Fridgehenge

Dirk strutted all cocky and generalissimo, cutting a rug behind his electric mower. Had his blue Dodgers cap on, sweating like a horsefly on steroids. Out in the street, here comes Rawnda, with her tow truck hauling a utility trailer and the load du jour. Another fridge.

“What’s that make it?” Dirk muttered to himself. “Sixteen?”

Rawnda steered around two cars parked at the curb, buried under surfboards. Her kids and their duuuudes. She backed the trailer like she had a hundred times, stopped hard so the fridge shifted. Ka-THUD! It toppled from the trailer into the yard. She got out, short but shapely, and squatted next to the fridge. When they built her, Dirk thought, they just packed big boobs and a muscley ass on either end of a swivel joint. He watched her grab the fridge’s frame, extend her legs, and tilt the fridge up and onto its base. The door swung open, revealing petrified cheese.

He felt the shadow of his wife fall across him.

“You call the H.O.A. yet?” Flita asked.

Dirk kept watching Rawnda. He loved compact. Finally, he turned toward his spouse.

“No, cuz like I told you a hunnert times, there ain’t no number for the H.O.A. It’s just rules without cops.”

All the residents had accepted the existence of a homeowners association when they bought their houses. One of the rules was no trailers in driveways. People figured it would protect their property values from the inexorable advance of lower-classness. Only problem was, everybody had found something in the rules they didn’t like. It was as if they were at war with themselves.

Dirk jerked his thumb toward their neighbor’s. Wilber was president of the H.O.A. “He told me there’s nuthin’ in the rules about fridgerators. End of story.”

“Well . . . There’s only one reason Wilber ain’t crackin’ down on her,” Flita said. “The boobs.”

“That’s two reasons.”

Flita disappeared like a played-out thunderhead.

Dirk turned on the mower and drowned out Flita. When he turned around, Flita was moving back slowly toward the house. Gigantic butt and thighs. He shook his head. Ass like that? Could set my beer up there and it wouldn’t spill.

He continued cutting along his usual grass pattern and looked across the street. Dirty towels dotted Rawnda’s yard. She stood inside the fridge, spraying 409.

“Hey!” Dirk yelled. “What kind you get this time?”

“Philco,” Rawnda yelled back. “Late ’40s, my guess. It don’t work.”

“Perfect for Fridgehenge.”

“Listen, Dirkwad,” she said, pointing the rag at him. “This ain’t no art piece. It’s a statement. Political.”

“How you figure? A junk yard? Visible from my yard? I vote ‘No.’”

“I don’t care. I want them assholes who run this subdivision to show me where it says I can’t have this. I’d rather park my boat and trailer here, but ‘no sir’, not permitted. Private property? My tight little ass.”

Dirk chuckled. He had to give her that. “What kinda boat?”

“Bayliner. No biggie. Those fucks wouldn’t know it from a battleship.”

“Who did you call?”

“Willlll-bur. The prez? Guy next door? Nice, but clueless. They hired legal to dodge the blowback. I’ve read the rules. There’s nothing they can do to make us do anything, or not do anything.”

Dirk liked her style. Sorta Fuck-you, Jack.

“Hey,” he said, “you wanna come over for burgers? Flita’s flippin’.”

She stood with her hands on her hips. She had her halter top on. She always had her halter top on. Hard to think about the fridge situation with that in your face.

“Flippin’ Flita? Sure,” she said. “Bring anything?”

“Naw, just don’t change.”

She showed up with a bottle of chardonnay. Dirk led her through the house toward the patio, and Flita waddled off to get the singles and mayo. She didn’t like vegetables, so Dirk had to use ketchup to get his tomato quota, and mustard pickle relish to get his cucumbers.

“Flita hates toppings,” he said.

“I’m OK with just the meat,” Rawnda said. “And the bun. Gotta have the bun.”

“Gotta.”

Flita arrived with the platter and slid the burgers onto the buns. “You settled in pretty much?” she asked Rawnda.

Rawnda had only been there a few months. Long enough to salvage every old fridge in the city, but maybe not long enough to hang pictures of the kids. “Mostly settled,” she said. “Learning how to live alone.”

She ran an auto salvage yard south of town. She told Wilber and Wilber told Dirk and Flita. They knew the place. Dirk always rhapsodized about it when they passed. Not Flita. “Imagine living next door?” she would say. “Ratty-ass fence, like that screens anything. Neighbors wake up and take in a lovely view of a bunch of old Buicks and Oldses. Lord God almighty—at least Rawnda didn’t move that into her front yard.”

