Marcus Greene's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

In the morning Marcus sat on the swing and listened to his porch. A car passed. A screen door slammed two houses down. Between those sounds there was nothing. He remembered his grandmother's radio filling the whole block with horns and piano. He remembered her humming along while she poured tea. He had lit the porch. Now he had to give it a sound. He drove to the pawn shop on the corner and walked the aisles until he found it. An old wooden radio sat on a low shelf, dial yellowed, knobs worn smooth. The tag said forty dollars. He counted the bills from his wallet twice. He had meant to save that money for a new porch light. He paid anyway and carried the radio out under his arm. He set it on the small table beside the lantern. He plugged the cord into the outlet by the door and turned the knob. The speaker hissed. He worked the dial slow until a trumpet came through, clean and warm, then a piano behind it. Jazz. He turned it up until the sound reached the sidewalk, then a notch lower so people could still talk over it. He brought out a wooden table from the dining room and set two chairs at it. He put a checkers board on top, red and black pieces already lined up. He filled the cooler with fresh tea and ice. Then he sat on the swing and waited. The man with the dog came first, earlier than before. He tilted his head at the radio and smiled. "My father listened to this station," he said. He sat down and poured himself a cup. The dog circled once and lay flat. A few minutes later the woman with the grocery bags came up the steps without her bags. She had come on purpose this time. She heard the trumpet and laughed. "You found one." The teenager from the night before crossed the lawn again. He stopped at the bottom step. Marcus nodded at the checkers table. "You play?" The boy shrugged and came up. He sat down and moved a red piece forward. The man leaned over to watch. The woman started a story about her uncle's band. The music held under all of it, filling the spaces between sentences. By eight o'clock there were four people on the porch and a small red fox sat at the edge of the yard, one ear folded down, watching the light. Marcus counted heads. Four. He counted cups. Three. He looked across the street at the big white house with the black trim and the wide wraparound porch. Its windows glowed blue behind the curtains. Nobody sat outside it. Nobody had come from that house, or from any house past it. He had the sound now. He had the light and the chairs and the tea. What he did not have was the rest of the street.