I Lived In Green Bay

“Do you like Clay Matthews?”

Thus was a phrase spoken by one man to another man’s young daughter. When she stopped to turn around, he asked again, “Do you like Clay Matthews? You’re wearing his shirt.” Clay Matthews is a linebacker for the Packers, and his name is plastered on the back of this girl’s jersey. Somehow the jersey doesn’t consume her entirely, and is only slightly larger than it should be — but she pairs it with pink jeans and white light-up tennis shoes. She’s maybe five years old, if that, and dirty blonde locks fall down to her shoulders.

The little girl nodded, but did not speak. She did not know this man — he was a stranger. A nice stranger, surely, but a stranger nonetheless. The man went on, “I lived in Green Bay! I love the Packers!”

The girl’s father, a tall guy with a buzzcut came up along with her grandmother, who was on the heavier side of the scale but appeared happier than anyone else in their family.

“Where did you live?” asks the grandma.
“I went to Rasmussen!”
“Oh that’s great! My brother went there!”

They discuss Green Bay weather for a minute, among other things, before the man turns back to the little girl and says, “Well I like your shirt…and your shoes are awesome!” Awesome. He says it so enthusiastically — with such gusto — like he’s really trying to make the girl talk or smile or something. Awesome. Your shoes are awesome, he says, and I’m sitting here wondering why I don’t have a pair of light up shoes.

Now the girl speaks. “Thank you!” she squeaks, before turning around and running into her father’s car. The man looks to the father now, “Hey, I know you, right? You’re Air Force?”

“Contractor, actually, but yeah pretty much.”
“We’ve met before!”
“Yeah I thought that was you! Good to see you again, man.”
“Yeah, yeah, same! I’ll see you around!”

With that, the Green Bay family departs almost as quickly as they arrived. In and out of the store in under five minutes — I’m almost certain that their exchange with the Green Bay stranger lasted longer than their time in the actual coffee shop.

The Neighbors

I live with a crazy woman. She’s been analyzed and declared sane and competent, but she is without doubt batshit crazy. She firmly believes that her cat is the embodiment of the son she never had, she’s missing anywhere between a quarter and a third of her brain, and she recently signed three different contracts with three different companies to install brand new windows in the entire house and — as a result — has since lost almost $8,000 and is aiming to lose much, much more. Legally sane, yes, but ridiculously crazy.

My neighbors seem to blow her crazy out of the water. Three or four people, from what I gather — a mother, a son my age, a younger son, and a daughter that I’ve only recently seen — live in the older quasi-Victorian style white house.

The mother, forty-something, is tall, tan, and blonde. I don’t see her much unless she’s sitting in her van smoking or outside arguing with her eldest son. Her ex-husband lives a street over, and frequently drives by in his flashy BMW coupe to show off how great his life is now that he doesn’t have to worry about her or the kids. From the information I’ve gathered, she gets doped up on anti-depressants and pain meds constantly.

The son, the one my age, looks like he walked out of an Urban Outfitters catalog. I see him walking around the neighborhood in pastel chinos with a cigarette hanging from his mouth every now and then. Like his mother, he too takes medication, but he takes lithium for what I assume to be bipolar disorder. He doesn’t appear to interact with anyone except his mother, but even then they communicate through loudness. On occasion I see him sitting on his back patio smoking and staring out into the yard.

The youngest son is a nuisance, frequently leaving behind his skateboards and bicycles and toys strewn about both their yard and mine. He stares through their front door at anyone who passes by, and I firmly believe his only vocal setting is “loud”. Sometimes I see him beg his older brother to play with him — to go riding with him or kick the ball around, to do anything — but the older brother simply pushes him away and walks on by himself.

The daughter, who I have only recently started to see, is perhaps the only normal one in the house. She plays with her younger brother, takes him to his friend’s house, and walks their dog. She’s tall with a full head of sand colored curly hair. I think she recently graduated high school due to the fact that her mother’s van recently had “Congrats Grad!” written on the back of it, but I’m not totally certain. Honestly, the daughter is the only person in the family I’ve ever seen smile. She’s the only one that talks instead of shouts.

The crack in the otherwise perfect face of suburbia starts with this family. Perfect house, perfect lawn, and an outwardly picturesque family to anyone that might drive by on any given day. Like any family, however, they are far from perfect. Love affairs, mental instability, and foundation shaking arguments that dot the week shed light on their otherwise quiet and somewhat eerie existence.

