n o w p l a y i n g - s c r i p t b i n - f a n c l u b - s t u d i o

make love to the camera



May 7, 2001 - 6:37 am

Our Horizon, Our Sunsets

Ah, Monday morning and the Fade In store re-opens for all your Fading In needs.

My mom's house finally did get sold. Originally, we were going to sell it to a young female lawyer who made a huge offer on the very same day she went through it. Unfortunately, that fell through. The lawyer had her inspector go through the place, and Mr. Inspector said the house needed at least $100,000 worth of additional work. Wisely, Ms. Lawyer walked away.

So, the house ended up being sold to a developer who offered $350,000, sight unseen. My mom haggled him up to $370,000. Not bad, considering that she and my dad bought the place for $25,000 thirty years ago. Suffice to say that the neighborhood's changed a bit in the intervening years. An old man ran a candy store where the Starbucks is now, and the only one who had ever heard of Alan Greenspan was Mrs. Alan Greenspan.

This whole sight unseen business means only one thing. This guy is a wealthy, shrewd developer who is going to tear down my childhood home and build a new condo type building.

To get through this episode, my mom and I have had to invent ourselves a new story. As we tell it to each other, we stand on the deck, overlooking the backyard that is no longer officially ours. Barney, our dog, runs around, blissfully unaware. I stare at the little divot in the grass where my brothers and I as children would stand and wait for kickball pitches. My mom strokes the wood of the deck that my dad built entirely on his own, from his own plans. Maybe it makes her feel like she can still touch him.

Our story is that of a royal family ousted from their homeland. We have to go; circumstances are such that they prevent us from remaining in our own beloved country. We accept this. We have to accept this. We tell ourselves that we'll return someday. We know that the castle won't be the one we left. We know the castle won't even be there. Still, though, one day, one day, if one of us makes enough money, we may be able to come back and reclaim the land. That would be enough. To see the sun set over the horizon with which we're familiar. We want to reclaim our horizon and our sunsets, which we always loved watching from that deck that my father, the dead King, built by himself. The deck that won't be there in July.

"Hey," my mom says to me. "Do you want to have one last barbecue here for your birthday in June?"

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