Next Door

Chapter 3 - Separated Sherm Oglivie

I didn’t think much about Sherm Oglivie after I met him. I had too much other stuff on my mind. There was still what appeared to be a mountain of boxes to unpack and a bizillion decisions about where to put it all.

Slowly but surely, I filled every one of the cabinets in the kitchen which in my euphoria over actually getting the house I overlooked that it was much, much smaller than I thought. In fact, it was the smallest galley kitchen I had ever seen. Oh, there were enough cabinets alright, but the gray and white Formica counter tops were just enough to connect the stove with the sink and the sink to the refrigerator.

About two inches above the sink was what I guessed was an eating bar. At least that’s all I could imagine it was good for.

Also, the builder who obviously never cooked anything in his life, situated the thermostat on the wall directly opposite the stove.

Paul “I cannot believe that you didn’t see any of this in this little kitchen. How are you ever going to function in here?”

“I dunno,” I told him. “I’ll figure it out. More importantly, you better figure out how you are going to move that thermostat before our electric bill goes over $500 every month.”

I moved on. I jammed the towels and bed clothes into a small linen closet in the bathroom off the main bedroom and crowded the closets in the guest room and my office with coats and suits that neither Paul nor I would ever wear in Florida. Fortunately, what we would wear fit into the walk-in closet off the main bedroom.

Then we tackled the niche off the family room.

“What do you suppose this is supposed to be?” Paul asked.

“I have no idea what these people were thinking, but I know what I’m thinking: let’s take all the paintings, prints and sculptures we’ve accumulated over the years and put them all in here – a kind of art gallery space.”

And so, we did.

Inside the house was beginning to shape up.

Outside was a different story altogether. Paul spent hours tending the magnolia and palm trees and the lawn on the corner acre lot where the house was situated. Just as he was about to give into the heat and exhaustion when Jimmy DeTolve pulled his golf cart into the driveway.

“Hey, Paul,” he called, brandishing his fishing pole. “Wanna see what’s in the ponds around here?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Paul answered, grabbing a fishing pole from the garage. “Bye, Hon, I’m off.”

About then it occurred to me that what was missing from the was a full fridge, a packed pantry and whatever it was we were going to eat for dinner. So, I pulled my silver and red 2005 Jeep out of the driveway and headed for the nearest supermarket.

About an hour later I was home again pulling plastic bags packed with a week’s groceries out of the back of the vehicle when a small red pick-up truck pulled into the driveway behind me.

Sherm Oglivie stuck his head out the open driver’s side window and dangled out a plastic bag.

“You like Florida avocados?”

I did not. Too watery for my taste, but I was not about to tell Sherm that. I wanted to find out more about the neighborhood.

“How nice, Sherm,” I said instead. “C’mon in. I’ve got some iced tea chilling in the fridge.”

Sherm scrambled out of the truck and ambled up the driveway.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “I have been feeling kinda bad about how we met the other day.”

Sherm Olgivie was in his very late 50s. He was short and chubby and the frayed beige short cargo pants that he wore revealed his bowed legs. He wore a sleeveless muscle shirt, but the condition of his arms indicated that he had not seen the inside of a gym in decades.

A baseball cap protected his balding head from the sun while his eyes were protected by wraparound sunglasses that the dollar store sold for $1.50 a pair.

He spoke with a flat pronunciation of nearly every word and frequently asked “Where you at?” to determine your exact location just like a guy who had spent many years somewhere in the Midwest.

Sherm entered the house from the garage door and made his way through the kitchen to the dining table we’d set up in the small space off the kitchen and pulled up a chair.

I placed a frosty class of iced tea in front of him along with a cloth tea napkin, a long-handled spoon, a sugar bowl containing organic sugar, and a small marble bowl containing packets of different artificial sweeteners.

I poured myself a glass and sat down opposite him.

“So Sherm, where are you from?” I asked him. “Sounds like the Midwest somewhere, right?”

“Yep.” he shook his head. “The accent always gives it away.”

“I’m from Chicago originally – Rogers Park.”

“Really?” I was happy to meet a fellow Chicagoan here in what I considered the hinterland. “I’m from Belmont and Central! The world is a small and dangerous place.”

“Boy I’ll say,” said Sherm, shaking his head.

“So, what did you do in Chicago?”

“I was an accountant. Can you believe it? Number cruncher for a private club. You?”

“Well,” I chuckled. “Somebody’s got to do it. I was a reporter – Sun-Times, Tribune, you know.”

“Wow!” Sherm’s eyes widened. “You’re famous!”

“Infamous is more like it, really.”

“So how did you end up here from Rogers Park?”

“Oh, my wife Stella picked this place,” Sherm shook his head. “Never would have thought of Florida myself, but...How about you? How’d you get here?”

“Family mostly,” I said. “Paul has a brother here and an uncle in Bradenton; I have a cousin in Naples. I kept seeing the house online and, well, here we are.”

Sherm cocked an eyebrow. “Really because Canary Landing is kinda a hard place to find unless you’re looking for it.”

I shrugged. “So, what about Stella? What does she do? When can I meet her?”

“Um, you can’t,” Sherm shifted in his seat. “She’s still up north. Ailing father, you know. She’ll be here pretty soon, though...pretty soon.”

Before I could answer, Sherm pushed himself away from the table and stood up and headed for the door.

“Well, I’ve been here long enough,” he said finally. “Thanks for the iced tea.”

And before I could reply he was out the door, through the garage, back in his truck and out of the driveway.

I didn’t see Sherm until a few days later when I pulled into his driveway to drop off a batch of blueberry muffins I’d made.

The minute he saw me Sherm stopped fiddling with the shrubbery and had what my mother would have called a conniption fit. He practically ran down the driveway waving his arms and shouting.

“What’s wrong with you?” he snarled. “Can’t you see I’m workin’?”

“I’m just reciprocating for the avocados…”

Before I could say another word Sherm ran me out of his driveway.

“And don’t come back!”

“Don’t worry,” I said out loud. “It’ll never happen again.”