let the good times roll…

Part One

Mrs smith never was a bright woman, she very rarely understood exactly why it was that no one ever talked to her. Besides the fact that she would only leave the apartment once a day every day to check the mail. Often she would would take a detour to the mail box and drift by the day care to see the children at play, seeing their happy faces always brought a smile to her face. Her neighbour, Mr G had always thought she was handicapped in some sense, either mentally or physically. Late at night he could hear the vague droll of music coming from her side of the wall singing him to sleep. It never occured to him that maybe she just didn’t understand.

Mrs smith was in her mid 50’s by now, but you’d never know it to look at her. Her eyes full of wisdom to match the blonde but slightly grey hair falling down beside them. Ever since her husband died back in 88′ she never really bothered to socialize with anyone other than her cat, zonkers. To say her life was boring would be a dramatic understatement, at least to her. Everyone else just assumed she was a hermit. Tuesdays were solitaire and jeopardy nights, many of which were pent trying to guess how many times she could get the answers correct in a row. She never managed to get more than three but that didn’t matter, all that mattered was that she was there with zonkers and she was happy. To her, Tuesdays were everyone elses Fridays and Saturdays accompanied along with the faint echo of Elvis vinyl playing in the background. You see mrs smith never went out at night anymore, therefor not knowing exactly what she was missing.

Each day brought the same mail, none. Except for Fridays which came the weekly Wal-Mart flyer that kept her entertained for the next few days. She would circle the items that were of interest and then retire the fly to the overflowing recycling bin.

Every Thursday mr G would stop by and knock on the door, that would be the cue for mrs smith to place the garbage and recycling outside her door at somepoint so he could take it outside for her. The funny thing was that mr G didn’t really know why mrs smith never spoke to him or showed herself but he knew they had a very close relationship. Whether or not if she willing to admit it, he knew she relied on him and that was all it took to satisfy him.

They both lived in a small suburb of the city, sometimes the names didn’t even matter. It was all just a giant cloud of violence and noise to them. Mrs smith didn’t own a computer or a phone line so she had little worry about contact from the outside world. Infact the only thing keeping her connected to anything was the weekly knock that came on thursdays which in a way kept her sane. Her last known contact with anyone other than mr g was when the repair man had to come over and fix her television. She stood by with a sincere look of focus in her eyes as if trying to see exactly how it was repaired just incase it were to malfunction again in the future. Surely enough, its lasted for the past five years problem free without having to be tampered with at all.

The war in the streets really troubled mr g, he was an veteran of the vietnam war and recently widowed by his late wife. At night he would take out pictures and shuffle through them, always stopping of the same shot of him and her standing infront of the old A&W where they ate dinner during their 20’s. He always used to tell her they’d be together forever and if it wasn’t for a final bout that neither could win, they would have. In a way mr g took solice in the fact that if he couldn’t help his wife anymore at least he could donate his time to mrs smith. Mr g aged very rapidly after his wife left him, eyes sunk deep into his face with the wrinkled skin. He never bothered to go to the doctor, swearing to himself that whatever came along next that was serious enough was god’s way of letting him off the hook. There wasn’t much hair left atop his head except for a few strands of silver and grey. None of this mattered though, mrs smith didn’t care what he looked like. He was proud of his children, even though he hadn’t talked to them for well over 10 years. He received christmas cards and birthday cards once a year from everyone telling him how he was loved. He didn’t care though, none of any of that mattered.

Every Monday night mr g would sit down with his t.v guide and do the crossword while watching jeopardy. Each week was a struggle to try and top last weeks score, a feat which he failed at week after week. He tried to catch up on the Iraq war afterwards by watching cnn for a few hours but all that did was put him to sleep.