‘Round They Go

A mother and a father begin their day by jogging around the neighborhood with a stroller that contains their infant. It’s early in the morning and already the swampy heat is drowning out any possibility of a cool breeze.

The two of them are probably in their early forties, late thirties perhaps.

He’s tall, 6′-even at least, with a head full of grey that seems to be fighting a losing battle against its own hairline. He wears black frame glasses — not thick ones though, they’re sleek and stylish. His feet run their pace in white and blue running shoes and low cut white socks. Tan legs that mismatch his paper white arms are themselves covered in navy blue basketball shorts.

She’s shorter than him by a longshot, she jogs along pushing the stroller in front of her. Her hair, long and dark, is held up in a ponytail and capped off by a purple visor. She is neither morbidly pale nor overly tan, rather a fair medium on the spectrum. She’s wearing a grey sleeveless shirt, black leggings, and hot pink Nike running shoes. She wears an armband containing her iPhone, which has sprouted two long white wires that lead up to her ears.

He runs ahead of her with a short stride, his hands curl into fists and his arms bounce up and down as he goes. He struggles to maintain a steady pace while his partner flows. She’s fluid in her stride; arms extended in front of her, pushing the stroller along, her ponytail bobbing up and down, left to right. I think they’re running to get back into shape — moreover, I think she’s running to get back into shape and he’s running with her. He’s supportive, though if anyone in this relationship needs exercise it’s him.

But if we’re talking about all parties involved, perhaps it is myself that needs the exercise…I could definitely use some as well.

The run laps around the block. Two times, three times, four — I think I end up counting at least six before they disappear. On their final lap he seems to struggle even more. His right hand clutches the left side of his abdomen, so I assume he’s cramping up. Even from my location, I can see beads of sweat drip from his forehead. He breaks, taking a moment to gather his breath and clear off his lenses with his t-shirt. His pale face turned red from utter exhaustion.

His wife jogs by, bending down by the stroller to point and wave at her husband. She continues on while he gets relief, but she turns her head back to say something and I see him laugh. In my head I play off a quip she makes about her giving birth and still being able to outrun him.

He regains his balance, standing back up and starting a slow, sloppy jog. That’s the last I see of the pair.

The Ginger & His Mom

Thousands of little orange wires sprout from his scalp, where bulks of curls collapse onto one another. Freckles by the masses dot the kid’s face, which surround two murky green eyes. He’s young, though I’m not sure how young – ten, maybe, let’s go with ten years old. It seems like kids always look younger than they actually are, especially now that I’m in college.

He walks back and forth a lot, waiting for his mother – here with him – to get off the computer. “When are you going to be done?” he asks every few minutes, only to be met with rolling eyes and responses like “Soon” and “Be quiet.”

He’s wearing camouflage pants (the kind that zip off at the knees to turn into shorts) and a bright orange t-shirt – brighter than his hair – with light up shoes that flash red and blue with every step he takes, pacing and pacing some more. He leans in over his mother’s shoulder, staring at what she’s doing until she rubs her head into her shoulder as if to tell him to go away – leave her alone.

His hands touch everything; every surface of every table and door and trashcan, and then they touch his face. I shudder every time he does it.

Unlike her son, she is not a redhead. Her hair is wiry and sandy brown with streaks of grey riding through it. Early forties, probably, as I can see some wrinkles starting to line her face. She’s working on her laptop, an older silver Dell model – I don’t know what she’s working on, but I know it runs Windows XP. She has headphones plugged into her ears, but I’m not sure if she’s actually listening to anything because she can hear her son just fine.

I’m guessing she has them in so no one bothers her, a fact that doesn’t deter her son from constantly prodding her with questions like “When are we leaving?” and “What are you doing?”

She’s wearing a purple sweater – which is ridiculous given how warm it is outside – and green khaki pants with brown moccasins. With those shoes, I might add, she’s wearing bright pink socks. A clear, half-empty cup of iced coffee is sweating, leaving a nice sized puddle of water around itself.

Her son walks outside after another failed attempt to get her to go home, looks at me and asks, “What’s up?”

I nod and say “Not much.”

He’s resting against the window with his hands behind his back, pushing himself away from the window and falling back into it over and over again – something I too do when I’m bored and leaning. He sighs a deep, exaggerated sigh and kicks his toes against the concrete. Inside, I see his mom close her laptop and shovel it into a briefcase before standing up, stretching, and downing the remainder of her iced coffee.

