the middle of the night. a stir in bed is the first thing i sense. the dogs waking up. nicole tapping me.
“meh,” i uttered, offering acknowledgement.
“someone’s buzzing at the door,” she said. as if to confirm, the door buzzer went off again. chloe barked. charlet bounced. i twisted around and looked at the clock.
3:08am.
i jumped out of bed and opened the bedroom door. the dogs followed me, chloe still barking. halfway to the window i bent down and cupped chloe’s snout in my hands gently and looked in her eyes. “chloe, be quiet.” she continued to huff as we approached the window, but she no longer barked. i looked out the window down at the gate. my eyes could barely focus, all i could see was a nondescript person standing at our gate. the buzzer went off again. i hit the talk button and began a very bizarre conversation.
“yes?”
“i’m your neighbor.”
“and?”
“i need to talk to you.”
what did he mean by this? what a weird voice–was it a he or she? what’s going on? as i was thinking these thoughts in silence, nicole joined me at the window, staring at the guy at the gate. after a moment, i replied, “ok, talk.”
“my mom had a minor stroke.”
again, what do i do with this? how do you not jump into a story at this point? nicole and i exchanged glances. another pause elapsed before i probed for elaboration. “yeah?”
“well, i had to go to a 24 hour walgreens and get (some drug, presumably, i didn’t understand what he said here) and i just wanted to know if you happened to know what hospital she was at.”
“no.” what are you trying to sell me here, dood?
“do you know dorothy?”
“no.” in fact, i’m not sure if i’ve ever personally known a dorothy.
“well, i’m sorry to bother you. sorry for waking you up.”
i let go of the listen button and declined to reply. we walked away from the window at this point and we crawled back in bed. after a minute, i got up again and checked the gate. he was gone. i checked the back door to make sure it was locked.
later, talking about it, nicole seemed certain it was a hispanic male. she didn’t sleep much afterwards, she was completely spooked. she woke me up at 5:45 to take the dogs out, she was too scared. i was actually much more annoyed than afraid.
as we settled back in bed, she asked me, “was that for real, or something else?”
“i have no way of knowing.” i thought about it for a few minutes. “i suppose he could’ve been on the level.” thinking about it now, it seems like he probably was on the level. as spooky as it was (er, happy halloween!), it’s not as if he made unusual requests, like “let me in” or “come down here” or something like that, nor did he insist on anything or ask anything of me at all other than information.
it’s possible he was simply a desperate guy trying to get to his momma and desperately needs to buy a fricking cell phone and not ring strangers’ doorbells at three o’clock in the morning. if, in fact, he was “casing the joint”, then he did a piss poor job of it. he learned there was a male in the house, plus a dog that responds loudly to noise. plus, we could now provide a partial description of him.
we’ll now pay more attention out in the street than we usually would for the time being, but i doubt we have much to worry about.