When I heard Clyde was starting a blog, I was amused, he said it was about us and how we met and all the interesting times we had together. “Don’t worry Blondie” he said in his usual manner. “It’s a love story, like no other.”
“I don’t want to be represented as some piece of trash you found on the vacant back lot.” I replied, unsure as to how he would depict our meeting.
The truth was I had been poking my head around a corner to spy on him for some time before he ever noticed me creeping in the shadows. He wasn’t aware I’d been living in one of his many apartments for quite some time. I had passed him a few times in the hallway, but no words were ever exchanged, he was always too busy to notice me.
It was the winter of 2017 and Clyde was running the club downstairs from my apartment. He had several patrons who didn’t want to leave, and they just hung out at the back of the club, night after night. Slowing growing in number they moved in behind the dumpsters and set up home.
Clyde had made several attempts to evict them on prior occasions, always unsuccessfully. I noted how close knit they seemed and how they huddled together when threatened. It made me wonder what it was like to have a family to rely on.
Family was a luxury, unless you could afford a good one, it didn’t seem worth it. I think Clyde new that and that’s why he had so much trouble evicting them. It wasn’t until Spring that year he finally rid the club of the backdoor squatters. That was the night we met. He had come at them with pointed finger and accused them of leaching from him. He went on and on about how they had to go and when they didn’t move he went inside and came back with a bat.
I thought for sure somebody was going to get hurt, my heart pounded as I raced down the stairs my heels clipping the edge of the stairs causing me to stumble down the last flight hurtling through the back door just as Clyde was about to take a swing at the ring leader. Knocking the ring leader sideways causing him to fall straight onto a pile of dirty blankets.
Clyde seized the moment to take his bat and lay into the dumpster, with an enormous growl he threw the bat into the air and grabbed it with both hands, swinging it high above his head and yelling at the top of his voice, how he had had enough. As I scurried behind the nearest dumpster I watched as the loiterers grabbed their few belongings and scurried down the ally.
He stood and watched until the last one had left, I crouched silently behind the bin, hoping to hide in the shadows. Then a torch light blinded me and I quickly retreated to the back of the alley.
