Eviction Eve

Today the bus is late. Riley sits on the bench outside the East 14th subway station watching fellow commuters emerge. She studies their tired faces as they pass. One woman steps off the escalator and drops to her knees, bags falling off her shoulders. She remains crouched, her back heaving with each extracted breath. People it by, stepping over her bags, not even glancing back, calloused to see such displays of fatigue, they feel no need to offer help. An older gentleman in a tattered gray overcoat stops. He wraps his arm around her bent frame and lifts her to a standing position, then gently steers her to a nearby bench and goes back for her bags. She shakes his hand with both of hers and mouths thank you as he walks to a waiting car. Riley wonders what awaits that worn out woman. Could she be facing an eviction tonight like me? The worn-out-woman could be a single parent with ve children and nowhere to go. Maybe she has no family, no friends. At least I have a husband at home packing up our household. But the worn-out-woman will have to pack her life into a few bags, only the number she and her children can carry. They will have to get on a bus from their house and show up at a shelter tonight. They will sleep on the oor because there wont be enough beds. In the morning, the worn-out-woman will rise before dawn to clean the bathrooms, such labor will serve to pay for their stay. The shelter will provide a meager breakfast of toast and jam. She will take her children to a nearby park where she will have to leave them in the early morning shadows. She will point to the library across the street as she tells them to go there after school. She knows her children will be courteous and quiet enough so that maybe the librarian wont kick them out before she gets back. She will keep her face strong like stone as she boards the bus for work. There will not even be a inch of homelessness in her stare as she looks back to see her children waving goodbye. Riley leaves the worn-out-womans story and turns to making up stories for some of the other commuters. A shiny midnight blue Mercedes pulls up to the curb. The man behind the wheel looks straight ahead. A well-dressed woman in a pin stripe suit runs over, opens the passenger door, tosses her bag onto the back seat and jumps in. The drivers diamond rings, gold chains and platinum watch glisten in the setting sun. Riley wonders if this is the ladys husband or her pimp. Is she a respectable businesswoman by day and an alluring call girl by night? A nurse sprints by in her hospital scrubs. Riley lapses into brief remorse about her failure to complete her education. When she was twelve years old, she wanted to go to Duke University and study the brain. Right now she could be a neuroscientist discovering new elds of research, unlocking mysteries, improving the lives of millions. Stop these foolish fantasies. Go back to your subway stories. She wonders why she is sitting at this subway station, alone, in this scruffy neighborhood where violence screeches at every corner, skidding at every stop, pacing in front of every doorway, looking, always looking, ready to pounce at the slightest skip in the beat that pounds these streets. She sees a small black BMW with tinted windows pull up to the curb. The driver is looking side-to-side. Fear invades Rileys fantasy and ashes an image across her mind of the car bursting into an explosion of gunre. I need to calm down. Drive by shootings dont happen in front of subway stations, or do they?

Kathleen Franks 2011

All Rights Reserved

Page 1

Eviction Eve
The bus pulls up. Its crowded. Should I stand in the front or sit in the back with the rowdy teenagers? Tiredness sways Riley to a seat in the back. She stares out the window and wonders how her life has come to this: riding on some ugly hunker of a smelly bus that takes her through this cringed craze of lthy streets, bordered by buildings decrepit from this urban grip of apathy. No one cares how this grid of earth will heal itself. No one wants to cultivate this ground they walk. They write their epitaphs upon their walls. Stalked by night. Angry red words of hate. Screaming yellow streaks of frustration. Black letters of despair written with spray cans of stolen paint. Houses sag from old heavy roofs. Wrought iron bars criss-cross windows that lock inhabitants inside. Yards wheeze with shallow breaths of stied trash. Grand old gardens buried among invading weeds. Trees stand as solemn sentries, their inner cores ringed with stories of forgotten days when these neighborhoods wore beauty as their mantle and streets were paved in peace. The bus lumbers through this ghetto, over a bridge and onto Bay Harbor Isle. Riley wonders how life can have disparities so great that in just a few blocks, the whole world changes. Suddenly its an environment of pristine proportions: streets and sidewalks swept clean. Houses primped and painted fresh. Cars tucked neatly in garages. Weedless lawns with hedges lined to a leaf. Backyards bordering saltwater lagoons where egrets step lightly. Eviction eve waits around the corner. Riley pauses before making the turn to take one long last look at the Japanese maple that had greeted her every day for the past three years. Its beautifully patterned leaves utter in applause, Hey! How was your day? Riley steps onto the perfectly trimmed tree lawn to give the maple a hug goodbye, Listen. You take care. Im leaving tonight. Its eviction eve, remember? Ill get back someday to see you. The leaves hush as the tree lowers its limbs to caress Rileys shoulders. You be good, the little maple says, I love you. Theres no moving van parked in front of Rileys house as if she were having a regular move, you know, guys in smart gray uniforms trekking up and down the trailers plank while carrying couches, chairs, the antique buffet and the cherry drop-leaf table, the heirloom grandfather clock, and the boxes of carefully packed china and crystal. No, the boxes of Rileys life are packed with fragile hopes tied up in long ribbons of threadbare promises. Hope. Hope had been holding Riley hostage. In fact, she had been imprisoned by hope for so long that she had developed Stockholm Syndrome. Riley had fallen in love with hope. It had been whispering sweet nothings in her ear for twenty years like: Things will get better. Canyon will provide. Youll get a break. Eviction. How had it gotten to this? Eviction shows up in your life when everything else has left. Maybe the rst to leave was your energy. Then your health. Then your job. Then your bank account. Then your credit rating. Or maybe the rst thing to go was your husband. Then your self-esteem. Then your mental health. Eviction doesnt really care. It doesnt want to hear your story. It just wants you out. Gone.

