The door of the dirty white house with faded and chipped blue trim opened. Two small, dogs slip through the opening. One of several “inside” cats tries to make for the gap but is firmly shunted aside. Roy then slips out, shutting the door behind him. The black dog needs help, so Roy puts his coffee cup on the wide ledge of the porch wall and carries her down past the worn edges of the porch and the chipped cement stairs to the grass where the other dog is already busy with the morning’s business. Roy then returns to the porch where he lifts an “outside” cat from a plastic chair and has a seat.
From the pocket of his plaid shirt-coat Roy removes a pack of generic cigarettes and a Bic lighter. This is part of the morning ritual – the porch, the dogs, the coffee, the cigarette.
The hands that perform the simple task of lighting the cigarette are strong and dependable. The fingernails are in need of clipping. Roy says keeping them that way makes it easier to pick up small screws and pins.
Roy has been coming onto the porch every morning for twenty-three years. The house, back then, was bright white with crisp blue trim, the boards of the porch fresh and clean-edged, and the cement stairs smooth. Everything has aged.
Roy’s hair has receded and grayed since then. The stubble of his morning beard is liberally speckled with gray. Over the years, lines have appeared around his eyes and across his forehead. However, Roy’s eyes still shine with the light of curiosity and the pleasure of being alive.
The life Roy lives isn’t filled with anything more dangerous than the commute to the Boeing plant an hour up I-5, nothing more risky then smoking cigarettes. His pleasures come from a good piece of chocolate with an evening cup of coffee, tinkering with a computer to make it go, visits by his daughters and grandchildren, and evenings alone with his wife, Jodi, and their domestic menagerie.
Regrets? Maybe small ones like a truck he wished he’d never purchased or a tool he wished he had. But regrets for the life he’s lived, the things he’s done, the people he’s known? He doesn’t think so. Roy has found satisfaction in his daily routine and the job he’s held for decades. He has found pleasure in his morning ritual with the dogs, his cup of coffee, and a cigarette. It has been a good life. It is a good life.
But now the dogs are ready. Their noses are pointed at the door. With a last drag on his cigarette, Roy rubs out the glowing tip in a bucket of sand. At the door, he opens it just wide enough to let one dog slip through at a time. He catches and pushes back one cat and then slips inside.