Bill and The Wheelchair Gang

This morning Derek came in early, about 5:50 and said his truck wouldn't start. It sounded like he was out of gas but he had a half a tank yesterday. So then I got to thinking and figured that someone had come in the middle of the night and siphoned the gas out of his tank {yes, I'm SO logical very early in the morning} and then I started to think about Bill and The Wheelchair Gang.

Bill was an older man and our next door neighbor in our last house. When we moved in, we didn't realize that Bill came with the house. He lived in the low-income houses next door and he wasn't allowed to smoke outside his own house {or he'd get kicked out}, so he'd park his wife's wheelchair {he could walk perfectly fine} outside our house and smoke. At first I was a little annoyed, but then we grew to love Bill.

Bill's wife was really, really sick so Bill would stay up nights to take care of her and sleep during the day. So, every night he'd park outside our house and smoke. What had become an annoyance became something we were grateful for. We knew that if anything bad were to happen in the middle of the night, Bill would be there watching to make sure we were safe. When we went on vacation, we knew Bill was there watching.

One time one of Derek's friends came to put a funny bumper sticker on his car late at night. Bill was watching and told him that he was going to call the police on him. Derek's friend had to come up and knock on our door to prove that he was a friend of ours. Bill was good like that.

A few years after we moved in, Bill was joined by two others. Each used their wife's wheelchair, none of them needed it. From that, the Wheelchair Gang was born. Parked outside, smoking lazily, they fought crime everyday. From little boys peeing outside to scary people trolling through the neighborhood they were there and we felt safe.

So, when Bill's wife died and he moved away, we felt lonely. For years I'd wished away the cigarette smoke and then when the Wheelchair Gang broke up I was sad.

Especially this morning, when I wished Bill was there smoking and watching.