review of redhead by the side of the road

“But why did it need fixing? What made it go wrong?” “That’s not the kind of question you want to ask about a

“Yeah, well, never mind, now I’ve got it fixed,” he would say. But I didn’t do a thing to it! I was sound asleep!” “Last night when I went to bed my computer was just fine and this morning it’s all kerblooey. “How come this happened?” they would ask.

Old ladies had the easiest problems to fix but the greatest number of fractious questions. An old lady he had dealt with her often enough that her name was in his directory. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the screen: EMILY PRESCOTT. He hated it when something interrupted the normal progression. Usually his morning went: a run, a shower, then breakfast, and then a little tidying up. On a Monday toward the end of October, he was still eating breakfast when his first call came in. And it’s almost certain nobody’s ever asked him. An incongruous front porch-just a concrete slab stoop, really-with a splintery wooden porch swing that nobody ever sits in, and a vertical row of doorbells next to the dingy white door.ĭoes he ever stop to consider his life? The meaning of it, the point? Does it trouble him to think that he will probably spend his next thirty or forty years this way? Nobody knows. The apartment building’s in Govans-a small, three-story brick cube east of York Road in north Baltimore, with a lake-trout joint on the right and a used-clothing store on the left. They call out a greeting when they meet up with him and he nods amiably and raises a hand, often not troubling to speak. He is cordial to the tenants but no more than that. You see her heading toward his back door now and then with a sack of takeout you see them setting forth on a weekend morning in the Kia, minus the TECH HERMIT sign. He has a girlfriend, but they seem to lead fairly separate lives.

or so the three squinty windows behind the foundation plantings go dark. Monday nights, before trash day, he hauls the garbage bins to the alley Wednesday nights, the recycling bins. He’ll be sweeping the walk or shaking out the mat or conferring with a plumber. Afternoons he can be spotted working around the apartment building he moonlights as the super. The times he leaves on his calls will vary, but not a day seems to go by without several clients requiring his services. Along about ten or ten thirty he slaps the magnetic TECH HERMIT sign onto the roof of his Kia. At seven fifteen every morning you see him set out on his run. He lives alone he keeps to himself his routine is etched in stone. You have to wonder what goes through the mind of a man like Micah Mortimer.

Review of redhead by the side of the road