Neighbors

Neighbors

Jonathon Avery’s next-door neighbor was dead. He had died two years before. Jonathon had no idea that it had happened.

“Hi, Jon. Working on the house these days, huh?” Mrs. Etheridge took a break from raking leaves – mud pot gray skies of early winter gurgled overhead - and spoke in his direction as he descended the ladder, paintbrush poking from the crotch of his hand. Few folks on Philadelphia’s Main Line painted their own houses or raked their own leaves. Fewer chatted with neighbors yard-to-yard.

“Got more time now…no more corporate pressures. I suppose Mr. Etheridge has found that out?” Jonathon guessed that Etheridge had retired by now.

“Died two years ago. Buried him out in King of Prussia Memorial Gardens.” Jonathon let her go on. He didn’t look sick to me, was all Jon could think of. He wanted her to go on – in detail – not to compress the story into sound bites…snippets – the way Main Liners did on the rare occasions that they talked with their neighbors. The more she talked, the less he would have to ask. He tried not to look surprised. He should have known. How did it happen that a man’s next-door neighbor died and he did not know anything about it? It was ridiculous. It was embarrassing. You mean, The Wife didn’t know? Maybe the conversation would move in a direction that Jonathon would not have to confirm back to Mrs. Etheridge that her husband’s demise was news to him…new information…information that he should have been aware of…the kind of information where next-door neighbors stopped by promptly…with serene faces and their best casserole dish – like the one with squash and cheese and onions that everyone told The Wife that they never tasted anything so good. Food was a help to women whose husband’s had died. Why were wives always the survivors living in those big houses all alone? Made them feel better to have people around and good food, too. Can you imagine how she must have felt when no one, not one frickin’ person in this fricking neighborhood knew that the old guy…Etheridge… was gone? Please, God, keep her talking while I figure a way out of this gracefully. Jonathon fidgeted the paintbrush back and forth.

Neighbors drove fast down this stretch of road, doubling the twenty-five mile per hour limit, oblivious to these mortals in belated conversation. Mrs. Etheridge leaned on her rake as she went on. Oh, how Jonathon wished he had a rake to lean on. He gazed skyward, perhaps looking for a sudden storm. It wasn’t right to miss a neighbor’s funeral. Not weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations, graduations or engagements, either. Commitment ceremonies? Jonathon was not sure about that one. Doesn’t really matter anymore, he thought. Dad was real friendly to the gay broads across the street back home. Even went to their “wedding.” ‘Real fine girls’ he called them. Neighbors. Neighbors back home were close, like kin…sometimes closer than kin. Kin you don’t have to live with but a few times a year. Neighbors made it a…well… a neighborhood. A few good neighbors were all the folks needed back home. Those few neighbors knew all the rest. Pretty soon the whole neighborhood knew each other’s stories. And, they cared. Like when Dad’s friend, Jim, got heart trouble that could not be cured, it only took talking to a few neighbors to convince yourself that Jim’s heart was a goner. Jonathon had to admit it; he had never really gotten to know the Etheridge’s. Or, the Main Line. Don’t ever bury me here, he had thought every time something like this happened.

(to be continued)


R&R - I will return the favor.