the shopsiest ever

The sky was turning the color of a fresh bruise as we pulled into my grandfathers subdivision, a bewildering labyrinth of interlocking culdesacs known collectively as Circle Village. We stopped at the guard gate to announce ourselves, but the old man in the booth was snoring and the gate was open, as was often the case, so we just drove in. My phone chirped with a text from my dad asking how things were going, and in the short time it took me to respond, Ricky managed to get us completely, stunningly lost. When I said I had no idea where we were, he cursed and pulled a succession of squealing Uturns, spitting arcs of tobacco juice from his window as I scanned the neighborhood for a familiar landmark. It wasnt easy, even though Id been to visit my grandfather countless times growing up, because each house looked like the next: squat and boxy with minor variations, trimmed with aluminum siding or dark seventies wood, or fronted by plaster colonnades that seemed almost delusionally aspirational. Street signs, half of which had turned a blank and blistered white from sun exposure, were little help. The only real landmarks were bizarre and colorful lawn ornaments, of which Circle Village was a veritable openair museum.

Finally I recognized a mailbox held aloft by a metal butler that, despite his straight back and snooty expression, appeared to be crying tears of rust. I shouted at Ricky to turn left; the Vics tires screeched and I was flung against the passenger door. The impact mustve jarred something loose in my brain, because suddenly the directions came rushing back to me. Right at the flamingo orgy! Left at the multiethnic roof Santas! Straight past the pissing cherubs!

When we turned at the cherubs, Ricky slowed to a crawl and peered doubtfully down my grandfathers block. There was not a single porch light on, not a TV glowing behind a window, not a Town Car in a carport. All the neighbors had fled north to escape the punishing summer heat, leaving yard gnomes to drown in lawns gone wild and hurricane shutters shut tight, so that each house looked like a little pastel bomb shelter.

Last one on the left, I said. Ricky tapped the accelerator and we sputtered down the street. At the fourth or fifth house, we passed an old man watering his lawn. He was bald as an egg and stood in a bathrobe and slippers, spraying the anklehigh grass. The house was dark and shuttered like the rest. I turned to look and he seemed to stare backthough he couldnt have, I realized with a small shock, because his eyes were a perfect milky white. Thats strange, I thought. Grandpa Portman never mentioned that one of his neighbors was blind.

The street ended at a wall of scrub pines and Ricky hung a sharp left into my grandfathers driveway. He cut the engine, got out, and kicked my door open. Our shoes hushed through the dry grass to the porch.

I rang the bell and waited. A dog barked somewhere, a lonely sound in the muggy evening. When there was no answer I banged on the door, thinking maybe the bell had stopped working. Ricky swatted at the gnats that had begun to clothe us.