Blue

This is Bank of America's handiwork. Their solution to a roof collapsing into the house next door to me. My old neighbor, Barbara's house. Foreclosed on, and sitting empty for almost four years now. Formerly home to Barbara and her family, now home to  a skunk, and a very pregnant raccoon.

This is the incredibly, blinding, glare the new blue tarp roof gives off in the late afternoon, since it was affixed to the house the other day. We cannot go outside because it is as bright as the sun.

I remember being in Barbara's house. We went there for a Super Bowl party, and ate chicken wings and drank beer. I went there one evening, and Barbara was frying up fish, and the whole house smelled divine. I sat with her once, and helped her sort through her paperwork, and legal looking documents as she cried, scared about where she was going to go, when the house was taken. She had a predatory loan. She didn't think she could fight her bank. She gave up and walked away. From everything. She left every stick of furniture. Every plate and fork. She ran from her ringing phone.

I  have never liked looking at her empty house. Now, I can't.