Excited to finally be leaving, the ginger boy runs back inside and stands next to his mother while she checks her phone. It’s like she’s making him wait on purpose, just because he kept annoying her with questions. Eventually they begin to walk towards the door, before she changes direction and, instead, walks into the bathroom – the one place he cannot follow her.

In a final moment of despair and disbelief – an act of surrender – he throws his hands into the air and once more leans his back into the wall.

The Wanderers

One of them is older — he’s tall and white, both in skin color and in hair color. Another is slightly younger, though still relatively old — he’s black, skinny to the point of nigh frailty, and balding. The third is another white man, younger than the other two though just as scruffy — black hair turned to brown by the same star that reddened his otherwise paper white skin.

They gather, one by one, throughout the night. First the white haired man, then the bald one, and then the sunburned one. They steal metal chairs from other tables and, together, sit in front of Tropical Smoothie (which, by the time of their arrival, has long been closed for the night). Most of the time they don’t talk; they simply sit there with their bags of collected items and trash and bare necessities. On occasion I’ll hear one of them say something that causes the other two to chuckle, but most of the time they’re quiet.

I’ve talked to the white haired man before, if only briefly. I walk into the store, he says “Good evening!” with a great, wide smile, which immediately releases a stench of alcohol. The balding one seems to come from just beyond the road, somewhere behind a nearby grocery store. I’ve seen the sunburned one before, usually standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign that pleads for spare change.

“God Bless”, it says.

One day, I saw another man — this one strapped to a wheelchair, his right arm and both legs seemingly deformed — roll to the man standing on the street corner. The wheelchair bound man pulled a bill (could have been a single dollar, could’ve been a twenty) and stretched his good arm out to the man with the sign. The sunburned man shook his head and held his hand out, shaking that as well, fervently denying the man opposite him — vehemently against taking a fellow wanderer’s money. Nonetheless, the wheelchair bound man held it out, adamant that he take it.

The three of them sit there at the table for hours and just stare out into the void. Cars and people passing by, unless someone reaches out to them they generally sit in silence.

I’m nothing like them, I tell myself. I have a job, and a home, and a car. But some nights I sit here, by myself, and I stare at them. For all the things they lack — whether it’s a home or a family — like me they come here every night. They come here and they sit and wonder and, sometimes, laugh. While I sit alone, they at least have each other. They may not even like one another, but in their stoic silence is a particular, visible bond. They’re here together for however long, their only consistencies in life, and then disband.

I don’t know why. I don’t feel particularly pushed to ask why. But like me, they’re here.

The Smoker

She sits alone under the carport, a shield from the downpour that surrounds her. She’s older, but not elderly, and “slightly overweight” – something she says her recent back surgery caused. I’ve talked to her once before, and she explained that the pool gave her relief from her pains, both physical and emotional.

“Floating supports my back,” she told me, “and going under keeps everything in my head quiet.”

A couple of months ago she told me about her mental state and how her ex-husband had pushed her to driving a shard of glass into his stomach. He survived, and she was left with a scar in her palm (she held her hand up to show me – there was no scar). Psychiatrists had prescribed her a number of pills to take daily, but according to her they’re doing more harm than good. She says they add voices, rather than remove them. Her family is the root of her problem, she tells me, “The bane of her very existence” — having cut her off from grandchildren and financial support. She now lives with her daughter and grandson – the only two people that haven’t yet abandoned her. She explains that were it not for them, she would not be alive today.

She once told me that this, her current existence, is hell.

She sits under the carport smoking one cigarette after another after another. Even from my spot, some twenty feet away, she appears blank. Maybe it’s the gloomy weather, but she seems more depressed than usual today. On occasion I’ll see her outside smoking, usually standing and pacing – today she’s sitting in a purple lawn chair, staring into the many thousands of raindrops falling in front of her.

Four cigarettes, and she consumes each one down to the butt. Hot orange tip after hot orange tip.

After she finishes her last cigarette, she reaches for another but the box is empty. She sets it back down on the little square table to her left side, and proceeds to dump the ashes into the little patch of grass that would – I suppose – be called her front lawn. It’s no larger than three feet wide by five feet long.

Even without cigarettes, she remains seated for the next ten minutes, staring idly into the rain. When she attempts to breathe in, her first real breath I’ve seen while watching her, she coughs. Hard enough to make her bend over and hold her chest, but not hard enough to make her go inside. I rarely see her outside, so I’m not sure if the cigarettes are what’s killing her or if, ironically, it’s the fresh air.