Second shot

I've posted this story before under a different name and written from a different perspective. I'm trying something new, attempting to be more detached and let my readers form their own conclusions. Let me know if I succeeded?


Beaters and Gym Shorts

There are sixteen houses on the court. They are all two storeys, with two car garages, on fifty foot lots. The garage doors are all painted a few shades lighter or darker than the brick in order to blend in and create an aesthetically pleasing and uniform facade. The DeLucas live in the fifth house on the north side of the court, right before the street opens into the circle. Their garage has two doors with a brick clad divider between them. The drive and walkway up to the front door are paved with interlocking stones that were installed by Mr. DeLuca two summers ago. Well, not by him personally, he’s been on disability for the last six years. A work-related back injury. He supervised while a few of his friends and relatives laid the stones.

Mrs. DeLuca goes to work every day, though she must have atypical hours as she is hardly ever seen coming or going from the house. When she is spotted, it is usually while chauffeuring her teenage children to or from a sports game or other after school activity. And once a week, almost always on a Saturday morning, she goes grocery shopping.

The two DeLuca children, Matty and Caroline, are both in their early teens, and attend the local high school. They walk to and from school with their respective friends. Never together. When they were younger, they used to play with the other children who lived on the street, in large group games that would occupy the space in the centre of the court. There were not enough children close to their age to break off into cliques.

In the summer there are always kids playing in the court. Riding bicycles, or scooters, playing street hockey or basketball. Most days Mr. DeLuca can be seen out on the court as well. Talking to neighbours, or hanging out with his buddies in the garage. His uniform on these days is typically a white sleeveless undershirt and black gym shorts. Just last weekend he and three other middle aged men from the neighbourhood were sitting on white plastic lawn chairs in the shade of the garage drinking Canadian from cans stored in a cooler beside Mr. DeLuca’s seat. Every twenty minutes or so, Mr. DeLuca’s voice could be heard shouting over the others as he argued a point or hollered at his son who was performing tricks on a skateboard off of a homemade plywood ramp in the middle of the court. Mrs. DeLuca and Caroline were absent from the social scene on the street that day.

The house in the centre of the court belongs to a man in his early sixties, with a wife and three grown children. He retired from his job with Ontario Hydro last year and has made it his business to know everything that happens on the street. He is the head of the Neighbourhood Watch, and sometimes takes his job a little too seriously; at least according to some of his neighbours.

It was from him that I first heard about The Incident. It happened two nights ago, at around four thirty in the morning. Apparently the police had been called to the DeLuca’s home on a domestic disturbance call. I didn’t ask whether our resident Neighbourhood Watchman had made the call or if it had come from within the house. There had been shouting and lights on all over the house, despite the late hour; the cops had entered the court with lights flashing, but no siren.

The entire altercation took less than twenty minutes after the police arrived, according to my source. The cruiser sat outside the house with red and blue lights blinking silently against the windows of the houses on either side of the DeLucas. When the cops finally emerged from the house, Mrs. DeLuca followed them with a bag slung over her shoulder. They watched while she got into her car, a domestic, dark grey Sport Utility Vehicle, before they got back into their car and cut the lights. Apparently the cruiser stayed parked in front of the house for another two hours after Mrs. DeLuca left. My Neighbourhood Watch informant believes that they were waiting to see if she was going to return to the house, because apparently Mrs. DeLuca was the one accused of abusing her husband. He was the one who had called the police in order to get her evicted from the house. It sounds as if he has been the victim of verbal and physical abuse for years now, until something happened and he finally reported it. I asked about Matty and Caroline, but apparently they were not at home that night.

The DeLucas are getting divorced. They have both moved out of the house, and a For Sale sign appeared this afternoon. Occasionally Mr. or Mrs. DeLuca will be seen at the house, usually carrying boxes or bags of belongings to their respective cars, but once Mr. DeLuca was spotted talking to two of his neighbours in front of his garage. Dressed in his sleeveless white under shirt and black gym shorts.