Empire Strikes Back

Seven months in residence, Empire had started souring on me: miscreant neighbors, chained, howling dogs, multiple near-attack level encounters with loose vicious dogs and their dumbshit owners, human grotesqueries, and shattering scenes of homelessness, including men and women in their 70s, possibly 80s.

Elmer rousted me from reading a French mystery on the back patio. He wanted to move. I leashed him, stashed a folding knife in my pocket, and we ventured out for a walk.

I chose the sloping, unpaved and potholed “street” that ran behind my house. A quick roll call of what I would observe: abandoned and dilapidated houses, rusted boats, broken trailers, RVs, busses, trucks, forklifts that were never moving again, more boats, and other shit strewn and splayed in yards.

I had to stay alert on this route. It was not like a beach walk where you can release your mind to the ocean and dive into the creative mind.

Something white and shiny to my right caught my eye. We headed toward it.

It was a new street library! Days or weeks old. Someone in Empire had erected one of the finest and most spacious street libraries I’d ever encountered in Oregon and I am an expert on such structures.

How in the name of John Steinbeck had a homeowner built such a marvel in this place, undoubtedly the most unlikeliest locale in Oregon for a street library or the entire United States for that matter?

It couldn’t possibly exist here, but here it was, because one of my neighbors gives a shit about Empire.

I checked the stock—a few crap thrillers, bodice rippers and kids’ books. The cupboard was definitely bare.

It wouldn’t be 24 hours from now! I’d cull my library as soon as we got home. A few of my titles would also be among my donations.

I smiled as I closed the doors and fastened the latch. I made a mental note of the home;s address. The residents would be receiving and funky and anonymous postcard of thanks.

My sourness dissipated and it was onward with Elmer into my new life in Empire.