Sun glares on white stucco. The house doesn’t tan. I’m in the shade, sweaty. If houses could it might melt. The block wall is high but I can still see a fan hanging from the back porch roof. I’ve never seen it spin. It looks like a bat, dead, but still hanging on. The wall has a gate: rectangular boards imprisoned by black metal bars.

Drab bushes sit, mannerly, by the wall, their roots discreetly covered by perfectly raked rocks. Except for the sedate waving of bush’s leaves, all is quiet and still. The sun heats the stucco on the house across the street.