by Peter Ackers
"…WATCHING HOW MY DAD…"
I was partway down a suburban street I was using as a shortcut before I realized exactly where I was, and who lived here.
I pulled into the kerb on the other side of the road, some twenty metres short of the corner and the bungalow on that corner. The house hugged the corner in such a way that it effectively gave a door each to the two streets that made the corner. Arton Road was where I sat, looking over at my dad's neat lawn and garden furniture, and a large oak front door. Seen from Burrow Street, just around that corner, the bungalow exposed a back door that often gave the impression that the house was two houses connected at the corner.
The curtains in the front window were open, but the blind was lowered to within six inches of the windowsill, creating a thin letterbox of space. When my dad was resting in the living room, he always sat in the armchair by that window, staring out that letterbox. I remembered as a kid watching how my dad could focus on the TV or his paper or his Sunday dinner (the only meal he ate removed from the kitchen table) and still never miss a thing that happened outside. If he hadn't been an ex-security guard, people might have thought he was a sad, nosey old man. But his former profession instead made him something of a gem in the neighbourhood, like some oracle people went to when they wanted to know things, provided it was about some shady guy they'd seen walking about, or what time a certain vehicle had passed, or anything else like that. These days estates like ours were watched over by towers with CCTV cameras for guards, but not ours - was my dad the reason?
If he was watching now, did he see me? The sun was still low in the sky and somewhat behind the house as I looked at it. Maybe that meant the light was reflecting off my windows, making it impossible for my dad to see me. Good, because if my dad came out to greet me, he might not recognize the changes external and internal - in his son, which had all occurred in the twenty-four hours since I'd last seen him
On the side of the road where I was parked, the houses ended just past the corner facing them and the land fell open on a playpark, a small football pitch for Sunday League fun, and beyond that a small wood - altogether a perfect location to attract foxes and stray dogs, which our estate was somewhat infested with. I saw a thin creature coming off that open expanse of land now, slowing as it reached the road. I was bitten on the foot by a stray dog when I was a kid. It put me off them for years, to the point where I used to jump the low wall and hide out in my garden whenever they came along. And they came frequently, like pilgrims visiting a holy Mecca. They would stand well back, staring at the estate, its concrete and people and metal animals on wheels. It was called the concrete jungle because it is the human world, and all other animals know it. Do they venture in, as this stray did now, believing there was comfort and sanctuary here? Was it an ego thing instead, like when kids dare each other to go deep into a dark graveyard?
The stray stopped at the edge of the grass, sniffing at the pavement. It looked as if it knew it was about to trespass into a dangerous, unknown world. It jogged over the road, looking left and right like a safety-conscious kid, and went right up to dad's garden wall. A metal street sign was bolted to the wall; this was where dogs liked to piss, despite the repellant sprays dad used on it, and this one went to mark his territory now. Then it lowered its leg and trotted round the corner for further exploration. A quick image of Neil Armstrong in my head: taking a long piss on the moon instead of planting the American flag.
I started the engine and pulled away from the kerb. I slipped slowly around the corner, not watching the house but watching that dog as it bounded slowly along, slowing to sniff at any and all places where one of its kind might have paused to plant a flag.
I remembered the odd trips to Woolworths when I was younger. My dad liked to paint Airfix model planes and this was where he got his paint, in tiny but expensive tins. This was also where he would buy the repellant spray, always complaining about the stray dogs that pissed on the street sign. The Council should reimburse him the money he paid on this spray, he would claim, because he was helping the community. But they never did, and dad continued to spend money, and still the dogs pissed.
The dog veered towards the kerb and stopped at a dried flag with his nose running over and around it. He jumped when he heard the wheels screech, but he was too slow to dart aside and I grinned as I heard his body thumping against the undercarriage. In the rear-view mirror I saw the torn, twisted body bounce and slide and come to a stop in the gutter. Put away your wallet, dad.
Knowing some of the neighbours might have seen this action, I put the van in a higher gear and drove on out of there. Away from that house where I had lived all my life, yet which appealed to me now as nothing more than some building. Did that mean I was past all that family bonding lark? Superheroes didn't have parents to worry about, after all.
