He Stood in front of an empty lot remembering it seventy years ago. He was a young man with little sense and even less money back then. He had done a hitch in the Navy and came home to the place he so desperately tried to run from. He had saved enough to buy a Harley which is exactly what he did even before all the salt from the sea was out of his hair.

He couched jumped for awhile until he earned enough to get his own place by working as a carpenter’s helper. A job he got one day sitting in a bar overhearing a guy who was telling his buddy good help was hard to come by these days. After a month or so he started looking for a place and on this now empty lot with more weeds than value, he found it.

Answering an add in the paper he met up with the owner. A fat guy he remembered, with a stained t-shirt and remnants of his last meal in a scraggy beard. “isn’t much” he said but you get what you pay for. All he cared about was a place to sleep and shelter for his Harley. The structure was detached from the house. A kind of dilapidated Shedd. The street level area was wide open and probably years ago used as a carport or horse stable. Now it was filled with various piles of junk and pigeons roosting. He closed his eyes and remembered the musty and strong smells of years past. Some would say disgusting but, it was a part of his past he wanted to keep.

Up the creaky steps led to a door with cardboard for a window which the owner told him he would replace but never did. It was very small with only the bare necessities. A kitchen with a sink, stove and fridge and just enough room for a small table and two mis matched chairs. The only other room served as a living room/ bedroom big enough for a single bed and a worn green vinyl chair that had seen better days. He took the place knowing it was a beginning and having no regrets.

When the first snow fell, he stored his bike in the so-called garage carving out a space far in the back and covering it with an old tarp he found while moving junk around. It wasn’t so much to keep his bike protected from the snow but to protect it from all the pigeon poop that fell like snowflakes. In need of a winter driver He bought an old wreck of a car that was headed for the scrap yard putting his knowledge of engines to work getting it running again. It didn’t have any seats, so he found an orange crate and made a place to sit. There was no heat, so he took out the firewall so heat from the engine gave him some warmth on frigid days.

He laughed out loud as he remembered the countless times, he cheated death driving that pile of junk on icy roads usually after drinking a bunch of beers at his favorite taverns. This was his life back then. A twenty-year-old kid looking for his place in life but never worrying about it much as he had always let the chips fall where they fell. Besides, he told himself anything would be a step up from this. Looking back now a seventy-year-old man who survived the harsh winters living above a pigeon coup junk filled musty smelling excuse of an apartment, driving an accident waiting to happen wreck of a car dreaming of spring and the open roads. He closes his eyes and the roar of his Harley comes to life after a long winters nap. The open roads taking him on the first of many adventures they shared together.

He headed back to his car leaving those memories where they belong buried beneath a sea of weeds.

Mike