Maple Street
A Joseph Nardone Short Story
Copyright Joseph Nardone 2016
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Maple Street isn’t unlike many other places in the country. Roughly two miles away from the nearest main road, it functions as its own small hamlet. After all, it is basically an alley with four families living in six houses left untethered during the town’s massive reconstruction 50 years prior.
It is why two of the addresses are vacant. Two miles isn’t all that far removed from the world, but when the sole interaction in one’s neighborhood on a day-to-day basis is a few other families, some people can’t stomach it. Especially not when bad blood looms within such a small stretch of land.
And make no bones about it: Animosity exits on Maple Street. It is riddled with it. Not with all the families living on the glorified pathway, but between two of the four remaining families.
There is the old man on the road. Robert Jenkins. In his mid-70s, consumed by a rage with a fuel of anger unknown, he isn’t afraid to let the other members of Maple Street know he has been there the longest. That he, unlike the others, prefers the volatile nature of his being.
Truly the classic older man yelling at clouds. He appears to often be angry simply to be angry.
Not to mention that Robert often appears disheveled. The very little hair he has left often looks unclean, and the same four sets of clothes he wears throughout the week as if they were prescheduled to be worn on a certain date, are filthy looking. Not that he doesn’t clean them, but the oil – and whatever other greases there may be – tarnishes won’t come off his clothing.
He has a rival on the street, however.
Matt Francis, who is the husband of Cassie and father of infant Giovanna, is an upbeat type of person. Jenkins rubs him the wrong way. In fact, he rubs the entire Francis family the wrong way.
A rather good looking family. Matt isn’t the tallest person, but he has traditional handsomeness that has only become enhanced with age. Cassie is attractive in her own ways, too. In the girl next door type of way. The infant is a baby, and what baby isn’t cute?
They’re a family that wants to enjoy life. This is their first house. A fixer-upper. It is important to them. Maybe more so for the man in the family.
It has been a hard journey for Matt to reach this place in life. He comes with his own personal demons. Had it not been for a coincidental meeting of his future wife, Matt would have likely drank himself to his death in a misguided attempt to escape the horror that was his life.
Thanks to these two separate households often feuding, the two other inhabitants of Maple Street are often unintentionally stuck in the crosshairs.
Melody Kleybon, a nurse practitioner for the local family doctor, lives alone. A young divorcee, she prefers to keep to herself. It is rather unintentional. She’s mostly too busy to be bothered. Between her lengthy work hours, volunteer work at the hospital, and attempting to pick up the pieces after being left by her husband for a girl who was weeks out of high school, Melody thinks that Matt and Robert are out of their minds.
More importantly to her, she sometimes wonders what can be so important to either party that they must bicker so regularly.
“Why not merely leave each other alone and act as if the other isn’t there?” Melody often ponders.
While the mental strain of going through a divorce at such a young age – 31 – has taken a toll on her, she has rebounded nicely in other ways. Her ex-husband often verbally abused Melody by calling her fat. Even though she was never in reality a big woman, she took it upon herself to workout regularly since her ex left for what he believes is an upgrade.
Now maybe even too slender, Melody takes pride in her appearance. More than she even did as a vein high school student. Not that she is looking to prowl a local pub for a man or needs to feel wanted, as she is more sincerely doing this for her own self-esteem.
Finally, there’s the true recluse in the already reclusive community, Dominick DiNario. The rest of the folks on Maple Street wouldn’t mind him, but he often seems to minds them.
Rarely witnessed leaving his house, save for needed trips to the supermarket, not much is known about the man. Like everyone else on the road outside of Jenkins, DiNario is a young guy. The Francis family guesses he’s in his early 30s. Melody surmises that he’s incredibly shy and hidden for a man as attractive as he is.
As for Jenkins, well, he couldn’t be bothered to even acknowledge the existence of Dominick DiNario.
“Jenkins is doing it again. His property line ends well before the tree in our yard, but he is out there trimming off branches.”
This is a constant source of frustration for Matt. Robert Jenkins is consistently crossing his boundaries, not carefully removing portions of a tree he and Cassie first planted when they bought the house four years ago.
“Matt, let it go. He isn’t hurting anybody.”
It bothers Cassie, too. But she’s given up on trying to reason with the old man. He is only clipping one side of the tree, and even though he usually does so without regards to the appearance of it, the tree often ends up looking well groomed regardless.
“I’m going out there.”
Matt puts on his shoes in a frenzy. As if he’s about to combat a horde of enemy soldiers. When, in reality, he is merely going in his backyard to have another pointless argument with his neighbor.
“Jenkins! Get away from my god damn tree, and do it now!”
The old man acknlowdges Matt’s presence by glancing over at him, but ignores the words. He continues to use his rusty clippers to remove sections of branches.
“I swear. This time I will call the cops.”
The Francis’ yard is large. All the yards on Maple Street are. Each dwelling is comprised of about an acre a piece. A small perk for living in such isolation.
Matt notices his warnings are being unmet with the warranted response he internally feels they desire. As each one goes unnoticed and without a response, Matt picks up his pace towards Jenkins.
“Slow down there, young buck.”
Finally, Jenkins responds, but only when Matt is 20 yards from him.
“Who do you think you’re talking to like that? Jenkins, get the hell off my property and for the hundredth time… stop messing with our tree.”
“Your tree?”
“Yes,” Matt responds. “My tree on my property.”
The two men continue to banter. It is a back and forth of statements that revolve around Matt speaking in terms relative to law and Robert dismissing his statements with retorts that have nothing to do with the conversation being had.
At best, Jenkins is being condecending in nature. At worst, he’s purposely trying to force young Matt Francis into throwing a punch out of fury.
All the noise wasn’t lost on Melody Kleybon. How could it be? While she lives on the house on the side opposite of the Francis’, she was trying to clean up the coffee she spilt in her car before she went to work.
Already having a bad day, she decides that now is the time to go over to the two men yelling and ask them to stop. Unlike previous attempts, this one wouldn’t be the polite variety.
“Would the two of you just shut the hell up?” Melody says with her scrubs stained from the coffee spill. “It isn’t even nine in the morning, and the two of you are out here fighting over a flipping tree?”
Matt is actually emb
arrassed by this. After all, Melody is right. Even though his wife warned him that it wasn’t worth the early morning kerfuffle, it took a relative stranger’s words to make him realize that.
“Jenkins, man. Just… just get the hell out of here.”
Melody appears to have done her job. Matt is walking away from Jenkins. In appreciation of him being the bigger man, she even flashes a friendly smile at him as he walks closer to her and creates distance between himself and Jenkins.
Undeterred, Jenkins waits for Melody and Matt to have their collective backs turned and begins to start snipping at the tree again. Outside of the noise that is being made when Jenkins’ rusty clippers are chomping down on the branch he selected to remove, everything becomes silent as Matt stops in his tracks, and it dawns on Melody that this debacle is far from over.
As Matt starts to sprint towards Jenkins, Melody begins to run toward the Francis family home. Even though
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