There’s a woman in the neighborhood—maybe from the Bible days, but more likely a contemporary of Washington Irving—who paces up and down our street in North Baltimore, and then, in her black hoodie and gray slacks, moves on to Roland Park. My wife Melissa first noticed her five or six years ago, and dubbed her “The Ghost,” which tickled me, since I’ve had an appreciation, and belief, of ghosts since I was a kid, listening to a transistor in the bunk bed and letting my imagination go full-tilt Peppermint Twist. She was a mystery, and our dog Billy at the second-floor window, alerted us to her every second day or so, barking like a kook, more than he does for the foxes that sometimes settle on the front lawn or a crow lazing on a telephone wire.
Six months ago, at a café in Hampden, Melissa was reading a book on a couch, and met The Ghost! Turned out she was as kindly as could be, and on this occasion noted that her “exercise” (which still strikes me as strange, marching like a Soviet prisoner, with her head down, not acknowledging any living thing) was interrupted by a bum ankle that she twisted taking a wrong step in Sherwood Gardens. Turned out she was pals with this older gentleman who also tramps around the neighborhood, but in a more normal manner—except he wears a kilt. I dig these characters: there’s one beefy fellow I see at least once a week while walking, and we always stop and gab—keeping our dogs at bay—about how corrupt the Baltimore City Government is, a topic that I’m sure won’t be exhausted the rest of our living days.
Last week, the dense fog and steady rain—which did melt most of the really ugly snow left from January’s brutal storm—transported us back to the atmosphere that Ichabod Crane and Rip Winkle trafficked in, and returning from a dental appointment (my least favorite medical procedure even if it’s just a cleaning; this time made worse by the annual x-ray round-up) we saw both The Ghost and Kilt Man pulling up to our driveway. It was perfect (relatively, that is, for I despise winter and the bare trees in a city that’s splendid with foliage 10 months of the year), but a lasting beatitude wasn’t in my deck of cards.
Around three p.m., while I was working upstairs, a lady one street over texted Melissa and said she got a strong whiff of gas on our sidewalk. Just the mention of errant gas (I couldn’t smell it, but my sniffer’s been on the fritz since I was four), sends the internal alarm into overdrive and I rang BGE, which despite its typically bureaucratic Ring-Around-the-Rosie when you’re questioning a bill on the phone, doesn’t fool around when the word GAS is mentioned. Just 15 minutes later a worker arrived at the doorstep, and after assuring us it wasn’t coming from our basement, got to work on the street outside.
He was there for three hours, said “you’re good to go” and departed, only to be replaced by a Norman Schwarzkopf battalion of different BGE wage-earners, one of whom, when questioned about the return, took a swipe at Afternoon Jim, and said he wasn’t at the top of his class at the BGE Academy. The racket outside the house—now expanded to half the block—went on all night and well after sunrise. An hour later they were back, digging holes in driveways, blocking cars, and grudgingly moved their machinery when someone had to, you know, go to work. And, after 24 hours, a gas leak was found, in the middle of the road, with new holes, piles of dirt and a dozen of those flimsy orange cones festooning the still-Sleepy Hollow tableau, and I resignedly retreated to the full-of-deep-puddles backyard to have a smoke, and reasoned that worse inconveniences happen.
On Sunday, I didn’t watch the USA hockey victory (one-sport guy, but did like the pics of Jack Hughes and his missing teeth), and tried to get information about the upcoming snowstorm, and was unsuccessful. I looked at The Baltimore Sun’s website and all that was offered was a one-day old story. As it happened, the “weather event,” at least in Baltimore, was thankfully a dud and I zipped along the usual Monday routine. Until… another BGE Graduate rapped on the door and said a “new” leak was found and it was connected underground to our house. I was exasperated, but he was friendly, if exhausted, and accepted his instruction that after the street was dug up again, on Tuesday, he’d have to turn off our gas and water for several hours. I temporarily retreated to the Van Tassel farm and duked it out with Bram Bones, one left-hook after another, and then somebody spoke and I returned the less-fanciful present.
It’s Tuesday afternoon now, and the BGE guys are back, bulldozing the front yard. If there’s hidden treasure (the house was built in 1928), I’m sure it’ll get the finders-keepers treatment, which is okay. It’s a living, it’s the life.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023