MaryLupin
08-04-2007, 11:15 AM
I went out yesterday to buy ginger tea—when I came
home the house next door was gone. The brown
stucco that glinted with shards of embedded glass in the sun,
the little black iron railings leading up, into, across the tongue
red carpet at the doorway: gone. There was, instead, a pile
of rubble and a Link Belt 210 LX
sitting on the legs of wreckage reaching back
toward the alley.
The machine was quiet. A man was moving
around, poking beneath boards, looking along the wall
of the other neighbour, still intact across the lot. I stood
at the fence—its boards a little bowed—the bulge toward my door, and bits
of window, a board shredded at one end, nails piercing
it in half-a-dozen places, were lying quietly on the walk between the fence
and my way in. The man saw me, skirted the largest bulge
of broken house, asked me for a hose…“a nozzle”
he said, “a hose with a nozzle.”
The man from upstairs came down, he had been watching too,
from his perch, and listening. He brought a long brown hose and a nozzle. Hooked
up at the wall, the water came fissing, drenching the boards, old carpet
shreds, nails, dry wall broken and concrete pebbles. The neighbour went back
up the wooden stairs—I think he was still watching—and the first man,
the nozzle man, climbed up inside the Link Belt 210 LX and started its motor.
At first it just sat there burbling, but then its single arm, and its bucket, a mouth and hand
at once, pulled up from the earth where it had lain unmoving. It pulled up, and once
clear of the broken house, it opened—a single tooth!—and like the jaw of a vole,
it clamped down on the hard shell of the heaped rubble. It turned a pile, in a stream
of water, and rolled it, stirred it to the bottom to wet it all.
That toothed hand took hold carefully: delicately it skittered under and then lifted
an old sign DO NOT DISTU broken but still nailed
securely to its bit of wall, a fine touch that hand/mouth, almost respectful: a gentle
gathering. The sign fell back into the well of the bucket, was carried
over, it hovered just for a moment at the edge of the tipped
toothed hand and then fell into the big blue
garbage container, half-full already, waiting at the edge of the alley.
A note and a question: I am no good at all at titles. Any suggestions?
home the house next door was gone. The brown
stucco that glinted with shards of embedded glass in the sun,
the little black iron railings leading up, into, across the tongue
red carpet at the doorway: gone. There was, instead, a pile
of rubble and a Link Belt 210 LX
sitting on the legs of wreckage reaching back
toward the alley.
The machine was quiet. A man was moving
around, poking beneath boards, looking along the wall
of the other neighbour, still intact across the lot. I stood
at the fence—its boards a little bowed—the bulge toward my door, and bits
of window, a board shredded at one end, nails piercing
it in half-a-dozen places, were lying quietly on the walk between the fence
and my way in. The man saw me, skirted the largest bulge
of broken house, asked me for a hose…“a nozzle”
he said, “a hose with a nozzle.”
The man from upstairs came down, he had been watching too,
from his perch, and listening. He brought a long brown hose and a nozzle. Hooked
up at the wall, the water came fissing, drenching the boards, old carpet
shreds, nails, dry wall broken and concrete pebbles. The neighbour went back
up the wooden stairs—I think he was still watching—and the first man,
the nozzle man, climbed up inside the Link Belt 210 LX and started its motor.
At first it just sat there burbling, but then its single arm, and its bucket, a mouth and hand
at once, pulled up from the earth where it had lain unmoving. It pulled up, and once
clear of the broken house, it opened—a single tooth!—and like the jaw of a vole,
it clamped down on the hard shell of the heaped rubble. It turned a pile, in a stream
of water, and rolled it, stirred it to the bottom to wet it all.
That toothed hand took hold carefully: delicately it skittered under and then lifted
an old sign DO NOT DISTU broken but still nailed
securely to its bit of wall, a fine touch that hand/mouth, almost respectful: a gentle
gathering. The sign fell back into the well of the bucket, was carried
over, it hovered just for a moment at the edge of the tipped
toothed hand and then fell into the big blue
garbage container, half-full already, waiting at the edge of the alley.
A note and a question: I am no good at all at titles. Any suggestions?