you can come in."
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