Kathleen Franks 2011

All Rights Reserved

Page 2

Eviction Eve
On this eviction eve, Riley would like to break free of hope, maybe then she could get to reality and lead an honest life, but she has no time to think about that now as she steps inside her front door, drops her bags, breezes the mail, pets the dog and looks over to see Destin and Peter sprawled on the oor watching cartoons on the television in the middle of the vacant living room. They look up at Riley with hopeful eyes as if she would have some good news, like she magically got a raise and could pay the back rent now. Crazy thought, seeing how she had only been on the job for two months. Simone appears at the top of the staircase. Mom, I got my period today and I cant nd any maxipads! she wails. We dont have any! Stuff yourself with toilet paper! Riley barked back. Why are you yelling? Simone cries collapsing on the nearest step, head in lap, sobbing. Pain jolts through Rileys chest. Her daughters tears drench her thoughts. She cant think. She feels like she has been embalmed. Shadow, the familys giant schnauzer, goes up the stairs to Simones side. She leans on him, her tears running off the waves of his shiny black fur. Riley heads for the kitchen wondering what theyre going to do for dinner. Shes still not thinking. Theres nothing there. There hadnt been much of anything there for a long time. Near naked cupboards and drawers had only served as a prophetic glimpse of this eviction eve. The oor-to-ceiling pantry had never known the satisfaction of being fully stocked. It had never felt its shelves bowed in the center by stacks upon stacks of canned goods. It had never been stied by piles of pasta, beans, rice, sugar, our, cornmeal and such. It had never been lined by rows of jars and bottles lled with fruit, james and syrups, nor its shelves packed with cereals, crackers, cookies, chips, candy and nuts. No, Rileys pantry had only known the echo that hushed each time its doors closed in nothingness. Outside the kitchen window, Riley could see Natalie and Yvette playing hopscotch on the patio. Hey, girls! Mommy will get you some dinner in a minute. she said as she stepped outside to give them a hug hello, We can go get some burgers. Riley nds her husband packing his tools in the garage. She leans in the doorway. I have a ten dollar bill. You can go get the children some ninety-nine cent burgers while I nish packing up my clothes. Canyon shoots Riley a dirty look then mumbles that hell leave in a minute which means hell go when he feels good and ready and come back in two hours. Standard modus operandi. Riley pushes the button to open the garage door and gets in the car. Hey! Cant you wait a minute? Canyon yells as she backs down the driveway.

Kathleen Franks 2011

All Rights Reserved

Page 3

Eviction Eve
At least this eviction isnt as bad as the last one she tells herself. That time she had to leave her entire household. Everything except the clothes she could stuff in a few suitcases. Bare minimum. All that could t into that small trunk of that old red Dodge Colt. Four children. One husband. One wife. Bare minimum. The children squished in the back seat. Destin was eight. Peter was six. Simone was ve. Natalie was eighteen months. Leaving Camus Valley. That beautiful land she and Canyon had purchased in 1978 during the days of the back-tothe-land-movement. Fifteen acres on the Hunters Star Route that backed up to a national forest at the Canadian border of Northeast Washington. Remote. Spectacularly beautiful. Like living in a painting is what Riley always told herself every time she looked out her kitchen window. Seductively quiet. On warm summer nights the whole family would lay out on the ground at the top of the pasture and wish on shooting stars. Arriving at the hamburger stand, Riley thought about how foolish it was to lay out there on that land, leaving her future up to a shooting star.

~
At dawn the next morning, Riley and Canyon placed the remaining suitcases into the back of the Suburban. Canyon would be driving that with the boys. Riley would be driving the old Mercedes with the girls, hoping it wouldnt break down on the way to Washington. Yes, back to that state, only this time to the west side. Issaquah. Where they could stay with old friends. Riley thought about how lucky she was to have such great friends who would take her whole family in like this. The route to the freeway passed through the same neighborhood that Rileys bus took from the subway. As she stopped at the intersection by the small park across from the library, she glanced over to see the very same woman that had collapsed from exhaustion that day at the station. Five children huddled with her on the park bench. Cars started honking as the light turned green. The woman looked over. Riley looked back and waved.

Kathleen Franks 2011

All Rights Reserved

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