Lance Mannion: Night walk around town: July 11, 2004

Three years ago tonight, and two months before I had a blog, we'd just arrived on the Cape and I took a late walk around town.

Midnight and Chatham's shut down. Only other people on the street are two delivery guys unloading a semi in front of the drugstore. They have almost all the contents of the trailer intended for this store stacked on the sidewalk. One of the guys is bringing the last load down on the mechanized ramp, standing awfully close to the edge as it lowers, pushed far to the side by the many boxes. The other guy is wheeling bundles and stacks of boxes into the store, which is lit up inside more brightly than it might have been when the place was open for business earlier.

The delivery guys are young and dressed very neatly in light blue short sleeve workshirts with the drugstore chain's logo on their breast pockets and khakis. Neater than the clerks waiting inside the store to help put things on the shelves for morning. The corporation's trucking department a more tightly run ship than theretail side.

Sidewalk in front of the Squire is empty, except for one bored green-shirted bouncer, but there's life inside, of course, as it's an hour from last call and probably three before they throw out the last drunk. All the lights are on in the main bar, the juke box's thumping, and a small crowd of twentysomethings, who might be the staff, are partying heartily. Dining rooms off to the side are darkened. One guy, in his 30s, maybe early 40s, sitting alone at a windwo table, arms folded, half-turned towards the bar, but with his eyes on the window not on the gang in the other room, brooding.

Started this walk down by the Mill Pond. Water perfectly smooth. Across the pond a house at the bottom of Sunset Lane has a red light burning in a side window. Only light on in the house. The light is reflected pretty far out in the pond, as clear, round, bright, and still as it is the window, a flaming jewel just under the surface of the water.

May 2013