There are two roads in and two roads out of this Small Town. The same two roads divide the Small Town into two straight lines with a mess of arterial roads that run, all clogged up, from the middle. There is no road that runs through it; there is no highway exit number that has it; there are signs you will never see that aim to guide you out.
This Small Town is a peninsula and a literal dead end. I do NOT mean that metaphorically.
The geography of this place means that I will see people I know all the time when I don't want to. It means that I will eyeball some strangers over and over and over again.
Like the guy on the bike with spectacles. And the woman with the heavy make-up and her signs protesting nonsense on a big poster board I could never read. And her flower, always, behind her ear. She's been gone for a while and I wonder if the Big Gut Guy misses her. They were friends; he held her signs.
The Big Gut Guy stinks of a hangover. He roams the bars, but I don't know how he pays for drinks. He's gotten fatter and more desperate in the 15 years I've seen him. He wears glasses now and his belly looks like something I could pop. He is a Small Town clock to me: when I go away and see him again, I know I am home.
For so long, I have given him the kindness of my smile. I wonder if he sees the winks I give him some times, the heads up I offer to let him know that he is not the scariest part of my small town.
I like to think he knows me now, even though he never shows it, because sometimes I wonder if I am the freak in his 'hood.
20commentsBrilliant Person Wrote...
What a painfully poignant tribute to the denizens of small town America. Nicely done.
I *always* want to wave to these people. Preppy guy with the lab who walks everywhere (is he 20? 30? 40? Is he a dogwalker or a trust-fund kid?), lady on the trike carrying her beach chair all year 'round (so hopeful: I love that about her), hunched over guy with his hands in his pockets--all neighbors, all fixtures, all strangers.
I think it's funnier when you mean it metaphorically.
I love trying to figure out the story of the strangers. Of course, ours are quite a lot FREAKIER here in the 305.
Your town sounds cool.
One day soon, I hope that people will start winking and smiling at me. But they better not comment on my belly. Back to my bridge...
Hey Ms. Picket,
I am just getting used to smaller town life in my neck of the woods. In May, we moved from a small-ish town of 75,000 to a much smaller town of just under 10,000. It's different. You go somewhere, you pretty much always see someone you know. I am used to more anonimity. I must shower more often. I will get to know such fixtures. I, perhaps, will be one of them.
Here's what I wonder: Is it a recent phenomenon that we see but not know the people/fixtures in our neighborhoods? Maybe it's always been that way. It seems the way most live their lives today, we are strangers in the places we live, no matter how big or small. We only knew a few neighbors well in our old neighborhood. Many, we never talked to after 5 years of living there. I may get to know some in the blogging world, miles from my home, more than I know my next door neighbor. Is this isolation good/bad/neither/both? I wonder.
Cheers to you in your small town. I am enjoying the relative quiet. We will see how it pans out in the long term.
When I lived in NYC there was this homeless guy who literally looked like a train wreck. There was something wrong with every part of his body,, at least on the outside. Every time I'd go out of time and come back my first thought was always, "You're still alive?, Wow".
Wow. I wonder if I'm a freak in someone's 'hood. Good question. I'm gonna go ponder that one.
I might be the freak. I know I'm the person who mutters to herself, but usually I'm muttering about how I've been here so long I can track the patterns of people who pop up from time to time!
The other day I drove by the bench where the crazy coffee-drinking guy sits and instead of him, there was a bunch of flowers. All I could think was OMG, HE'S DEAD. And I wished I had smiled or winked or nodded more often. Turns out, someone just forgot their flowers.
You need to buy the guy a beer and investigate. Just a suggestion.
I'm a big city girl, living near downtown Minneapolis... but we have our "usuals" here, too.
During our cold winters, I miss the strange skinny man with the arm tattoos that stands at the entrance to Hwy 280 holding a giant wooden sign that says "Honk for PEACE".
Sometimes, even in January... when he's been gone for months and won't be back for as many... I still have a Pavlovian reaction and honk as I hit that on-ramp.
Hmmm, I totally wonder how people in my town would describe me. It would probably be something along the lines of, "The recluse who works from home but barely leaves her house, always wears a pony tail and only dresses up and wears makeup when she's leaving for a business trip."
It's not that small here, but I still can't even go out and fall off a barstool anymore...I know someone everywhere I go. Sometimes a girl needs a little autonomy.
Being surrounded by people with leaf blowers, I'd welcome a freak or two.
We have one of those guys in our small town. He is freakishly tall. Very large gut. A beard that makes him resemble an overweight Uncle Sam, and he walks on his toes with a weird bounce. And everytime he walks into my very public office he re-introduces himself to me. I do not try to wave at him because he is a little off. But I do wonder what goes through his mind when he is walking around town...
We have another one that is a few screws loose (turns out he is related to my aunt which I will never admit btw); he hangs out at all the local establishments and tries to do all kinds of community things that he has no business doing, and shares his opinion all the time. Poor little fella. Speaking of which I havent seen him recently... hmmm...
Now for the geography of your town. Sounds a little like a Stephen King novel. You know the one - "Storm of the Century". One way in, and no way out!
That Sesame Street song "The people in your neighborhood" will not leave my head now. Thanks a lot, P.
I used to live in Marblehead. Sounds similar. I loved it. I also lived in a high rise condo. More like a vertical peninsula, but very much the same as far as the comings and goings.
We know everyone here ("here" being a village of about 500). Everyone knows us. Or at least, everyone knows the family. Which means, more often than not after hearing my last name, people will go, "Oh! How are you related to Eric/Steve/Leslie/insert name of any relative here?" So I tell them, and then I wonder, "Did they LIKE that relative? Or did that relative kick the shit out of them in high school?"
My in-law family is very well-known and pretty much universally feared. Good and bad, I guess.
I live in the city, but my street has a park at the end of it so we get the same characters walking by every day. I know exactly which one's don't pick up their dog's poop too, so when I see them coming I go out to get my mail...just so they don't use my yard for a toilet.
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