Frank Klus - Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

Yeah, just put your problem in jail. What a laugh!

It took more than a half hour before Eugene reached Dennis’s neighborhood. This can’t be right . The streets were filled with potholes. The shops looked ill-kempt. The streets in the marketplace were fairly empty with only a few people ambling about. They didn’t seem to be going anywhere, stopping frequently; occasionally, talking to others and sometimes to themselves.

Where am I? Great! No street sign . He came across a strip mall with only two cars in the parking lot. Only a laundromat was open. A convenient store was boarded up. The signage was terrible; old and faded. He glanced down at his navigation screen to see what street he was on. Then—“Turn right on Pierce Lane.” Some man was snoozing against a decaying building to his left, while another one stretched out on a sidewalk nearby.

Eugene kept going until he almost ran into zombies . It was his description for the aimless wanderers of the streets. They didn’t seem to care that they were in the street in front of Eugene. He tooted his horn and a couple of them turned around to give him a dirty look. One or two moved to the side but the rest just stared at him, wondering what he was doing in their hood.

As Eugene slowly edged past them he heard a banging on his car window. “Got a cigarette, man?” a scuzzy looking guy with large tattoos around his neck said. Eugene kept going.

Then he heard someone pounding on the back of his car. “Nice car. Can I have some C?”

Then another guy shouted from his left side. “You got a spliff?”

Eugene sped up past them, and through a few potholes. Where the hell am I? There was more of the same as he continued to drive. At one point the road began disintegrating. Weeds began popping up in the middle of the street. As he continued on, there was less pavement and more greenery. He backed up and went another direction. Once more, weeds began replacing pavement. Eugene could sense his nerves jangling. There was an eerie silence. His heart began racing when he looked ahead and saw a pack of zombies moving eastward. He quickly braked and spun around to find a new direction. His GPS gave him new directions, but it was directing him to another dead end.

Eugene stopped and got out. There was an eerie loneliness; a fear that he was lost in a dead district. He rifled through his wallet looking for his friend’s business card, but when he found it there was no phone number. “I’m lost,” he muttered to himself. Eugene resolved to resume his old direction, hoping not to be seen by the seemingly mindless horde. He heard many stories of zombie packs attacking cars on the road. They surround the car because one couldn’t go very fast on the poor roads. They’d pull the driver out, rob him and trash his car. Anything on his possession had value to these guys. Eugene knew to stay clear of them. He was relieved when he got to Dennis’s block.

His friend’s house looked like it had been built in the early fifties of the last century. It still had the aluminum siding that was popular in its day, but it was dull and cracked now. There was an eerie silence . Where are the children? Where are the people? Eugene parked his car. He walked to the front door, but turned around a couple times to look at his car, and then up and down the street. He felt his heart beating a little faster.

Dennis greeted him with a warm man hug. He was tall and angular, and his muscular frame reminded Eugene of his friend as a kid. Dennis was the tallest and strongest kid on the block, except maybe for his younger brother, Ray.

“Hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding us,” he said. “The streets can be a bit tricky.”

“It was a little tricky, but I know the way now,” Gene said.

“This is my wife, Teresa.”

Teresa greeted him as if she had known him for years. “Where’s your wife, Gene?”

“Oh, she has her hobbies and visits friends on weekends,” he lied.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I would have enjoyed meeting her.”

“I’ll be sure to bring her the next time I come over.”

Teresa was a nice looking woman, around 40, with short black hair and grey eyes. Her dress had a small hole in the sleeve that Eugene noticed when she raised her arms. There were also loose threads and a faded appearance.

They went into the enclosed front porch, which Dennis had turned into a kind of all-purpose room: part den and part family room. There was a round, plain white table in the center of the room with a settee in front of it, and against the wall of the interior of the house. Opposite the table were a couple of lawn chairs sitting side-by-side against the far wall. There was an old fashioned TV, looking like an antique, set to the right of the room as one walked in. A picture window showed Front Street and the sidewalk. Above the window were three pictures that fascinated Eugene.

“Remember President Cummstaff?” Dennis said with a big grin on his face. “Greatest president the country ever had.”

“Yeah, I wrote a paper on him when I was in college. You know, Dennis, I never thought of him as a great president.” Dennis frowned.

“He was the first president to begin undermining New America, and reducing communication with it.” Eugene suddenly realized that he was offending his friend. Teresa also looked puzzled.

“But, maybe, he was just what the country needed.” Dennis and Teresa both perked up.

The next picture was of the Lightning Squad pulling some guy over. The squad leader was pointing his rifle at the car they triangulated.

“Lieutenant Barnett gave me that picture,” Dennis said. “That’s him when he was a squad leader, like me.” Under the picture was the caption:

Finally, to the right, was a painting of a junkyard dog behind a steel fence with vicious canine teeth that looked twice the size of the real thing. Under it was the caption:

The pictures put Eugene on edge, but the friendliness of Dennis and Teresa, who welcomed him like a long-lost son, quickly brought him back.

A baby’s cry sent Teresa into the interior of the house. As Dennis and Eugene continued to talk, Teresa came back a short time later holding a baby.

“Jerrell just woke up and I have to feed him,” Teresa said. “He’s really a good boy; hardly ever cries.” She gave Dennis and Eugene each a glass and a bottle of beer, sat down, and began discreetly breastfeeding the infant.

“How old is Jerrell?”

“Just two months old,” Teresa said. “We’ve only been married for two years.”

“We met when I pulled her over for speeding,” Dennis said.

“Isn’t that hysterical?” she said, laughing. “He was so tall and handsome in his uniform.”

“All brown and blue. An ugly combination of colors if there ever was one—brown for military, and blue for justice.” Dennis was chuckling.

“Just look at that cute dimple on his chin. Doesn’t he look like Kirk Douglas?” Gene smiled, understandably. “Anyway, he started hitting on me; even asked me out. Told me he’d tear up the ticket if I agreed. What else was I to do?” Then Teresa began giggling as she pinched his cheek.

Dennis was still cackling. “I was smitten. Look at her, Gene. Have you ever seen a more beautiful smile in your life?” Teresa smiled, but one side of her mouth seemed to curl upward more than the other. Still, Eugene nodded pleasantly.

“Now tell me about Catherine,” Teresa said. “I want to know everything. How long have you been married? How’d you meet?”