Word was, Rawnda’s husband, a family practice lawyer, somewhat agreed with Flita’s point of view about the salvage yard. Took his own legal advice and dumped her, but Dirk still thought she was a pistol, thumbing her nose at the homeowners association.

“Hey!”

They all stopped talking and looked toward the sound. It was the president. Wilber, the guy next door, hanging on the concrete block fence with his head looking over.

“I smell burgers, but I seem to have lost my invitation.”

“We got plenty,” Flita said. “If Dirk don’t eat two. Come on.”

They heard the gate latch open. Wilber held a case of beer. “You not gonna shoot me or anything, right?” he said to Rawnda, accepting a burger from Flita. Everybody knew everybody.

“I don’t hate you, I just don’t like these bullshit homeowners rules.”

“Hey, I didn’t write them. They came with the houses.”

“Nobody likes them. Why do we even have them?”

Wilber chomped into his burger. Looked at Flita. “Got any lettuce, tomatoes, onions?”

She gave him a look and he went back to chewing. Wilber continued. “See, the way I figure it, it’s good for people to have that document when they want to sell. Gives the buyers peace of mind.”

“I’d like to give somebody some piece of mind,” Rawnda said.

“See you got a new fridge,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

“You gonna send cops?”

“Just curious.”

She said she was going to remove the latches on all the doors, take the backs out, shove them together and create a compact overnight lodging place for surfers.

“They can’t afford much,” she said. “And the fridges would be dry. Tight, but dry.”

“Like those Japanese hotels, right?” Wilber said. “Remember those automats? Those vending machines that bring you sandwiches? I hear these hotels are only slightly bigger. A conveyor system brings your bed down. You climb in and it takes you up to the dark.”

Rawnda didn’t know what to say.

“What about showers?” Flita asked.

“They’re surfers,” Rawnda answered. “They don’t need showers.”

“I think there’s a clause about that,” Wilber said. “In the H.O.A. rules.”

“It’s not in my copy,” Rawnda said.

“Guess I’ll have to read them,” Wilber said. “That isn’t the president’s job, is it?”

In the days following the BBQ, Dirk and Flita and Wilber and the other neighbors watched Rawnda work things out. She took the guts out of all her fridges. She lay some of the fridges down. Others she took the backs out of and brought together in groups of two and four, big enough for one occupant or two.

Once she had them cleaned up and ready to rent, the surfer-cars started showing up. All the street spaces were taken, so nobody could have guests over for burgers or pool parties. Surfers wandered in and out of the fridge camp, smoking pot and shaking their long, salty hair. They were all named Dude. Lots of reggae in the air. Rawnda set up a portable fire pit.

Dirk and Flita were out front one night, watching the scene. Surfers gathered around the fire pit, laughing and talking about epic waves. Eventually, they would wander off to their rental boxes. Some would just lift a lid, step inside, and recline like Dracula.

Flita gave up watching and went to bed. She wore sound-canceling headphones and eyeshades. She looked like a captive animal during shipment to the zoo.

Dirk couldn’t sleep. He walked over to Rawnda’s house. Knocked on the door. Wilber opened it. “Hey,” he said. “We were just talking about calling you up.”

“Here I am,” Dirk said.

They were sitting on the sofa, watching a late-night comic rip on the president. Dirk had given up keeping track of who the president was. He sat next to Rawnda. Wilber reached across her lap to hand Dirk a beer.

Dirk lifted a toast. “Surf’s up.”

The place smelled like sex. He couldn’t tell if it was steaming off Rawnda or Wilber. Maybe both. He was the bland white bread off to the side of the hot meat sandwich.

“Who is the president now?” Dirk asked.

“I am,” Wilber said.

“No, not the H.O.A. The other thing. In D.C.”

“Oh, that guy,” Wilber said. “Hey, Raw. What’s his name?”

That did it. Raw. Like they were familiar. Dirk knew they had been screwing when he knocked, or just before. He hoped he hadn’t interrupted things. She looked calmer than he had ever seen her, so maybe it was OK.

“I can’t remember,” she said. “Some guy. Who cares?”

“Not me,” Wilber and Dirk said, at the same time.

“Chorus,” Rawnda said. “We just need to write the verses.”

Dirk finished his beer and excused himself. “Hope the surfers get some sleep,” he said, latching the door as he stepped toward their camp. Snores came from the fridges.

