I Am So Popular: And Then The Cops Came

I travel an awful lot, and the past twelve months have been especially incredible, with trips to both Portlands (Oregon and Maine), France, California, Buenos Aires, West Texas, interior Mexico, and Israel. So many trips would be a big deal for anyone but for me, well, even though I have the old boarding passes and passport stamps to prove I went, I almost can’t believe I did.

I grew up in a tiny town, forever warned by my parents that to travel beyond that place was an activity fraught with danger. Pitfalls lurked around every corner, they insisted. And to back these claims all they had to do was point to some article or TV news report of a natural disaster or human crime somewhere OUT THERE. To this day I call my mother before I leave and as soon as I land to let her know I’m okay because I know she worries while I’m gone. And while I’ve tried to not pass along such anxiety to my son, I’m sure his perspective belies this belief. I’m delighted that he takes off on trips but at the same time I have to fight off imagined scenarios in which something bad happens and he is too far away for me to lend an assist. I can never let him go without heaping upon him unsolicited advice and warnings.

A few days ago, I was having lunch in Galilee, very close to the border of Lebanon. The place was packed. As I was sitting there, I had an epiphany. All those stories I’ve read (and my mother has read) about how suicide bombers hurl themselves into public places and blow people up? I was sitting in precisely the setting where such things happen, in a country fraught with unease, where nearly every public place features an armed guard and young soldiers—many of them my son’s age-- stroll the streets, uzis flung casually over their shoulders like messenger bags. It dawned on me then: You don’t get an email in the morning with advance warning, something that says, “Please be advised your lunch place will be bombed at 2 pm today, so time your meal accordingly.” I beat back the thought and dug in for some more hummus.

Hard to believe that a few days from now marks the nine-year anniversary of 9/11. I remember my own personal fallout, my interrupted sleep pattern, my constant fear in the months that followed. And I remember hearing an interview on NPR with an Israeli explaining that in life you have to just carry on. Maybe you live through a day, maybe you die in a bombing. But you keep moving, you can’t let fear paralyze you. This message has served me well. Like the times I’ve driven across the Mexican border—where just last week 72 illegal immigrants were gunned down on a ranch near Brownsville—and times I have been a stranger in a strange land, no sense of direction or second language skills to guide me.

And yet… as I drove with my son past the house he is moving into this week, I couldn’t help myself. I became my mother again. I tried to come across as cool and pragmatic, not alarmist, as I suggested this wasn’t the best neighborhood. I told him I’d get him rental insurance and maybe he’d like to keep his valuables at my place. We both knew, despite my faux-calm, that I was succumbing to the worst-case scenario mindset into which I had been indoctrinated before I could walk.

When I entered my house and saw the back French doors flung open, I was at first just mildly confused. The jet lag had my brain in super slurry mode and my initial thought was—“Wow, is it that windy out that the doors would blow open?”; Then something prompted me to look around the house and I noticed two bedroom doors were open, doors I always keep shut. Still, I did not panic. The dogs were fine. I returned to the back door, which appeared to be damaged.

I started to call 911 but stopped, deciding that, perhaps not realizing I was back, the dog sitter had been by, and that she left the doors open for the dogs. Highly implausible, yes, but something beyond my exhaustion drove me to this idea. You do not wish to think you have been violated. You want to come up with every other possible theory first. Noting a voicemail from the sitter, I listened and when I heard her say, “I see you left the doors open,” it began to click. Then I spotted a text message from my next-door neighbor saying someone just tried to break in to her place.

Then I called 911. The operator asked if I was sure I was alone in the house. At first I said yes but suddenly the hair on my arms stood straight up, my flesh rising with goose pimples. How did I know I was alone? Well, I didn’t. Get out of the house the operator said. Get out of the house now.

It only took seconds for god knows how many cops to show up. They stormed the place, guns drawn, barking over and over, “Come out! Austin Police! Come out now!”

But he was gone. Best we can piece together is that he was scared off by the dogs. I know the cops thought it looked like he’d done a thorough job of wrecking the place, but I had to admit that the suitcase which appeared to have exploded across the living room, the mess in the other rooms—all this was my doing, evidence of vacation hastily departed for, unpacking upon return not yet performed.

Nothing was missing. Not one thing. Not the random prescription bottles (though that would’ve been a good headline—Burglar Tries to Sell Dog Anxiety Pills to Unsuspecting Students). Not the purse I’d left out. Not the ancient TV or beach cruiser. Not the laptop, which, thankfully, I always have the good sense to hide carefully whenever I leave.

You might think I slept like hell last night, crippled with the fear that the creep would return. Curiously, though, I fell deep into a rather relaxed slumber. While I would prefer that the intrusion had not occurred, the fact that it did provided an occasion for reflection and gratitude. The morals of my story are ancient, nothing we haven’t heard a million times before, but to receive up close and personal examples of them is a pretty amazing thing.

Most of all, far more than anything else, I have gratitude heaped upon gratitude that my house sitter did not run into the dude. She missed him by mere minutes. I have further gratitude that my next-door neighbor and her young children, who did have the misfortune of running into him, were unharmed. And yes, I’m grateful, too, that I didn’t encounter the guy. My dogs, whom I missed so terribly while I was gone, slept in a heap on my bed, and as I came to this morning, and looked at them, and contemplated their dedication, and understood they’d driven the guy away—what can I say about dogs that I haven’t said so many times before? Their loyalty, unconditional love, and commitment to defending the house astounds me.

And then there is the matter of possessions. As the cops took me on a couple of tours of the house it became laughingly apparent that the things I so value—the art made for me by friends, my electric teapot, my collection of yarn, my beloved rag rugs, my pitcher full of chopsticks—are utterly worthless in the eyes of someone looking for a quick pawnshop score.

And finally, there is that lesson— sad but true— that IT can happen literally in your own backyard. Never mind the uzi-toting soldiers I saw on vacation, the international headlines of violence around the world, and decades of warnings from my parents about the scary things that lurk OUT THERE. Never mind my suggestions to my own son that somehow my place might be more secure than his. Lessons learned—yet again. Shit happens. It happens everywhere, even at home. It sucks. You think about what might have been. You give thanks for what was not. You carry on.

Spike Gillespie is so glad to be back in Austin and she loves her dogs more than she can say. She’s got some openings for her upcoming Tuesday writing workshops—details here. You can read about her trip to the Holy Land here.