Part 1: The Neighborhood

Mary rolls her trash down the driveway alone now that Nolo has died; decades of Saturday night dancing, summer swims and afternoon tennis are behind her; these days, ladies come to lunch or she flies to grandchildren halfway across the country. She is neither stooped nor gray in her 80 years; she bakes for church, sweeps her stoop; she waits her time - her time, she believes that will be here sooner than later.

Bill sets his furniture on the road for anyone to take; long ago, he gave up trying to talk about his pain. The soldier in him remembers hiding in South Pacific trees; he looked down below to where dead soldiers lay, rotting like rutabagas, their stench wafting, shrinking his nostrils shut. He soldiers on, dead to the cancer that grew inside while he refused for years to speak to his family; and, fearing the end is near, he gives away everything he has. Except himself.

May remembers well in her 95 years, her red-headed, hot-blooded husband, her lover and her only, dead now these 50 years; no children has she, but she treats those two youngsters who dare visit with sugar candy made by hand, and gives them small porcelain dolls from her childhood collection. She, too, knows well, this will not last.

Up the road where the gravel ends and trees from both sides arc a bridge, lives an ex government official, (when he lives here at all); a state trooper still parks day and night - lights off, furtive in the distance, an animal awaiting prey.

Younger folk move in from time to time; they see the welcome wagon parked out front and hope an ice cream truck is nearby. Truth is, no ice cream truck has been in these parts for 30 years, not since the last crop of schoolchildren giggled and spilled from school doors at the first sound of the afternoon bell. The neighborhood waits.

Mrs. A. just bought the large corner house at foreclosure, helped in part by her husband's lawsuit and disability; she works in the corporate world and keeps her toddlers in daycare. She grew up here; she will live here; she will die here. She cares about nothing else other than a large house, spotless, vacant.

Donaldo, the Italian teacher, rides his bicycle, leaving his 4WD at home most days; he wobbles on his bike some, his backpack is full of papers he graded last night; he, too, awaits his tenure of 30 years so he can retire on the Cape.

Izzy, the drunken soccer coach and keeper of all town contracts, keeps well his family of six in a million-dollar home, spotless, barren of all values, save pretense. Only his pretty wife, who works outside the home four days a week, keeps well her appearance and that of her four beautiful girls; she, too, knows this will not last.

All is quiet now on the cusp of tomorrow; soon, new neighbors will move in. I hear Mr. and Mrs. have two school-aged children, a boy and a girl - towheaded and tall, friendly, robust and smart - like their parents, who wave and smile at passersby, seemingly unaffected by the neighborhood's care-worn malaise of yesteryear. They will go about their business and make certain everything is in order; they will register their tow-headed boy and tow-headed girl in the school down the block, they will set up a lemonade stand on their large corner lot.

This could bring good luck. This could bring the ice cream truck.