Boviosity!

Back in February, I had a run-in with a neighbor of mine. Here is how I described it to a pastor friend in an E-mail:

We had a wild night last night, which wound up with us calling the police on a neighbor kid and me wandering the house with a baseball bat. The doorbell rang about 10PM, driving the dogs insane as usual. I really didn’t think too much about whether I should answer. Tasha told me later she wouldn’t have. That really didn’t occur to me. Hmm.

I opened the door a crack, and there was a young man standing there, either a very developed 14-year-old or a normal kid between 15-20 years of age. He said hello, and I said hello, and that he had rung our doorbell too late – he should come back the next day at a decent hour. I shut the door and turned off the porch light. He called through the door that he needed to speak with me about my son.

Slightly intrigued (in that yukky feeling at the pit of the stomach way that parents of an ill-behaved 12-year-old boy might recognize), I opened the door again. He gave a sort of animatronic canned rendition of introducing himself, complete with robotic sticking-out of the hand for a handshake. Obviously rehearsed and designed to put me at my ease. It had the exact opposite effect. Ignoring the hand, I asked him what he wanted. He said he needed to talk with me about my son, and that my son had trespassed on his property, started a fire, and stolen $100 from him.

I told him that it was too late at night to be starting a discussion such as this, and he could come back the next day. He became insistent and said I had to talk with him now. Occasionally he would reset back to his animatronic non-threatening hand-shaker display. I repeated that I wasn’t going to talk with him and asked him to leave. He said my son had trespassed on his property. I pointed out that I had asked him to leave three times – which meant that he was trespassing right now.

About that time, a second person who I had not seen, a pretty young woman, stepped into the doorway. I think she might have been out of sight since I didn’t have the door open all the way. She repeated the assertion that I needed to talk with them now. I said no, and asked them to leave. This was repeated several times, with them repeating various accusations. I might have yelled at them to leave at some point during this process. At one point I smelled alcohol and asked the young man if he had been drinking. This seemed to really upset him.

However, since they weren’t leaving, and since they hadn’t become abusive at this point, I decided to try to ameliorate them by giving them my phone number. They jumped at this opportunity and the young man whipped out a cellphone with a triumphant flourish. I gave the first three digits and then said, “Now, this doesn’t mean I want you calling me tonight.” He responded, “Just give me the number. You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

Snap. I made a dramatic pointing gesture and said, loudly, “You are OUT of here NOW.” He jumped me and pushed me. The young woman pulled him away from me. He started shouting obscenities and inviting me to fight, calling me names and threatening my son, who had appeared in the doorway with me. I told him we were calling the police, and I probably called him a few names, too – “loser” comes to mind.

Then they were gone. About 5 minutes later the police arrived. I gave the officer the above information. We talked with Will, who said that he had been playing with matches in the woods near their house, but did not know it was their private property. The officer pointed out that setting fires anywhere without the property owners’ permission is arson and punishable by law. Will also said that he and his friends had cut across the kid’s property on the way to other friends’ houses, and the officer said that if he knows the person doesn’t want them doing that, he would have to stop. I asked what would happen regarding the $100. The officer said that if the young man had made a police report, then an investigation would be proceeding and his accusation would be given the scrutiny it deserved – and that he could face a penalty if it was determined he was making a false accusation.

The officer was very professional and left after a few minutes discussion to talk with the neighbor. About 30 minutes later the officer left the neighborhood.

This young man has now died in an accident. Drunk, according to a neighbor who knows the family. He was 19. I knew at the time that he was headed for trouble bigger than anything I could make for him. My heart goes out to his family, and to him.