The House on Antioch
On Sunday the 9th, we were driving home from a great brunch with great friends, and on Antioch Road we passed a house that we've passed hundreds of times since moving into that area back in 2002. Over the years, the house has from time to time drawn my attention for one oddity or another. Once the unknown folks who lived there put up a little house in a stretch of yard that spreads to the east of the house. It seemed to me that a woman was opening up a little shop there, a permanent yard sale, a "cent-shop" like that of Hepzibah Pyncheon in Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. But that soon disappeared, shut down, I imagined, by those city or county officials who would identify it as a business and raise zoning objections or force her to pay Tennessee's excessive sales tax. Later a large rectangular portion of the same yard was stringed off and became the home of a pony or miniature horse. (Is there a difference?) He grazed the grass down and weathered the elements until one day somebody was out inside his stringed pasture petting him and the next day he was gone.
On Sunday as we approached the house, we could see a couple of cars parked along the roadside and in the yard and two cars from the Sheriff's office parked in the driveway. One officer had the trunk of his car open and was removing cases (like CSI cases, we said) and a duffle bag . We glanced at the house and saw the yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the entire front and across the entrance of a basement door that I've always thought must lead to an apartment. We turned around a couple of times but couldn't come up with an idea of what was going on—or what had gone on. It seems to me that while we were away at church and in the company of friends, somebody's life blew apart.
This morning I drove through the dark on my way to the gym and passed that house, wondering again what had happened there. On the rest of the drive I put these lines together in my head and wrote them down on a napkin when I parked in the gym lot.
The house sits in the darkness before dawn,
against a black backdrop of scattered trees,
a dim image of roof, façade and walls
held together by yellow crime scene tape.
That's all I have for now. We'll see if it goes anywhere in the future.
On Sunday as we approached the house, we could see a couple of cars parked along the roadside and in the yard and two cars from the Sheriff's office parked in the driveway. One officer had the trunk of his car open and was removing cases (like CSI cases, we said) and a duffle bag . We glanced at the house and saw the yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the entire front and across the entrance of a basement door that I've always thought must lead to an apartment. We turned around a couple of times but couldn't come up with an idea of what was going on—or what had gone on. It seems to me that while we were away at church and in the company of friends, somebody's life blew apart.
This morning I drove through the dark on my way to the gym and passed that house, wondering again what had happened there. On the rest of the drive I put these lines together in my head and wrote them down on a napkin when I parked in the gym lot.
The house sits in the darkness before dawn,
against a black backdrop of scattered trees,
a dim image of roof, façade and walls
held together by yellow crime scene tape.
That's all I have for now. We'll see if it goes anywhere in the future.
posted by mac | 6:21 AM
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