Tom answered immediately.
“Borrowing usually involves giving them back.”
Clark jabbed a finger toward me.
“This whole thing started because Frank got angry over a few gallons of gas.”
“A few gallons several times,” I corrected.
Clark looked around.
“I have a family! I have two kids. Do any of you understand what things cost now? Groceries, school expenses, gas—everything.”
For half a second, I felt myself soften.
Because I did remember.
Nancy and I had raised a family.
There had been years when every unexpected bill mattered.
Years when filling the gas tank required checking the bank account first.
I understood financial pressure.
Then Tom said, “Didn’t you just buy a fishing boat?”
Silence.
Clark’s expression changed.
That ended the sympathy rather quickly.
He straightened.
“That is different. I work hard for my money.”
Mrs. Delgado stared at him.
“So does everybody else.”
Then Clark turned toward my driveway.
Earl sat exactly where he’d been for most of the day.
“He doesn’t even go anywhere!” Clark shouted. “That truck sits there half the week!”
And that was when Mrs. Patterson arrived.
She had slowly made her way from near the corner with her cane.
She stopped beside us.
“Frank gets my groceries every Thursday.”
Clark looked at her.
Tom spoke next.
“He hauled my old washing machine away.”
Mrs. Delgado added, “He helps with pickups for the church pantry.”
Another neighbor said, “He brought lumber home for me last month.”
Someone else mentioned another favor.
Then another.
I wanted to disappear.
I’d never thought of those things as accomplishments.
They were simply things I could do, so I did them.
But hearing them said aloud changed something.
Not in me.
In Clark.
His favorite excuse had just collapsed.
I wasn’t a useless old man sitting beside an unused truck.
And even if I had been, it wouldn’t have mattered.
The truck was still mine.
The gas was still mine.
My age had never given him permission to take either one.
Part 5 — “I Want It Back Now”
Clark stood there with the box at his feet.
Finally he gestured toward it.
“And everybody thinks this is normal?”
I looked at the photograph taped to the cardboard.
Then at him.
“No.”
His face relaxed slightly.
Then I continued.
“What’s not normal is taking things that don’t belong to you and assuming people will stay quiet because confronting you is inconvenient.”
