I walk alongside this road every day, most of the time in the morning, but sometimes in the evening and even at night. One morning, perhaps ten years ago, I picked up a letter lying on the ground by the mailbox of this single-wide mobile home. Not wanting to return it to the box, I walked over to the steps of the mobile home, to the porch, then opened the screen to knock.
I got no answer…instead I got a really uncomfortable feeling while standing there. As I hurried away, I noticed that the house side each step was guarded by a gargoyle made of concrete.
The same kind of grotesque figures that were placed on medieval churches to scare away evil spirits. This morning the gargoyles scared me too.
“I wonder if they sell drugs here,” I said to myself, “a lot of strange cars come in here.”
But I shrugged my shoulders and let the idea pass.
Then, several weeks ago, around dark, I was returning from an evening walk when I saw six police cars drive up in the yard next door to the mobile home. The officers climbed out quickly and walked single-file toward the porch.
“This has got to be a drug bust,” I said to myself. “I’d like to watch, but if something like this was happening at my house, I wouldn’t want any on-lookers hanging around to gawk.”
So I stifled my curiosity and headed toward home.
The next morning, the curtains had disappeared from the windows. A few days later, the porch had been taken down, and its floor — left intact, with joists exposed — had been moved to the edge of the lot.
“That’s strange,” I thought. “Wonder what they’ll do with that porch?”
A few days later, I saw a Kubota track loader parked beside the trailer, and soon after that, I saw its operator wrecking the trailer’s roof.”
“Even though that old trailer was neglected, “I thought, “it was somebody’ s home, and It makes me sad to see it torn down.”
A couple of mornings later, the trailer had been transformed into a pile of twisted sheet meal and yellow insulation. A larger trailer stood by to receive the debris. which the track loader was scooping up.
“This will take a while,” I said. “When I walk back by, maybe I can ask one of the men what went on here.”
And sure enough, when I returned, I saw the truck river picking up pieces of wood out of the mud, then carrying them to an out-building.
“Lord, let that man talk to me,” I asked.
So I dodged the mud and walked over to see if the man with the Fu Manchu beard would talk to me.
“Lot of sadness here,” I began.
“A lot of sadness,” the man said, as he pushed eight or ten white pills into the mud.
“They cooked drugs here,” he continued.
“Is that how you all got permission to tear the place down?”
“No. This place belonged to this boy’s daddy, who moved here from that brick house over yonder, after his wife died. Said he loved her so much he just couldn’t stay in the house they lived in together.”
“Was the daddy living here now.”
“No, he moved off, long time ago, but his son stayed here.”
Fu Manchu paused. “The son, has been gone for six months… got caught for selling drugs. They found him guilty …going to send him to prison.”
“He was already a felon,” he continued. “In the raid, they found pills and guns. A felon cannot own a firearm. That’s a federal offence. Paul will be gone for a long time.”
“If Paul was gone, who was living here?”
“One of Paul’s buddies,” he said. “…brought his girl-friend with him.”
Fu pushed another pill into the mud with the heel of his boot. “Both of them must have cooked…the place was full of pills…every cabinet, every closet. Everywhere.”
“Then they got raided too, “ Fu continued, “a month or two ago.”
“Down about night?”
Fu nodded.
“I saw the officers drive up that night,” I said.
“You did?”
I nodded.
“They found the woman, lying on the couch with a needle in her arm. Her boyfriend was gone.”
“He was out making a delivery,” Fu continued. “When he drove back, he saw the cops and sped up, to get away. But the cops cut him off about half a mile from here. Locked them both up.”
“After all this happened, Paul’s dad called me, said he had had enough. He hired us to tear this place down, and haul it off.”
“Still sad, to have to destroy a house,” I said.
Fu nodded. “But this place has been a dope house for years… there were cars coming in here all hours of the night, and gun fire, too…lots of it.”
“How long do you figure Paul will get?”
“Probably 40 years.”
“And the others?”
“I don’t know. Not as much as Paul, but a lot.”
“Do you reckon they’ll learn anything in prison?”
“I doubt it,” he said.
“There’s a lot of waste here,” I said. “House…and lives.”
“That’s the truth,” Manchu said. “I guess it was a house, but as far as I can tell, it never was a home.”
Paul’s dad’s gonna’ put a double-wide here,” Fu continued. “Going to put the old porch up side of it.”
“Really?
“That’s what he says.”
We stood silent for a moment.
“Thank you for talking to me,” I said.
“My pleasure,” Fu Manchu replied.
After that, I waved goodbye, crossed the mud to the tar and gravel road, then made my way home.