The fire came swooping down from the west, meeting the swimming pool and splitting in two. What burned and what was spared is still a mystery. The house I now own was not spared. It burned to the ground in three minutes flat. I’d like to think it burned for me, that while I sat in my high-rise condo reading about the fire, the now-charred lot waited for me to move here 3 years later and help bring it back to life.
When I moved here, the lot was open wide and the dogs from the drug house across stalked me. Part of the owners’ fence burned down and they had only half -ass fixed it. The dogs soon discovered the six missing planks leaving a gap big enough for them to come in and out of. Three big dogs of mixed races waited for me to come home from work, and sat on my front yard all day sending my indoor dogs into a frenzy. At night, they would pace up and down or sleep in my front door setting off all the cameras and their notifications. So I had a fence built.
The fence builder asked me if he could leave all 200 feet of plank in the front of the property. I said, “I would prefer you didn’t, that’s too close to the druggy neighbors.” But he made a face, “then it will take us a lot longer to have to haul the planks over here from over there.”
So the material was left overnight close to the neighbors’ fence for three days.
One morning, I looked out towards my new fence which would soon be finished and I noticed the neighbors’ fence had been mended overnight. Six planks, which looked exactly like mine, now covering up the dogs’ escape route. They had stolen six of my planks when the price of wood was at its highest. And if six planks is all it took for them to fix my problem, they should have said so long ago and I would have brought the wood for them from work. Instead I was paying $4,000 for a fence to keep their dogs out.
On the last day of the fence project, I pulled up from work to see the worker was still not done. “I was short six planks, and my boss went to get them” he said. If those were indeed my planks, it could be known, but not easily proven because there lay a fallen oak in front of their fence where the new planks were. I would have to walk all the way over there and climb behind the fallen tree to see. The proof has this: If the planks did not reach the bottom and were a foot short, they were mine for sure. My fence was 5 feet tall, theirs was six.
The burning question sat with me for days until I had to just let it go. If I have learned to live with the burning question as to why men who allegedly love me are so terrified of me, I can live with the mystery of the six planks. Besides, they would never remove that fallen oak to reveal the truth.
But yesterday while I gardened, one of they neighbors called me, “Hi, neighbor.” I walked over there, “did you finally sell your house?”
“I did” so I’m trying to figure out what I need to take care of around the property before the inspection. She pointed to the fallen burned oak tree.
“I’m not sure whose property that is on. I think it’s theirs, or maybe mine.”
“Or mine” I said. “My property line is somewhere over there, too.”
We walked over there to see what this new pink property flag placed by who knows who said. “Property line under tree.”
“There is always surveyors around here leaving flags, still trying to assess the fire damage.” She said.
The tree looked somewhat moved. It was no longer right along the fence where the new planks were, so I looked over the trunk to see the fence, to finally have that burning question answered after all these years, one of them, anyway. Did they mend their fence by stealing my wooden planks?
The six planks went all the way down to the ground. Six feet. They were not mine.
“So half of it is on your and half of it is on mine.” I told her. “I’m not picking it up.”
“Neither am I” she said. “Let the new owners decide what they want to do with it.”
I got scared about having new neighbors. What if they wanted to remove all the fallen trees the woodpeckers use. What if they wanted to remove that half charred stick standing that is the acorn woodpeckers’ granary. What if they wanted to use rat poison and pesticides on their property, they would kill the owls and the hawks and the turkey vultures. They could potentially disrupt our little eco system here entirely.
My Love is for the Birds - Sketches 