That Empty Lot

I passed that empty lot this morning on a road I rarely travel these days.  A few years back, the road was my daily route on my way to a job where I arrived each day, armed with resolve and swallowing trepidation, and left each evening sadder, scraped over, diffused.

It wasn’t an empty lot then. It was a home, a blue trailer that had perhaps once been the blue of robins' eggs. It set back from the road a bit; it was neat, well cared for; plain, unadorned.  There was a single rose bush that stood off center in the front yard, maybe five feet high.  Slightly neglected curtains hung limply, yet neatly, in the two small front windows.  Three wooden steps led quietly up to the door.  The yard was clean and trim, grass mown in season. I never saw a person there in the morning or at quitting time, but I decided it was an elderly man living alone.   

Each spring daffodils appeared.  They grew thickly in a long fat row, not directly in front of the house, but kind of off to the side a bit; slightly off-kilter.  Each year I wondered, maybe even hoped, that he would thin them out, move them, arrange them more symmetrically. But of course he did not. 

Still, I delighted in the daily increments of their growth, in as much as my ten seconds of drive-by observation allowed. First, the early green sprouts peeping through, then the lengthening shoots reaching up, up, up; then the small buds, and at last, those proud yellow faces, nodding and satisfied.  They lit up the whole yard with their sunny yellow determination. I wondered if I would catch a glimpse of him. But of course I did not.

Occasionally, random items appeared on the neat, front lawn, with a small hand lettered sign “for sale” propped next to them.  A tire, some glass bottles, an old but serviceable lawnmower.  One day, a bowling ball, visible in its cracked leather bag.  Another week, there stood a leaning clothes rack, with men’s and women’s clothes hanging on it.  A beige coat, some slacks, a bright orange sweater.  How did one buy these things?  Where did a person pay? Who did you pay?  Where would you park on the busy road?  There was no driveway; no car. Maybe I would see him coming out to make a sale.  But of course I did not. 

In winter, the snow was cleared; a small, narrow path to the three front steps. No Christmas adornments, no lights.  After I left the job, with a cardboard box of my desk contents, I gave no more thought to the trailer and my daily musings about him.

So it was with a jolt of surprise last year that I found myself going down that road again.  There sat the trailer, a blackened remnant of its neat old self.  Charred and tattered furniture spilled out of one twisted end of the trailer; the vinyl roof bent forwards like a gaping mouth ready to pounce.  On my way to an appointment, I could only wonder sadly what had happened, and when, and if he was safe.

Today, as I neared that section of road, I steeled myself for the site.  But, another surprise:  the lot is clear - all green grass well-tended, with one rose bush, about five feet high, sitting slightly off center in the yard.

Not one whisper of a life lived there.