When he crawled into bed, Flita was taking up all of her side and half of his. He tucked himself against her, on the slim empty patch. He clung to the sheets to keep from falling out of bed. He must have fallen asleep, and fallen in his sleep, because he was on the floor when he woke.

Dirk usually went out early for the paper. He would stand there, scanning headlines, darting his eyes across the street at Rawnda’s fridge farm. Slowly, lids lifted up and scraggly surfer dudes started to rise. It was like watching a graveyard come to life. They were crawling out.

After coffee, Flita had cupcakes to make, so Dirk grabbed his rake and headed outside to tidy yesterday’s mulch from his mowing. That’s when he saw Rawnda slow her truck in front of the surf camp, and then back a small camp trailer into the driveway. She stepped out of the cab and smiled at him.

“You and your female, you can hit the RV lots,” she yelled. “Me and the president, we reached an . . . understanding.”

But the neighbors hadn’t, or at least the ones who signed the petition to the H.O.A. They shared their loathing of the fridges, the surfers, and the comings and goings at Rawnda’s trailer, which didn’t always involve Wilber and was showing enough traffic to suggest that Rawnda had herself a profitable little side business. Lots of husbands walking the neighborhood without wives or dogs. Who knew they needed that much exercise?

The H.O.A. board called a meeting at Wilber’s. Everybody showed up clutching an adult beverage. Wilber called it to order and asked Priss Newcomb to explain her petition. She was pretty agitated, about to pop a vessel, sweating and spitting when she spoke.

She said she didn’t buy her house to have a zombie surf camp next door. She had a garden. Freesias. In beds with rock borders and raised beds, in terracotta pots and hanging from macrame freesia holders.

There was lots of murmuring among the other homeowners.

“I’m gonna say something I might regret, but Rawnda, so help me, she may be in violation of Section 3, Subsection B.”

Everybody looked a little puzzled. They started chatting among themselves, trying to find out what the language prohibited.

“You mean the ‘Prohibited Uses’ section?” Wilber asked. “The ‘Commercial Activities’ clause?”

A loudmouth from down the street jumped up. Gooma Bradford lacked subtlety.

“You mean the ‘no hookers’ clause, don’t you?”

Many of the men in the audience blushed, started fumbling with their shoelaces and acting like their phones had vibrated.

All their wives chimed in, whipping out their pitchforks and nooses. Rawnda was in it, up to her neck. Thank god she had Wilber in her corner.

“As you all know, when matters of concern are brought to the board, we are required by our bylaws to refer them to legal counsel for resolution,” he said.

“But what can they do?” Flita asked. “Are there fines? If it’s a violation, then can we call the cops? Or what?”

Rawnda gave her an ugly look. Hadn’t they had burgers together?

“Look, I’m not sure,” Wilber said. “I’ll find out and send everyone an email.”

It was surprising how easily that mollified the mob. Everyone got up and started milling around, sipping drinks, drifting off to their cul-de-sacs cluttered with Big Wheels and playpens and trampolines. Dirk watched them wander through the clutter.

Flita went back inside. She had cupcakes to frost.

The surfers started to arrive, wet and carrying take-out burrito bags.

Dirk thought Rawnda was getting a bum rap. She had brought a lot of life to their little ’hood. Nobody else had managed to let the gas out of the H.O.A., least of all himself. After a fashion, Rawnda had brought everyone together. In the way that a lynch mob was a kind of social gathering.

He thought the whole uprising was overblown and he knew what was going to happen: nothing. That was what always happened. People run around flapping their gums. Then, nothing. The lawyer was going to punt it. Dirk didn’t care about the fridges or the surfers. He just wanted a trailer like Rawnda’s. With the tenor of the local H.O.A. politics, he doubted he would ever get one. Leastways not in his own driveway.

He hung his hands by their thumbs in his pockets. He wandered across the street. He wasn’t worried about Flita. She was probably in the back, fortifying her haunches with cupcakes.

He knocked on the door to Rawnda’s trailer. When it swung open, he stepped up and inside. “Like it?” she said. His knees wobbled a bit. He needed to get a trailer just like this. Equipped with a halter top just like hers. 

Stuart Watson won honors for his work at newspapers in Anchorage, Seattle and Portland. His literary writing is in Yolk, Barzakh, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Bending Genres (Best Microfictions nominee), The Writing Disorder, Reckon Review, Mystery Tribune, Five South, Two Hawks Quarterly, 433, Bloom, Flash Boulevard, Wrong Turn Lit, Sensitive Skin and Muleskinner Journal among others. He lives in Oregon with his wife and dog.