“Our Alley” by Stephen Barile
Our Alley,
with a deux ex machina
between Recreation and Dearing Avenues,
Tulare and Fillmore Streets, in Fresno, CA
(for Donald)
Our alley was a passage paved in broken glass
and sticker-patches with hard sharp barbs.
At the edge of the farm-town city limits,
the county began just beyond the centerline
of asphalt patches, oiled dirt, broken bottles.
Rocks, bottle caps, and dust from brake-linings.
The alley was a thoroughfare for garbage trucks
picking up trash on Monday and Thursday mornings.
Rubbish from steel cans with flattened lids.
Milk was delivered on front porches,
the city picked up garbage from the alley.
There were power-poles, lines, cable,
electricity services, and telephone wires.
Houses backed up to the alley, with fences
of wood, wire, and brick, or no fence at all.
The houses put their best façade forward,
[being lower income, and working-class],
trying to conceal the alley, a vile place
where the garbage went and was forgotten.
The length of an entire city block,
from East Tulare Street, a 35-mph speed zone,
to the brick-wall and Buchanan’s tree
and purple-colored garage on Fillmore Avenue.
A Eucalyptus tree, 80-feet tall, hanging branches
shaded hot blacktop turned liquid in summer.
We escaped at the open-end of the back alleyway,
cops would call our flight: leg bail.
Our pathway was a semi-dangerous place,
about sneaking around and misdemeanor-crimes,
terrorizing the neighborhood and beyond.
A hideout for bandits, burglars, and thieves;
where high school girls got pregnant
on dark nights in parked cars in the alleyway.
We committed petty crimes in the alley,
like smoking and cussing, thinking about girls.
Jimmy went to the county jail for burglary,
cousin Joe, expelled from school for fighting,
a kid two blocks over went to Juvenile Hall
for pulling the fire alarm on the corner.
Cops like Donald’s dad (a deputy sheriff
on the vice squad, who picked up hookers
at the labor camps near the small towns,
ran them into the jail for the matrons)
never came close to suspecting us.
We claimed our own secret clubhouse,
the vacant two-story cottage across the alley
from Donald’s parent’s back fence.
We committed a felony, breaking and entering.
I boosted him into the bathroom window,
he went into the dark and empty kitchen,
unlocked and opened the backdoor.
Donald and I consolidated all the loot
we stole from the Safeway supermarket.
Flashlights, batteries, cigarettes,
cigars, chewing tobacco, pipes, pipe-tobacco,
pipe cleaners, and cigarette lighters.
Hot dogs we cooked over a fire
and buns, relishes, condiments, pickles,
potato chips, beef jerky, and Slim Jim’s,
eaten in the privacy of our clubhouse.
Donald wore his mother’s green overcoat
to the store, stuffed stolen items
inside the lining and pockets,
walked out through the automatic door.
We invited cousin Joe to our hideaway
one day to demonstrate our criminality.
We sat and listened on the carpeted stairs
while he stunned us with a lecture
about the ins-and-outs of sex,
and then he jerked off in front of us.
He vowed to bring a girl next time,
so he could demonstrate for us.
Donald said his brother-in-law, Edwin,
would never do something like that
to his oldest sister Judy.
But apparently he did full well.
Sometimes when I drive down the alley,
afraid of getting a flat tire from a nail
or broken glass or other hazards,
I marvel at how nothing has changed.
Stephen Barile
Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California, and a Pushcart-Prize nominee. He attended public schools, Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. His poems have been anthologized and published in numerous journals, both in print and online. He taught writing at Madera College and CSU Fresno.
Headshot: Bianca Hammond
Photo Credit: Staff