Actually, it was a rather cold, grey, rainy Saturday in September when Fred Luckinbill and Myrtle Waters ran into each other on the muddy, rural road on which they both lived. Though they had been neighbours for the past three months, they had somehow never met at the rural post boxes where everyone in the community got their mail, and which was also the most likely place for neighbours to meet.
Instead, on this day, Fred strolled down the road from the corner house he was now sharing with his mother. It was a temporary arrangement brought about when the crew fumigating his small apartment building in town somehow accidentally set fire to it. Fortunately the building was mostly unoccupied at the time, being at the height of the work day. Anyone who was there got out safely, but the whole place was consumed in the ensuing conflagration and Fred, along with eighty-seven other people, had been left homeless. So he came home to Mother.
On this day she had sent Fred for a refreshing walk in the rain to get him out of her way for awhile. He was happy to do it. It always pleased him when it seemed he was getting on her nerves as much as she got on his. But as he tripped along under a leaden sky, he found himself sadly contemplating his more recent misfortune. Staring at the tiny splishes his rubber boots made in the puddles along the way, he wondered what had ever possessed him to think he could lift a one hundred pound crate all by himself. As his mother constantly reminded him, he was a puny office worker. It just wasn’t his job to be lifting heavy crates. There was a fork lift for that. He gazed as far toward the sullen sky as he could and sighed deeply. As if the pain and inconvenience of a hernia wasn’t bad enough, his mother rarely missed an opportunity to remind him of his ineptitude. It just didn’t seem sporting somehow for a mother to continually indulge herself in unkind observations at a son’s expense. He peered once again over his neck brace at the puddles on the dirt road.
The brace was all her fault, he consoled himself. He had only ducked out one evening for a few hours. He didn’t go to a bar very often, but now and then it seemed like a good idea. After all, a fellow is entitled to have some fun, even if he does live with his mother. It was she who insisted that he wear an athletic supporter after he hurt himself. And it was she who insisted that he change it every day, just as he did his underwear. She was the one who had three of the ghastly, damp things hanging on the clothesline in the dead of night where a fellow trying to sneak quietly up the back steps and into the house might get caught up in them. He sighed again. He had come so sweetly close to hanging himself by a soggy jock strap, but as he was dangling there it occurred to him that his mother’s endless taunts about the stupidity of his death would somehow follow him. The thought had saved him. He had flailed about until he was released from the seemingly relentless hold the jock strap had of his head. It was all so embarrassing he thought miserably as he kicked a rather large stone into a nearby puddle, then limped along swearing at the pain in his toe.
Myrtle limped along from the other end of the dead-end road staring up into the rain through her one good eye. She had been feeling like a shut-in lately and just wanted a walk in the rain. She too was ruminating on her recent bad luck. She was still recovering from a car accident in which her left eye had been injured and her left arm and leg were badly bruised. Her limbs were pretty much healed now, though she still walked with a limp. And she had been assured that her eye would likely be as good as new, but it would be a couple more weeks before she could remove the eye patch she now wore. She too was walking along, deep in thought, considering the pros and cons of returning to work. She had been off with her injuries for almost two weeks. In that time, her boss had telephoned her 23 times, 19 of those in panicked desperation. The other four he thought to enquire after her health. She chuckled. Not bad really, she thought. But she also wondered if maybe it was time to get things back under control at work.
At that moment, on a dirt road eighteen metres wide, Fred and Myrtle ran into each other. That is to say, they collided in a dreadful thud of soggy humanity, the sound of which was almost instantly lost on the sodden air. They landed in a tangled heap in a mud puddle and sat staring at one another in surprised and embarrassed silence. Then they lifted their dripping arms from the puddle and quickly surveyed themselves for possible damage. Each satisfied that the collision had caused only minor bruises, which would scarcely be noticeable on their already battered bodies, they glanced at one another again and quite spontaneously burst out laughing.
This, of course, served to relieve the tension of the moment and Fred, sniffing and shaking with mirth, slowly raised himself from the puddle and extended a hand to help Myrtle do the same. Unfortunately, he was in no condition to follow through with this gallantry and a surprised Myrtle plopped back into the mud as Fred groaned and doubled over in pain, teetering dangerously as if he might rejoin his puddle-mate.
“Are you all right?: asked Myrtle anxiously.
"Oh yes," moaned Fred as he slowly straightened again. "This was a previous injury," he explained. "I forgot about it for a moment. I’m afraid I can’t lift anything."
"That’s all right," consoled Myrtle, still concerned. Then she rolled toward her good side and slowly pushed herself upward with her good arm. She puffed as she rather awkwardly regained her feet and made a token but pointless effort to wipe the mud off her raincoat. Then she looked at Fred and smiled.
He gazed into her one good eye and returned the smile. "I’m Fred," he volunteered.
"Myrtle," she returned, extending a muddy hand. Both their smiles deepened as their palms squished together.
"I’m terribly sorry," she said as they relinquished each other’s hand. "I guess I was day-dreaming."
"Oh, don’t mention it, please. I was lost in thought too," he confessed. "I guess it just didn’t occur to me that anyone else would be out on a day like this."
"Oh... I like walking in the rain," she said, a little defensively. Her tone hadn’t escaped Fred’s notice and he instantly asserted that he too liked walking in the rain, although this wasn’t exactly true. While he didn’t mind being sent out into the rain at all, it just wasn’t something he would ordinarily do for enjoyment. But he certainly hadn’t meant to imply that there was anything wrong with it.
As they talked they gave each other a discreet once over. Fred was a spare man, about five feet, seven inches in height with a beaky nose and close set eyes of different colours. Myrtle leaned a little closer due to this intriguing phenomenon and satisfied herself that Fred’s left eye was blue and his right eye was hazel. He wasn’t at all like the grinning, macho mountainoid who’d driven his over-decorated and under-lit pickup truck into the side of her car and this alone met with her immediate approval.
At the same time, Fred had sized Myrtle up as a slight five foot, three, and noticed that her eye and her short wavy hair were both precisely the same colour as the mud splattered across her face. He was as impressed with her as she was with him and he beamed at her as her own uneven smile shone up at him like a beacon out of the mud.
Fred extended his left arm and pointed up the road. "I live at the corner... with my mother. It’s temporary till I get the insurance money for my apartment... which burned down," he explained quickly.
Myrtle nodded as he spoke, then raised her left arm carefully and pointed the other direction. "I live at the other end... last house on the left. We’re closer to my place. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee.. maybe clean yourself up a bit before you go home?"
Fred stared at her. Her invitation was quite unexpected and he wasn’t sure what to do. It didn’t seem right to enter someone else’s home in such a deplorable state. He knew he could only possibly leave a messy trail wherever he went. Yet the prospect of appearing before his sharp-tongued mother in his present condition made him visibly shudder.
Myrtle mistook this for a shiver and grasped him by the arm. "And you’re cold too. Come on, perhaps I can find a wee dram of something to warm the cockles of your heart," she smiled, suddenly acquiring a bit of a Scottish burr as she guided an unresisting Fred toward her house.
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