The Abandoned House 
by Wayne Scheer


When Mr. Ludlow died, the Sylvan Heights Neighborhood Watch worried. They installed new locks on his house and bordered his windows shut. The police agreed to make extra drives through the neighborhood. "Nothing good," they said, "can come of an abandoned house." 

My wife even called the police one evening when she saw a group of teenagers in the Ludlow backyard. A police car was dispatched immediately. Two officers approached the group of youths with their hands near their guns, John Wayne style. It turned out the teens were using the backyard to smoke cigarettes, gossip and listen to music. The police officer sent them home with a warning.

The incident took me back to the abandoned house so central to my childhood more than fifty years earlier. The stone structure stood defiantly on a weed-infested lot on the corner of a Brooklyn city street, otherwise lined with apartment buildings. Only sections of the roof remained and a rotted wooden floor with weeds growing up through the slats. But rooms appeared distinct, one still featured a working door.

The inside of the house was the domain of the older kids, the teenagers. Our world was limited to the front porch, which we called a stoop. Raised off the ground about three feet, it was perfect for jump and roll maneuvers onto the cushy weeds. 

I realize now how small the lot was, but to us city kids it represented untamed wilderness. We sent out search parties to scout for treasure. Broken bottles and beer cans represented ancient artifacts. Once an old mattress appeared and was immediately transformed into a trampoline, but the older kids soon dragged it into the house.

Inside the house, childhood gave way to adolescence. We'd push aside the dirty sheets covering the window holes to peek at our future. Boys and girls sat on the floor smoking cigarettes, playing spin-the-bottle, and laughing in a way only the older kids laughed. 

Eventually, I became one of the older kids. I choked on Chesterfields and kissed Barbara Rubin. It was in the private room, the one with the door, where I discovered what had happened to the old mattress. Eileen Rinehardt and I had no idea what to do, but that was where we shared our "seven minutes of heaven." We both promised never to tell the others how we fumbled before giving up and spending the final minutes telling each other our secrets.

Now, as I near my seventieth year, I nod as members of the Neighborhood Watch repeat, "Nothing good can come of an abandoned house."


Wayne Scheer has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net. He's published numerous stories, poems and essays in print and online, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories http://issuu.com/pearnoir/docs/revealing_moments. Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife and can be contacted at wvscheer@aol.com.