The sun long had set on the neglected downtown area, and the street lights that still worked were turned on, emitting a burnt orange glow over the fractured sidewalks and mom-and-pop shops that lined both sides of Main. Along with the cracks, the footpaths in front of the stores had blackened gum scraps flattened against the sullied concrete slabs. And all that was left of Dusty’s Cleaners and Lou Ann’s Books were broken signs and dirty windows. Most of the second- and third-story apartment windows that once housed lively tenants had been painted over or boarded up. No occupancy. Condemned. The brick walls of the downtown structures were crumbling and the once architecturally ornate window trimmings were cracking. The only life left among the rotting buildings was a few bars, open mainly for the regulars.
From one of those hole-in-the-wall bars, Bunny’s, stumbled a scruffy-bearded, faintly attractive male of about 35 years old. He was grasping the shoulders of his friends, Hoss Rudebaker and Ralph Meyer.
“You guys,” the inebriated male said, slurring his speech, “Are the best friends I ever had. Ever.”
He said it with garbled poignancy.
With the stench of Jack lingering on his breath he planted an exaggerated kiss on each of his friends’ cheeks. He stumbled a bit in the process. But his friends steadied him before he fell completely.
“Why don’t we go back to my place, Ace?” Ralph suggested, hoping his friend would sober up a bit if they went to his home to relax. Ralph glanced at Hoss with his furry eyebrows raised as if to say “Back me up.”
“Yeah, we could play a round of Texas Hold ’Em,” Hoss encouraged, taking the hint.
Without much acknowledgement, Ace complied. He was too busy trying to walk a straight line on a crooked crack to really hear what they were saying.
As they weaved through the city streets in Hoss’s BMW, making their way to Ralph’s home, Ace looked out the window with his forehead leaning against the cool glass. His eyelids drew heavy as he saw the dark summer sky whiz by, and eventually, he closed his baby blues.
His moment of drunken rest ended seconds later, however, to the click-clack sound of the tires galloping over the joints in the road. It was the same sound he always heard when going to Hoss or Ralph’s neighborhood – a sound that was reminiscent to a horse treading. The ever-so-familiar cadence made the loosened muscles in Ace’s neck tighten.
Ralph’s home stood in the center of a well-off neighborhood; Hoss lived just down the way. The boys in the subdivision liked to show off their big-screen TVs, yacht-sized boats and expensive golf clubs. That existence seemed to be a distant memory for Ace who moved out of the area months ago. He had barely visited since. But despite his absence, in just a few yards, Ace knew exactly what he’d see. It was the same every time.
Speck homes were built close together, painted in different shades of blue, white, gray, yellow and peach. The homes were only a few years old; not one tree was mature. In the daytime, only shadows of houses created shade – silhouettes of rooftops crept onto the lawns of the homes next door. With each new home built, the neighborhood locked itself in a communal cluster, neatly finished with a welcome sign at the entrance. The sign was built out of stone with a rock garden surrounding it. And when dusk fell upon the neighborhood, two spotlights gleamed across italic gold lettering written on the entranceway: Mulberry Trails.
