reflections on the Screen Door.....A Requiem

Reflections on the Screen Door...
A Requiem

"I feel like I'm always talking to you through the screen door," he once said to me. His name was Bob, and he was a friend of mine. That was in Atlanta, 1987. Funny how some words stay with you for a long time.


I remember the day he spoke these words to me. It was a nice end-of-summer morning, and suddenly there was this incessant pounding on the front screen door. I raced downstairs to confront the intruder, and there he was, maniacally beating his fists against the door, shouting, "Open up, open up; we're at a crossroads...hurry, open up." I shouted, "Bob, are you crazy, carrying on like this? What's come over you?" "Salvation, man, Salvation, that's what we need...it's Heaven or Hell, and we have to choose right now!"
He was weaving back and forth, sweat pouring from his face, and his eyes were like balls of fire, blazing, and they had the crazed look of one who'd seen Hell itself. "The End Times are upon us, man, and Salvation is the only thing left. Open up!"
His raving was like that of a mad man, and he kept jerking at his tie as though it was a noose of his own choosing. His face was twisted and twitched in spasmodic convulsions like a man possessed… his clothes reeked with the stench of stale tobacco smoke and grease from cheap diners. "Get a grip on yourself, man," I screamed, but to no avail. He had clearly lost all control. There was no way I was going outside that screen door to accept any invitation he had to offer.
Rebuked, slowly he began to come to his senses, and he staggered and stumbled his way back down the walkway in lockstep with lunacy, muttering incoherently something about "blood being on my own hands" and the prophetic words, "I feel like I'm always talking to you through the screen door." Believe me, Bubba, it was a terrifying scene!
I haven't seen Bob since that day when I rejected his invitation, but I have not forgotten his comment. There is a fine line between genius and madness, and notwithstanding whichever he might have been on that day, his comment about communication through the screen door was prescient. I never forgot it ~~ the past is always close behind!


Well, that was another time and big cities will do that to you. But life is quieter here and I am not known for turning down reasonable invitations. I recently accepted one from my pal Wayne to eat "dinner" (lunch for city folks) with his clan, The Brand family, over in Nahunta. It helps to go to places like Nahunta to get the right perspective on things. We pulled up in the back yard and Edward, the patriarch of the clan, shouted from the back porch screen door, "Hey, you boys get in here right away...Lois and Aunt Janie have got the food all laid out and ready to eat."
Wasting no time, we sprinted into the house through that screen door, and all I can say about the next hour or so was that it was a time of pure ecstasy, as we feasted on an endless supply of fresh vegetables, meats and yeast rolls the size of baseballs. My table companion was Lois, a lovely and spry lady of 98, who kept us entertained with her exploits.
But all the while there was this undefined nagging in my mind, something about screen doors that I could not quite put my finger on. As the table droned on in conversation, my eyes became transfixed on the screen door. My thoughts drew me back in reflection on the screen doors of my youth, the vestiges of an era of Southern Lifestyle gone with the wind. In those days screen doors were as common as sorghum syrup and cornbread...everybody's house had them. They provided not only a sense of security and a protection from insects, but also served to establish boundaries between people.
I remembered the sounds they made: "slap, slap, slap," as we ran outside, and "rap, rap,' rap" when visitors came by and knocked. Visitors were usually folks you knew; they always came to the back or side porch where the screen door was. Front doors were formal entrances and were used only by strangers like encyclopedia salesmen, Jehovah's Witnesses or the IRS. I don't remember many homes with screen doors on the front.
But that was a long time ago, and today my thoughts focused on how screen doors have represented a politely-veiled but distinct distance between things and people, a subtle yet decorous boundary of separation, which literally said, "You're welcomed, you can come close, but only so far..." That is why Bob's comment still haunts me. He never got inside!
Today our culture has mostly transcended screen doors as a boundary of separation by substituting more sophisticated means of "boundary control," albeit highly impersonal, like e-mail, voice mail, caller ID and things like that. Personal visits rarely occur unannounced at our homes these days. Alas, while much is gained, much is also lost of the more innocent past. Screen doors are just not that necessary anymore.


I mentally returned to the table discussions just as the pie and watermelon were being served. Afterwards, the conversation began to drag, eyes got heavy and naps were in order. It was time to say "Goodbye."
Lois stood on the inside of the screen door, waving goodbye, and all the while I couldn't help but notice the silent shadow of a turkey buzzard as it soared overhead in the hot summer sunlight, high above the 108 year old homeplace. I felt a sudden foreboding as the shadow passed over me. Eerie, I thought.
As we left, I cast a backward glance at the screen door. There, alone with the past was Lois, a solitary and diffused figure, fading slowly, silently from the half-light of the sultry afternoon into the cool, dark shadows of the house. And overhead, just as solitary and silent, was the black bird of carrion, that Last Feeder on flesh, ever narrowing its circular vortex and casting its prophetic and ominous shadow over the blistering, scorched landscape of another bygone era....patient, certain, effortlessly awaiting the Final Knock at that screen door.


At dusk I arrived at my own homeplace, walked around to the back porch and was about to enter the screen door. Lying there on the door stoop, stopping me dead still in my tracks, was one black feather. Perhaps it was an omen or perhaps it meant nothing at all ... but it unnerved me and I shuddered with a sudden chill, remembering the day.....


Screen doors and porches … eliminate them and there will much less elegant island living on these islands; without them there would be a lot fewer memories. So if you ever come by my place, wander around to the back porch and come on in the screen door……together we’ll remember and be the better for it.


Bud
September 4, 2007