Dust

e decided to share the rental expense for a floor scraper and sander since both of us were in the process of redecorating our homes. I owned a two-family home, my apartment was a six-room duplex. Jim had recently become the tenant of a walk-in three-roomer a few houses down the block of two-family brick dwellings so common to middle class neighborhoods back in the 60s and early 70s.

He had a wife and young daughter. Every July 4th, all the kids in the area would gather in front of his house when the sun went down to watch Jim set off his fireworks. He had more fun than they, as the ever-present cigarette dangling from his smirking lips ignited each firecracker or roman candle, resulting in loud retorts or bursts of color, which illuminated the surroundings amid the oh's and ah's of the youngsters.

I would watch from my porch a few door down and sometimes, toting a couple of beers, would join him in front of his house. He loved drinking beer, playing macho adult in front of all the kids and so in a short time we had a casual buddy relationship. Splitting the cost of the machines seemed like a good idea.

Jim used the machine first and gave me a quick lesson on the ins and outs, getting into the corners and the rest. My scraping and sanding went without a hitch, except that despite the effort we had taken to cover everything, the entire apartment and every item in it was covered with a layer of dust. It was as if a storm had blown through the place and left its calling card. What a mess!

The cleanup took well into the evening, long after we had returned the machines. Jim and his wife, Theresa, and I and my wife sat on our porch late into the night, talking of the day's events, laughing at the total mess that had followed the day's efforts, drinking, smoking (we all inhaled), and generally having a good time.

A few years later we sold the house and moved to the suburbs, leaving Jim and many of our friends on the block for a new style of living. I stayed in touch with many of the people from the old neighborhood, but not with Jim. We were not on that basis. Imagine the shock and disbelief I felt, when I heard that Jim had murdered his wife during an argument.

The news came to me at the time I was mourning the death of my father. Therefore it didn't sink into me in any real way until months later, and then most personally. The thought that I had befriended a man that could commit this act has always been a haunting one. I don't recall how much I saved in renting the scraper. I still wonder if it was worth it.