A writing exercise I set for myself. A (slightly cynical) look at individuality, suburbia, and its quiet horrors. It was supposed to be more stylized, but I failed miserably on that count. Sort of based on my town, though my town is much more civilized; the houses are all from the 1920’s, but they are more varied in color and actually quite pretty. It was supposed to be about three paragraphs long and didn’t involve people at all, really, but it transformed without my permission.

On History Street, there are seventeen houses.

They were built in the early 1920’s, and have a sort of eerie elegance about them; blues and whites and grays surrounding classically dark shutters. Each house but for one has its mother and its father and its blandly pretty children.

Eight houses have parents that leave for work everyday. There are eight stay-at-home mothers and one stay-at-home father, but they don’t talk about him. Writing is not a respectable career, they tell their children, and refuse to further talk about him. Fourteen houses have nannies; the house with the stay-at-home father is not among them. There are six latchkey children, but that is a hushed and shameful subject; there are two women who work only part time and are home by three o’ clock.

Each house but for one has a dark blue door, almost black.

At eight o’ clock every morning, seventeen men leave for work. There is a dark, sensible car in each driveway, and it is this car that makes its way down the briefly crowded street. In some driveways, there are two dark and sensible cars; in some, there is one brighter car; in the house of the woman who wears too much make up and long-sleeved shirts, there is no car.

There is a bus stop two streets away. The latchkey children and several of the elementary-schoolers walk there in one safe group.

The older children are driven to school so that they get there by seven o’ clock, except for one tall girl who takes after neither parent because she is adopted--another dark subject that is not to be discussed--and who walks to school. Her hair is bright, a wild mess of red curls, unusual in the sea of blonde women and brunet men. She closes the front door to her house, waving good-bye to her father and kissing her dad on the cheek. It is still dark outside, quarter to seven and counting.

Behind her, the red door contrasts pleasantly with the house’s gray shingles.

--

Two hours later, her dad is uneasy. There is a call from the small regional high school, asking why Amanda has not arrived at school without previous notice. His much bigger high school never did this, but he supposes the secretaries have enough time on their hands with only a hundred people in the graduating class.

Nevertheless, he is not too worried. His daughter is a good student, allowed one mental health day per A on her report card; she is eighteen and has never been overprotected, and he trusts her good judgement.

He only starts getting truly upset at half past four, when Amanda is not yet home and, he realizes, has not called--the only prerequisite should she decide to change her plans.

He calls the office, but only gets the answering machine, and he doesn’t wait for the tone. As five o’clock sets in, anxiety starts gnawing at him; a parent’s sense that his child is in trouble. He calls the police even though he knows it can’t technically be qualified as a missing person yet; he leaves a description with a nice-sounding lady, once he replaces the phone, immediately starts writing. It doesn’t calm him, but at least he feels as though he’s doing something useful.

Andrew comes home at seven o’ clock and cooks for them both. The sautéed vegetables’ sizzling makes him feel slightly better, and David’s inimitable presence, accompanied by his scribbling away in one of his scrap notebooks, helps him a little more.

The call comes at eleven.

David picks up the phone and recognizes the nice lady’s voice.

“Sir? Could you come down to the station, please?”

He and Andrew drive there in silence. It’s not the silence of anger, or of confusion; merely, a wistful hope that Amanda will be there, that she got in minor trouble, that everything will be all right.

Everything is not all right.

The pictures are ghastly.

Her clothes are ripped, and the bruises on her legs and arms are evident through the holes. Her bright hair covers her face, and they are thankful; the pool of blood by her head is awful enough.

They can’t ask if the death is quick; they are too afraid of the answer.

The brick wall behind her is the worst part. In a blue so dark it is almost black, the word HOMO is spray painted onto the new yellow brick.

“She was near the overpass,” says the nice lady. “Near the train station.”

Eventually, they go home. It’s only when David is in Andrew’s arms and their faces are in each other’s shoulders that they begin to weep.