Visiting the Neighborhood

The entrance at the back of the complex led onto a road, where an upended couch tilted into a ditch and a washing machine gleamed avocado beneath pine needles. From the end, you turned left and left again, then cut a trail to find the cul-de-sac of bright brick houses. We'd walk as far as we dared before a man pushing a mower might stop to ask, "whadda you boys need?" That was a question we could never answer. I loved the name of the place, White Hall, imagined that each interior was a stretch of marble perfect wall adorned by smiling photos of the family. Our own halls were brailled with nail holes of former tenants, the spackled rounds of fists. But doesn't longing clarify the body? The boys I left behind: Tommy, wearing the World War II trenching tool; Danny, whose father, so much older than the other parents, died in his recliner one sunny afternoon while watching baseball; Duke, who stole his mother's car and crashed into a wall. Boys who knew when you were posing, waiting for someone to say, "smile." Boys who, on those latch-key days, held themselves in narrow passages when no one was there to show them what to do.