The Freedom of Leaving

Never in my entire childhood had I ever seen a living, breathing rat.

Maybe cockroaches, not to be confused with palmetto bugs, the ones that live in the trees and slap you in the face when the porch lights come on.

But it’s South Florida. You expect that. Insects and reptilian creatures breed here and hang around longer than tourists from the north; the snowbirds, New Yorkers and Canadians. But I never saw rats. Not until now.

I held on tightly to the key – loaned to me by the head of the demolition team who was now dozing in his work truck across the street. I glanced at him and back at the house, half-hoping that he would change his mind.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he’d said moments earlier. “It’s not safe. Loose floor boards, tiles, maybe even live wires. Roof’s hanging on for dear life. Ten minutes. That’s it.”

He lingered for a few seconds, taking note of the tension in my face, the anguish in the way I was biting my lip. His tone softened.

“It’s got good bones though. Bet it was a beauty in its time.”

           I was born in this house, in the kitchen, actually. I was due in March, but I arrived four or five weeks early. My mother’s labor pains were so intense that my father couldn’t chance the drive to the colored hospital.

           And it was a beauty. A split-level house was the newest and best thing yet. According to my schoolmates, we had the biggest house in the neighborhood. But “big” is relative. Truth is that everything around it was so small. This old section of town was dominated by rows of shotgun houses, no more than 12 feet wide with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end, designed to circulate a breeze. The tiny front yards were made up of pebbles and sand. It was also noted that my mother kept the prettiest flower bed in town, with hibiscus at the center, and on several occasions, local thieves proved that to be a fact.

My father built this house with his own hands, which likely is an exaggeration, and mother imagined that it would remain in the family and serve as a gathering place for her unborn grandchildren and their heirs. If I could only apologize for being such a disappointment.

Standing on the front stoop, the memories were on automatic replay, all of them, from my sister’s wedding reception on the driveway to the day the medics wheeled my dad to the morgue.

“What you waiting for? Open the door.”

Behind me was my husband, Jock. He agreed to this eight-hour road trip with great reservation. Six months earlier, he’d made the pronouncement that he would never get behind the wheel again. Not unless it was crucial. A matter of life and death. Forty-five years of driving a Trailways bus will do that to a man. And after years of taking the other for granted, I suspect that he’d rather stay home, go fishing and take it easy - without me.

He placed his steady hand on top of mine. In that moment, I noticed God’s artistry – the blooming cherry bush by the front door, butterflies and bumblebees jockeying for nectar, my husband’s hand, the hue of and crustiness of an old penny and adorned with rivers of prominent wrinkles. Slowly, together, we pushed in the key and turned the doorknob. I shook when I heard the lock click.

The smell of animal feces, urine, the scent of death rushed up my nostrils and slammed into my lungs. At least one rodent lie in repose, possibly a victim of cannibalism, as survivors hurriedly scampered away. I slammed the door, the keys fell from my hand. I closed my eyes to no avail. The images, the putrid odors were permanently implanted in my brain.

I wondered if Jock had been right. He was concerned that I was going too far with this “world tour,” my own personal wake after my diagnosis.

His argument made sense. “Why waste what is left of your life by revisiting the painful past? We could travel like you always wanted. See the world.” He stopped short of suggesting that I should make new memories. We both knew that my disease wasn’t going to allow me to go that route. The first thing that it will steal is the memories. I needed to return to the old familiar places before I forget; to worship them, to curse them, to feel something for them before they disappear as morning fog.

I sat on the wrought iron bench that had survived so many tropical storms and neglectful owners. The flower bed was overgrown with weeds and sullied with trash, beer cans, broken liquor bottles, used condoms and heaven knows what else. The entire neighborhood had been reduced to boarded up houses, a few rooming houses and vacant lots. Jock placed a handful of napkins on my lap. We sat there silently. Just us and the honeybees. The image of what we’d just seen. The demolition man waiting patiently across the street. The impending destruction of my childhood home. And then we started laughing. As if we’d witnessed something so absurd that it was laughable. I covered my mouth as if in shock.

“Can you believe the goddamn rats? My parents are rolling in their graves!”

“That was bad,” Jock said.

We sat in silence again. I rested my head on his shoulder.

“I hope you brought the music,” I said.

“Sho’ nuff, little girl. Right ‘chere.”

He pulled out his harmonica, the “healing” instrument, he calls it, and played a few bars of a familiar bluesy tune. We tapped our toes and swayed from side to side.

“I guess I ain’t dead yet.”

 I put the house key in his hand. Jock walked across the street, hands shoved deep in his pants pockets like a dejected kid who’d lost his lunch money. Then he turned to face me, holding up the harmonica, performing a quick fancy foot move and tipping his hat.

I watched as he returned the key to the demolition man. After a few minutes, they shared a cigarette. My heart nearly stopped. Jock quit smoking years ago and rarely chats up strangers. But there he was, resting his arm on the truck’s open door and clearly doing most of the talking. People change when times change. You never know who's gonna step up and be there when it's tough. I had come all this way to accept my fate. To have a reckoning with the past. It was all about me. I never thought about how my plight was affecting those who I loved.

As I gathered a few bricks from mama’s flower bed, he was standing over me, arms outstretched to assist. I examined each one, choosing carefully which would journey back home with us.

“I’ll be right back,” Jock said. He opened my door and waited for me to adjust my skirt. “We almost forgot something.”

He disappeared around the side of the house and returned with a plant he had uprooted.

“We can plant this in the yard when we get back home,” he said.

We rolled out of the driveway, smashing more anthills and slinging loose gravel like Jiffy Pop. And what I thought was going to be a somber occasion, marked by loss and defeat, was actually a trip when I fell in love with life, all over again.