Trailer Park Noir

she was real happy. She was starting to get some independence in her life. She’d been alone in the trailer for about ninety minutes – for the first time in her life. And she had a little doggy all her own, for the first time in her life. It was a day of first times.

But so far, Kendra had done nothing naughty, nothing to make her feel good, to somehow scratch her naughty itch. There had to be something she could do without getting caught – but with just enough risk of getting caught to make it exciting.

For one thing, Mommy had made her take off the bikini top and put on a T-shirt with her shorts. So Kendra went to her room and took off the T-shirt and put the bikini top back on, then put the plaid shirt over it, left it open, the way she’d worn it that morning.

Kendra was pouring herself a glass of ice-cold lemonade when she heard the piercing squeak of the mailman’s brakes. She could hear them all the way there from the trailer park’s entrance, where the mail truck stopped at the bank of mailboxes.

“Hey, Dexie,” she said with enthusiasm, “you wanna go get the mail?”

Because of her tone, the dog got excited and began hopping up and down.

“You’re not gonna run away from me soon as we get out there, are you, Dex?” she said.

The dog continued to hop, throwing in a piercing little bark now and then.

Just to be sure, she picked Dexter up in her arms and then went outside, then she held him up in front of her. “Now, you can’t run away, you hear me, Dexter? You have to stay with me. Okay?”

Dexter licked her face and she giggled. She put him down on the ground and he ran circles around her feet.

The shade helped keep the trailer park cooler than it would have been without it, but it was not immune from the baking summer heat, not even in the shade. A hot breeze whispered secrets in the trees overhead as Kendra headed for the trailer park’s entrance.

Dexter ran ahead of her, and Kendra called, “Dexter! Come back here!” She slapped her bare thigh and made kissing sounds with her lips. The little dog turned around and hurried back, then fell into step beside her, trotting to keep up.

Country music came from one of the trailers. It always seemed to play in the trailer park, all day long. From another trailer came the angry sound of talk radio. Kendra heard a sound ahead and to her left and saw the door open on unit five, the new trailer. A man came out holding a tall glass and a magazine in one hand. He closed the screen door behind him, then sat down on the top porch step, took a sip of his drink and put the glass next to him on the porch.

Kendra kept glancing at him, wondering who he was, what he was like, where he’d come from, and what had brought him to Riverside Mobile Home Park.

Suddenly, he looked up. Then he did a double-take. Then he stared openly at her.

She glanced at him again and again, and each time, his stare was fixed on her, lips slightly parted. Kendra began to feel the jittery sensation of self-consciousness creep up on her. She wondered if there was something wrong with her – did she look funny, was that why he was staring at her?

She told herself to stop looking at him, then maybe he would ignore her. She felt her back stiffen as she walked by him. One more glance – he was still watching her from the porch and she stiffened even more as she walked out of his line of sight.

Kendra never knew what it meant when someone stared at her, and it always made her uncomfortable. It seemed people stared at her a lot. Was it because she was slow – could they tell by looking at her? Was she ugly? Funny-looking? She couldn’t understand it. Like she told Mommy, everyone was a little mean at one time or another.

She walked on, nearing the park’s entrance and exit, the two lanes separated by the giant oak. The row of twenty mailboxes was on the left just outside the entrance.

Kendra glanced back over her shoulder and almost tripped over her own feet when she saw that man standing out in the road now, watching her from behind, arms folded across his chest. She spun back around and faced front, frowning now. She picked up her pace a little, then darted to the left, again out of his line of sight, behind the grey cinder block wall that ran behind the mailboxes. There was another wall just like it on the other side of the exit, but that one had big words on it: RIVERSIDE MOBILE HOME PARK. She went down the row of mailboxes to theirs. She opened it, reached in and removed the mail – mostly junk mail, and a couple bills – then closed the U-shaped door of the mailbox. Kendra hated the look she saw in Mommy’s eyes whenever she got a new bill.

She stood in front of the mailboxes for a while, thinking about that man from unit five, the man who’d stared at her the whole time she’d walked down there. She turned around and looked for Dexter. He was a few feet away, sniffing at a rock embedded in the ground. She called him to her and he darted to her side. She picked him up. She didn’t trust him so close to Park Way, which got a lot more traffic than the little road inside the trailer park.

Kendra did not know if she could bear the weight of his stare all the way back to the trailer. Maybe he would say something to her this time. That wouldn’t be so bad, if he’d say hi, how are you, instead of just staring at her like that.

She peeked around the old cinder block wall and down the road into the park. The man was gone. With a little sigh of relief, she started back toward her trailer. Once she was back in the park, she put Dexter down again, and he trotted along beside her.

From the corner of her eye as she came upon unit five, she saw him standing there, leaning back on the rear of his SUV.

“Hi, there,” he said with a big, friendly smile.

Startled, Kendra stumbled to a halt, then turned to him, unaware that her mouth hung open. She unconsciously ran her tongue around her lips.

“I’m new here,” he said, still smiling. “My name’s Steven. Steven Regent. Who’re you?”

She looked down at Dexter for a moment, feeling embarrassed, although unsure of why. She lifted her eyes and looked at him again, and his arms were folded across his chest again.

“My name’s… Kendra,” she said.

“Well, Kendra, it’s nice to meet you. I guess I’ve been kind of rude, staring at you like I have, but you know what? And this isn’t some kind of line. You, Kendra, are maybe the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of beautiful girls, because I’m a photographer. I photograph women. And you, Kendra, you are absolutely stunning.”

Along with the heat of the summer came the heat of a stinging, embarrassed blush as it worked its way up her neck and throat and up her face. She did not know what to say. No one had ever said such a thing to her before and she had no clue how to react.

“Kendra?” he said. “That’s a beautiful name, by the way. It suits you.”

Dexter pawed at her calves.

Kendra finally lifted her head and looked at him again. She was still blushing. She smiled and said, “Thank you. Nobody ever said that to me before.”

“You’re kidding. No boys have ever told you that?”

“No.”

“Well, then you are surrounded by blind men, Kendra, because you are a young woman of exceptional beauty. You should be modeling, or acting, or something. I’d like to photograph you.”

“You… you would?”

“Yes, very much.”

“What kind of photography do you do?” she said.

“All kinds, really.”

“And you wanna photograph me?”

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“Like I said, you’re beautiful. How could I not want to photograph someone so beautiful?”

She was unable to suppress a little giggle.

“Where do you want me to… where do you want – “ She giggled again, stumbling over her words nervously. “Where would you photograph me?”

“I’ve got everything set up in my trailer right now. We could do it in there. And I’ve got central air, so it’s nice