The Steps Down Clearstacks

Pat had always had a particular fondness for Clearstacks, between Sunworn Street and Stuart Road. It was only a small bit of road to either side of a long flight of steps. There were five houses on Clearstacks, each of which Pat knew well. Some he had spent long hours in, some he only knew the facade of, but in a way, each had a left an impression in his memory, detailed. Clearstacks number 1 was a owned by an old woman now. During Pat's childhood, she had brought the mail on Wednesdays. Presumably, she had also done so on other days, but Wednesdays were when Pat could have been home. They knew one another the same way many people knew their civil service workers. It had been friendly greetings and nodded acknowledgments whenever they passed in the streets, a few platitudes exchanged when accepting the mail, and the occasional congratulations, if the small stacks of letters, most of which was addressed to Pat's parents, included the usual certificates for the completion of one's stay at some institution of education. Nowadays, that woman mostly sat in her garden, watching people go by. Pat still gave her the usual wave he had given her back when he only knew her as the lady on the yellow bike, whenever their eyes met. It was only when he learned that she lived on Clearstacks that he had learned her name: Mrs. McMellon. It was almost like an active reminder of the myriad ways people could become invisible, if Pat let them. The house itself had changed as well, the largest jump marking Mrs. McMellon's transition into retirement. Where his childhood memory of the facade was a sober white, painted with pale brown accents around the doors and windows. It had been almost utilitarian, likely much more comfortable inside than it looked from the outside. It was not half a year past Mrs. McMellon's retirement when the facade was painted a rich yellow, and at least the door step was painted red. Pat thought it was reminiscent of a person with brown eyes, wearing vibrant red lipstick. Since then the garden had sprouted into a diverse little jungle of plants, most of which Pat wasn't sure were suited to the climate. It was nice to see someone finding time for passions that they hadn't been able to realize. Or perhaps it had been a newly found passion. Either way, it sketched a very lovable image of Mrs. McMellon.

An old friend from Pat's school days used to live in Clearstacks numer two. That family had since moved away, but little had been done to the building. Pat didn't know the young family that had moved in, but the many toys in the garden suggested that they had children. Two, if he were to guess, a good number of years apart in age. Pat remembered that the back of the house featured a large living room, which had been a popular place for their friend group to meet. There, they could set up board games and toys, and still have ample room to chase one another around. His friend's parents often weren't home, once their son had grown into his teenage years. Pat never got the sense that they were absent, but then again, there were parts of his friend's life he didn't get to see, and that was quite alright. Nowadays they spoke rarely. Every now and then one would call the other with a question on their respective area of expertise, then use the occasion to catch up on one another's lives. During those calls, Pat would mention any chases to the house. He saw it often enough, on his commute. He wasn't otherwise sure that the state of the house was of any particular interest.

The man living in Clearstacks number three had been Pat's basketball coach for the better part of a year. Mr. Todds was only a stand-in for a teacher on parental leave. Pat remembered him being somewhat overwhelmed by the task, but there had been plenty of rumours about him after he had left again. Somebody insisted that some of the tattoos on his sleeve had been secret code for a gang that Pat had never heard of and still wasn't convinced existed, and that had fueled the rumor-mill. In hindsight, Pat felt a little bad about the whole thing. Mr. Todds had been nice in the few moments Pat had spoken with him outside of the gym. Perhaps he had seemed stressed, a little exhausted and dreading the impending basketball practice, but having reached about the age that Mr. Todds was at the time, he could imagine now that it might have been a number of other things. He did seem very good at demonstrating what exactly he wanted the kids to do, but then didn't seem too competent in directing them in any other way. It seemed plausible now, that Mr. Todds was only someone who could play basketball quite well, perhaps someone who had taken part in college sports, or perhaps even someone who coached amateur teams, though teaching adults who were trying to garner some enjoyment from their free time was a different thing from teaching children who might understand themselves as being there under obligation. Pat himself hadn't been sure he wanted to be there many times himself, and that probably didn't make things easy. Clearstacks number three still had a yard of someone who was very active. It had been sports equipment once. Now it had given way to somewhat mellower objects. An old car someone might be working on still, a swing that was slanted slightly to one side, hints of a workshop around the garage. Pat never spoke to Mr. Todds again, after his old basketball coach returned, so he never had a chance to learn whether this family life was a new addition, or whether it had been in full swing even before they first met.

Clearstacks number four was of particular importance to Pat's coming of age. He had had his first kiss on the patio, with a girl he had grown close to during literature class. Neither had been particularly interested in the subject, and it turned out that shared indifference made for pretty decent common ground. It certainly helped that they had similar interests outside of literature class, and things went on from there. Pat had always been awkward in relationships. Women, men, whichever, he never quite managed to be as graceful as he would have liked about things he was invested in, and he had learned it from that night on that porch. The kiss had been fine, as far as first kisses went. An awkward, almost flailing, framed by uncomfortable shifting around one another's desires, and it would have been better if Pat had managed to keep his thoughts to himself afterward. It set the trend for a future he hadn't quite managed to escape yet. Still, he looked back at it fondly. As difficult as his track-record with relationship was, at least the separation was never as messy as he had seen from many of his contemporaries. He never had the opportunity to speak to the woman that had become of that girl on that porch, but the moments inside her bedroom or living room had clearly steered his perception of himself. Of all houses on Clearstacks, this one had perhaps changed the most since the time he had grown attached to it. His ex-girlfriend's parents still lived there, but had made extensive renovations, which had changed most of the facade of the house, and he was pretty sure that they had changed the number of rooms as well, judging from the way the windows had shifted around. It was really none of his concern at this point of his life, but every now and then, when he walked by it, he couldn't help but smile to himself a little, in light of the fond memories.

Clearstacks number five had been empty for most of his childhood, a ruin of an old building, a remainder of the odd construction of the street as it descended down the long flight of stairs. Him and his friends had sneaked into the building while it was still abandoned. It had been a prime location to meet up in evenings to hang out past curfew, back when they still had one, and later to use for activities that nobody had the space for, experiment with things that were arguably too dangerous to do at that age, at least while unsupervised, but neither had parents who would afford them the opportunity. For good reasons, usually. It was the place where Pat had decided the taste of cigarettes wasn't worth the optics, where he discovered that he was good at lighting things on fire, but also good at putting them back out again, and where he first fell down from a height that now, at his age, would be concerning.

Since then the building had been torn down, and over the years, another one had been built in its place. Pat had never quite felt like this house was a part of Clearstacks. Instead it had become a row of houses, smaller than the others, individually, but in exchange painting a prettier front from the street running perpendicular to Clearstacks, at the bottom end of the steps. Pat had trouble thinking of them as anything else, but a nice visual at the end of a street that he had spent a lot of his life crossing, and that he felt at home in, when descending the steps.