I’ll never really know if it was the crowbar, the quality of my posterior view, or the fact that maybe our neighborhood scared even Kenny Ray, but I never came into contact with my neighborhood rapist; in fact, I never saw him, not once. As far as I know, he never left his house. I never saw him in the front yard practicing pouncing or springing from bushes, but maybe he simply hated 110 degrees as much as I did. Or maybe he was just as terrified of showing his mug to the thousands of people who must have gotten that letter as we were afraid of seeing it.
Eventually, over the next several months, I began leaving the crowbar at home more often simply because I would forget it and things started to level out, little by little, almost to the point that most days I even sort of forgot I had a class-three sex offender, kidnapper, man attacker, and abuser living 150 feet away from me. I know this was mainly because I wanted things to return to normal more than they had reason to, but it was an easy con. It became something that hung in the background like the warnings on cigarette packages; the danger was always present, always there, and always a second away, but with each day that passed without us coughing up blood, the farther away that warning seemed and the less it had an impact on our lives. Every day, it drifted farther away, and eventually, the goldenrod-colored letter from the police department with Kenny Ray’s thin-lipped mug shot on it became simply another piece of the puzzle on our refrigerator door, next to the pictures of our nieces and nephews, above and below recipes, coupons, and reminders. In a very odd way, we got used to living nearly next door to a violent, dangerous, but invisible rapist.
I don’t know what happened to him, and for that matter, I don’t know if he ever really lived there. I have a feeling that he did, because whoever lived there put a 1978 burlap sleeper sofa, a tree stump, and the obligatory broken dryer out in their front yard crowned by a FOR SALE sign, and four weeks later, the neighborhood pack of wild dogs had torn the stuffing out of the back of the sofa and peed all over the stump, the door to the dryer had fallen off, and the sign had changed to FREE , so my vote says “yes,” although I can’t prove it. But I still have that letter.
I did know, however, that the next time I got an envelope from the Phoenix Police Department with my address on it, I was going to jump for joy if it was a notification of a $150 fine for another false alarm.
Happy Birthday and the Element of Surprise
I t wasn’t my idea to go to the store.
It wasn’t my idea to be standing in line with the cashier and everyone in the general vicinity scrutinizing me, but there I was. It had all begun fifteen minutes earlier when I had perched myself in front of the bathroom mirror, unable to move.
“My nose is getting bigger,” I said aloud, studying it as closely as I possibly could.
“I’m going to unscrew the lightbulb in the bathroom if you don’t come out of there soon,” my husband said as he sat on the living room couch, trying to read a book.
“Did you hear what I said?” I complained louder. “I said my nose is getting bigger, and that’s not all. So are the pores on it. One of them on the tip of my nose has gotten so large I swear I saw a hand come out. Apparently, a small child from Texas mistook it for a well and fell into it.”
“Stop it,” he insisted.
“I can’t,” I said as I shook my head. “I just found a trio of hairs that are trying to colonize one of my necks. If I don’t stop them now, it’s just a matter of time before their relatives from New Jersey arrive to homestead a nostril or plant sideburn crops.”
“This is no way to spend your birthday,” he said, finally putting the book down and getting up. “Come on. Let’s go to the store, grab a nice bottle of wine, and sit out on the deck. It’s seventy-five degrees outside and the sun will be
Eventually, over the next several months, I began leaving the crowbar at home more often simply because I would forget it and things started to level out, little by little, almost to the point that most days I even sort of forgot I had a class-three sex offender, kidnapper, man attacker, and abuser living 150 feet away from me. I know this was mainly because I wanted things to return to normal more than they had reason to, but it was an easy con. It became something that hung in the background like the warnings on cigarette packages; the danger was always present, always there, and always a second away, but with each day that passed without us coughing up blood, the farther away that warning seemed and the less it had an impact on our lives. Every day, it drifted farther away, and eventually, the goldenrod-colored letter from the police department with Kenny Ray’s thin-lipped mug shot on it became simply another piece of the puzzle on our refrigerator door, next to the pictures of our nieces and nephews, above and below recipes, coupons, and reminders. In a very odd way, we got used to living nearly next door to a violent, dangerous, but invisible rapist.
I don’t know what happened to him, and for that matter, I don’t know if he ever really lived there. I have a feeling that he did, because whoever lived there put a 1978 burlap sleeper sofa, a tree stump, and the obligatory broken dryer out in their front yard crowned by a FOR SALE sign, and four weeks later, the neighborhood pack of wild dogs had torn the stuffing out of the back of the sofa and peed all over the stump, the door to the dryer had fallen off, and the sign had changed to FREE , so my vote says “yes,” although I can’t prove it. But I still have that letter.
I did know, however, that the next time I got an envelope from the Phoenix Police Department with my address on it, I was going to jump for joy if it was a notification of a $150 fine for another false alarm.
Happy Birthday and the Element of Surprise
I t wasn’t my idea to go to the store.
It wasn’t my idea to be standing in line with the cashier and everyone in the general vicinity scrutinizing me, but there I was. It had all begun fifteen minutes earlier when I had perched myself in front of the bathroom mirror, unable to move.
“My nose is getting bigger,” I said aloud, studying it as closely as I possibly could.
“I’m going to unscrew the lightbulb in the bathroom if you don’t come out of there soon,” my husband said as he sat on the living room couch, trying to read a book.
“Did you hear what I said?” I complained louder. “I said my nose is getting bigger, and that’s not all. So are the pores on it. One of them on the tip of my nose has gotten so large I swear I saw a hand come out. Apparently, a small child from Texas mistook it for a well and fell into it.”
“Stop it,” he insisted.
“I can’t,” I said as I shook my head. “I just found a trio of hairs that are trying to colonize one of my necks. If I don’t stop them now, it’s just a matter of time before their relatives from New Jersey arrive to homestead a nostril or plant sideburn crops.”
“This is no way to spend your birthday,” he said, finally putting the book down and getting up. “Come on. Let’s go to the store, grab a nice bottle of wine, and sit out on the deck. It’s seventy-five degrees outside and the sun will be
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