The Last Handful of Clover - Book 1: The Hereafter

1.03 The Haunter and the Haunted

June 5, 9:16 pm

Originally known as "The Dry Bench," because of the lack of water (some houses didn't get municipal water until well into the 20th century) the Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City was one of its first residential areas, and the first area to deviate from the city's rigidly defined grid street plan. Unlike the rest of the city, the blocks in The Avenues were only half the length of those found on the other side of South Temple, and the streets were narrow and modest.

Right from the beginning the Avenues was a popular place to live, and it only became more so as young professionals moved in during the middle decades of the 20th century. It's proximity to downtown (just to the west) and the University (to the east), as well as numerous recreational areas in the foothills, made it a great place to raise a family. The simple one- and two-story homes and bungalows gave it the feeling of a small town rather than a suburb of a bustling city.

Richard and Keith lived their ten years together in a house on J Street, just up from 3rd Avenue. Theirs was a modest two story home, with two bedrooms, an office for Richard, and a back porch and fenced in back yard they both loved.

Richard had grown up in this house. And it was always a shock to him that he ended up back in not only Utah, but in the very house and neighborhood he had been so desperate to flee as a teenager.

Richard Pratt's father was a welder and carpenter who did various work as he was able to find it. But when Richard was just four years old, his father took a promising position with the company building the ski resort up in Park City. Just two months after starting his job, his father fell from a ski lift tower he was welding. The fall wouldn't have killed him, but he landed on one of the four bolts at the base of the tower that were still exposed. The bolt pierced the back of his head, causing a traumatic brain injury. They rushed him from the mountain, but there was never any hope.

Richard had no memory of his father, except one vague image of riding with him on a motorcycle, clinging to his leather-clad back. And he was never sure if that was an actual memory, or just a story he had been told so many times that his brain filled in the visuals and the emotional details.

Richard was close with his mother, who worked at a propane distribution firm, but not with his brother Nick, who was two years older. Throughout his growing up Richard was the Momma's Boy, and his brother was aloof, troubled, and rebellious. Both he and his mother always attributed Nick problems to how hard he took the death of his father, whereas Richard was really too young to fully understand. Richard graduated near the top of his class in high school. His brother had barely squeaked by two years earlier.

Getting out of high school meant freedom for Richard, who was just coming to terms with his sexuality, and was feeling crushed by the social weight of living in Salt Lake City. After his graduation, Richard left for College immediately, assisted by a full-ride scholarship to NYU. He had always said the only thing he really wanted was to get out of Salt Lake, and he was thrilled at the chance to live in the big city of New York. He thrived there, feeling like New York had everything Salt Lake City had lacked: The energy, the art, the culture, the academics, the social activism; all of it thrilled Richard, and he felt like he had come home.

But in the course of Richard being back east, and his brother staying in Salt Lake City, they found that their roles in life switched.

His brother became much closer to their mother and got his life together. Richard came out as gay to his mom while he was in College, and she didn't take it well. He felt he was never really close to her after that, and he felt that loss deeply.

When he had the chance to attend graduate school at Columbia, and get his degree in classical languages, he decided that he'd probably never go back to Salt Lake City again.