New Street, New Rules

The car smells like the last three days. Crackers, sleep, and the pine-tree air freshener Perlie hung on the mirror somewhere outside of Bakersfield. Ace has been watching the road through the gap between the front seats for so long that the freeway feels like all there is — just asphalt and the flat white sky and the back of his father's head.

Then Fred Parker turns off the freeway and the road changes.

Streets now. Trees. Small houses with cars out front. Dogs on porches watching them pass. Ace sits up straighter without deciding to.

"This is it?" he says.

"This is it," Fred says.

The first stop is a real estate office on the main road — a clean building with a sign out front and a Persian cat in the window who watches them pull up and doesn't move. Fred gets out in his good shirt. Ace watches from the car. The Persian cat meets Fred at the door. The conversation is short. The cat's face doesn't change. Fred's does — just slightly, just around the jaw. He comes back to the car and closes the door quietly.

"What did she say?" Perlie asks.

"She said they don't have anything available on this side."

Perlie looks straight ahead. "Which side does she have?"

Fred doesn't answer that. He starts the car.

They drive three blocks before a Great Dane steps off a porch and raises one hand. He is the biggest dog Ace has ever seen — broad shoulders, a jacket with a pocket square, and the kind of calm that comes from never needing to prove anything. Fred rolls down the window.

"Greg Jackson," the Great Dane says, extending a hand through the window. "I heard you had some trouble at Eliza's office."

"Hard to say it was trouble," Fred says. "She was very polite about it."

Greg Jackson almost smiles. "She usually is. Come on. I know what's available on our side."

As Fred gets out to follow Greg Jackson up the street, Ace leans against the window and watches the neighborhood pass. Two kids on bikes. A dog watering his lawn. A corner store with a hand-painted sign. And then — coming down the sidewalk on a beat-up bike, moving easy and unhurried — a Pitbull pup about Ace's age. He has the look of someone who has lived on this block his whole life and knows every crack in the sidewalk.

The Pitbull glances at the car. Glances at Ace.

Ace nods.

The Pitbull nods back. Keeps riding.

Ace watches him until he turns the corner.

By the time the sun starts going down, the Parkers have a home.

It's a small house on Apple Street with a deep porch and a railing that needs painting and a yard that needs cutting. Greg Jackson shakes Fred's hand on the front walkway and says the neighbors are good people, and he means it. Perlie stands in the doorway of the empty house and Ace can see her face change — something loosening, something settling. This is the look of a family finding their footing.

After Greg Jackson leaves and before they start carrying boxes in, Ace steps up onto the porch alone.

He stands at the railing and looks out at the street. The last of the daylight is going pink over the rooftops. Somewhere down the block a radio is playing. A dog walks a rabbit on a leash past the yard and tips his hat at Ace — like he belongs there already. Like it's already his porch.

Ace puts both hands on the railing.

He doesn't know yet what this block is going to ask of him. He doesn't know about the Prowlers or the Spartans or the cats who think the whole neighborhood belongs to them. He doesn't know the names of the five pups who are going to end up standing on this same porch with him before the year is out.

He just knows it feels like something. And that his father drove three days to get here. And that a Pitbull kid on a bike gave him a nod on the very first street.

That's enough for now.