Tinted Distances

                                     "This is where the serpent lives.  This is his past,
                                      These fields, these hills, these tinted distances"
 
                                                                                           Wallace Stevens
 
 
     Scudder, after lacing all the spokes on the bicycle wheel he was working on, leaned back from the cluttered work bench and took another swig of mineral water.  Slowly he twisted a crick from his neck, looking around the musty garage he had converted into a repair shop.  The lacing had taken a little longer than expected but it had turned out pretty well, he thought, reaching for a flathead screwdriver to begin adjusting the brass nipples.  With little effort he screwed the first nipple into its spoke, the threads all but disappearing, and started on the next one when he heard a car pull up at the end of the driveway.  Half turning around, he looked to see if it was someone for him, perhaps a customer with a bike for him to repair.  The glare from the sun was so bright it took him a moment before he was able to make out the features of the car and saw it was the raisin-colored Volvo station wagon.
     "Damn!"
     He started to get up from his stool then changed his mind and just stared down the scabby driveway, wondering how long the car would sit out there today.  Certainly not very long, he suspected, if he got up and walked toward it then it would creep away and disappear around the corner.  Just as it did the other day when he started to approach it.
     He had no idea how often the station wagon had been slowing down in front of his house.  He had only moved in a month and a half ago and for all he knew the car could have been coming by long before he signed the lease agreement.  The first time he noticed it was late one Saturday afternoon and he had just come back from a test ride on a Peugeot relic he was repairing.  He figured it was a customer and waited in the garage for the driver to wheel his bike down the driveway but no one came, and after a couple of minutes he got up and saw that the Volvo was still there.  He could not identify the driver through the tinted windows but it didn't matter because he assumed whoever it was was waiting for someone in the house next door and went back to work.
     He didn't think anything more about it until a few days later when he saw the Volvo slow down in front of his place again.  Dumbfounded, he watched it from his kitchen window, half expecting someone to get out this time but no one did.  The car idled there for almost five minutes before it slowly edged away and lumbered down the shaded street.  He assumed the driver didn't know him otherwise he would have made an effort to speak with him.  More likely, whoever was behind the wheel was acquainted with the previous tenants but didn't know they had moved and couldn't understand why they weren't there.  Maybe he thought Scudder was house sitting for them and didn't want to bother him.  Eventually, Scudder reckoned, the person was bound to realize they didn't live there any longer and would stop driving by but Scudder had been in the house almost seven weeks and the station wagon continued to appear at odd hours of the day and night.
     Who's in the car? he asked himself anxiously.  Who the hell is it?
                                                              *
     His next door neighbor, Mrs. Puttkamer, smiled as Scudder ushered a vintage Raleigh cruiser down the driveway.  "Yours?" she asked, after pulling another weed from her rosebed.
     He shook his head.  "Someone wants it fixed but it's so old and rickety I don't know if it's really worth the trouble."
     "Probably has some fond memories for its owner."
     Nodding, he started to go into the garage then paused, resting the bicycle against his left hip.  "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you something, Mrs. Puttkamer."
     "What's that?"
     "I've noticed a Volvo station wagon driving by here the past few weeks and I was wondering if you knew who it belonged to?"
     "I don't."  She removed a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her nose.  "I thought it was someone you knew."
     "You did?"
     "That's right.  Because I didn't start seeing it until soon after you moved into the neighborhood."
     "You didn't?"
     "Not to my recollection but then all cars look pretty much the same to me.  Frank, my first husband, would've been the person to ask, though.  He knew every make and model of car whether it was made in this country or somewhere else.  But not me, I am afraid."
                                                                *
     One afternoon, while sweeping pine needles off the front porch, Scudder spotted the Volvo coming down the street, but instead of ducking inside the house to watch it from the kitchen window, he remained on the porch.  The station wagon, as usual, pulled up in front of his house and parked, its engine still running, and at first he tried to ignore it and continued to sweep then after a long minute had passed he leaned the broom against the screen door and turned around and stared at the car.  He pretended he was looking directly at the driver though he was unable to detect anyone through the tinted windshield.  For all he knew, the driver might not even be behind the steering wheel now but might have slid over to the passenger seat.  He just could not see through the dark glass but he acted as if he could and continued to stare at the invisible driver until the station wagon drove away after a couple more minutes.
                                                                *
     Two days later, cruising around the corner on another bike he was working on, Scudder saw the Volvo back in front of his house.
     "Son of a bitch," he groaned, the blood rising in his face.
     He headed toward the driveway, intending to ignore the damn car, then before he quite knew what was happening, he swung the bike sharply to the right and pulled up alongside the station wagon and rapped a knuckle against the driver's window.  Slowly it came down, revealing a portly man with thinning brown hair scrunched behind the steering wheel.
     "Pardon me," Scudder began haltingly, "but I've seen you stop out here in front of my house quite a number of times and I'm wondering why."
     The driver, silent, stared at him blankly.
     "I know this is a public street but I wanted to let you know I don't really appreciate it."
     "You don't remember me, do you?"
     Scudder regarded the man closely.  "No, I'm afraid I don't."
     "We were in high school together."
     "John Adams?"
     The driver nodded.  "You were a senior when I was a sophomore."
     "Oh."
     "You and two of your friends did something to me I've never forgot."
     "I did?"
     "You don't even remember?"
     "Sorry, friend."
     "You're no friend of mine," the man barked fiercely.  "You're nothing but a sick son of a bitch.  I just wanted you to know that some people don't forget the bad things that happen to them."
     "Listen, mister, I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
     "Well, I do, and that's what matters," he said, starting to roll up the window.  "I just wish to Christ I could forget like you have apparently."
     Scudder started to reply but the station wagon lurched away from the curb and this time he was sure it would not return.  Desperately he strained to recall the driver but was unable to, though he remembered others he and some of his friends had played tricks on at school.  He could not believe whatever he did had bothered this guy so much, figured he must be pretty weak otherwise he would have forgotten about it as he had  after all these years.