I felt the sides of the walls to get down the stairs safely. The dog followed me to the front door, where we both looked out the glass panels at the street. Light-green pods covered our car. The moon was bloated and glowing. It didn’t take me long to get to the house at the end of the road. Most of the windows were dark and there was a nondescript Ford station wagon in the driveway. The same TV flickered.
The dog and I walked up to the same window I was at yesterday and looked inside. The TV cast ghostly blue shadows over the wood-paneled walls. An empty ashtray and a white coffee mug sat on the table. The TV was tuned to that old PBS show, The Joy of Painting, where the friendly, frizzy-haired guy blotted the canvas to create spiny trees and blurry clouds. I watched a shot of the canvas, then the painter’s lion-like face, then the palette.
‘I thought I heard someone out here.’
I turned around, my heart leaping to my throat. Philip sat on the porch, hidden by the shadows. He looked at the dog curiously.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ he said back. ‘Summer, right?’
I nodded.
‘I’m Philip,’ he said. I almost said I know, but then he added, ‘What’s your dog’s name?’
‘She doesn’t have one. My dad found her. She’s a Smitty dog.’
‘Smitty dog?’
‘Apparently it’s some local thing.’
He laughed and ducked his head bashfully. ‘Well, I’m not really a local.’
He wasn’t much taller than I was, but was wearing the clothes of someone who was about six foot ten. His t-shirt fell past his crotch, and his shorts past his knees. He wore no shoes, only white gym socks.
‘So you’re here visiting?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, remember, my grandmother died?’ I reminded him. ‘We have to go to her funeral.’
‘Right.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Did you go yet?’
‘No. Today we had to see the body.’
‘What was that like?’
I paused. ‘She looked like she’d been in the freezer for a while.’ I pointed to the window. ‘You watch The Joy of Painting.’
He brightened for a second, although his version of brightening was his mouth lifting just slightly, his muscles tightening. ‘You know it?’
‘I used to watch it when I was little.’
‘My dad used to paint along to the program,’ he said. ‘He used to put his canvas right up against the TV, and whatever Bob Ross did, he’d do too. He wasn’t very good at it, though. All of his paintings just looked flat and empty.’
I wanted him to say more about his dad. When he didn’t, I asked, ‘So where are you from, if you’re not from here?’
‘Michigan. You?’
‘Brooklyn.’
‘Brooklyn,’ he repeated, nodding. Thankfully, he didn’t say Brooklyn in a tough-guy voice, as a couple of youngish older people at the wake today had done, as if everyone from Brooklyn were in the Mafia. Philip pointed off toward my house. ‘How are the old ladies?’
‘Well, there’s only one, now. But she’s okay.’
‘I know Stella a little. She came over once.’ I got a look at his eyes. They were dark and deep set, so lovely.
‘My grandmother is having a twenty-one-gun salute at her funeral,’ I offered.
‘Really.’
‘And Aunt Stella, who you met, is living on another planet,’ I went on. ‘And then Samantha…maybe you know her…she’s downright mean.’
‘She’s all right. I was like that, too, when my mother was sick.’
The smell of pine was suddenly sharp in my nose. ‘Sick?’
‘She had cancer,’ he added.
He arched his back and looked up at the sky. I looked up, too. I thought that outside New York City, the sky would be perfect and bright and informative, with a legend key telling me which constellation is which. But tonight’s sky was murky and dense, the same sky as in Brooklyn.
Philip shifted his weight. ‘Want to see something? It’s behind my house.’
‘I don’t know. Do I?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Yes. You do.’
I followed him into his backyard. There were flowers planted neatly along the sides of the house, and a bag of K-Mart brand soil propped up at the back. At the back of the house was a huge garden. Everything was in bloom, dewy and green.
Philip pushed past some branches. We were behind the garden now, among a thick patch of trees. The air smelled earthy, like plants and soil and water. The light hit Philip dramatically, bouncing off the angles of his face, making him look romantic, like he was sitting for a portrait. I was hesitant to look at him directly, for fear he’d think I was staring.
‘Check it out.’ Philip pointed to a small patch of dirt on the ground. About twenty plants were in neat rows. Behind them were small stones. Each stone bore a name. Clara. Jezebel. Rufus. Clive.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said.
‘They’re graves,’ he answered.
‘Of…people?’
He snorted. ‘No. Of birds. See? There’s a drawing of one.’ He stooped down and wiped away some dirt off one of the headstones; sure enough, there was a crude drawing of a sparrow. ‘There are hunters out in these woods. They’re hunting for deer, but a lot of times they miss and get a bird. They never collect them. These graves were here when we moved in, though. My mom and I just continued the tradition. Every time we find a bird, we bury it with the rest.’
‘Really.’