Tossed Brick Shatters Illusion of Tranquillity
The week had been difficult, and the clouds to which I awoke that Sunday never quite parted. Gray and deceitful, they promised rain they never delivered, then hung about to steal the light.
I was hard at work in my garden when the portable phone rang. At the other end I heard the familiar voice of my friend, Bill. I live in the Mid-Wilshire district; he lives about 15 minutes away in Melrose Hill, a bohemian neighborhood of lovingly restored craftsman bungalows a block off Western Avenue.
Bill and I have been friends for 20 years, I guess. We share, among other things, a fondness for art, conversation and gardening.
Mine is a vegetable garden; his is a garden of flowers and water.
“Somehow, it feels right to me,” he once quipped, “that I would have a garden you look at, and you would have a garden you eat.”
It was about 3:30 when he called, and, as we chatted, I continued thinning a bed of lettuce seedlings. We talked about the book he is writing and about a friend’s recent paintings.
Suddenly, I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Tim, hold on for second,” Bill said. “There’s somebody in my garden.”
“Who is it? Do you know him?”
“No, I’ve never seen him before. Now, how did he get back here? The gates are locked.”
“Are you sure it’s not one of your workmen?”
“No, I’ve never seen him before.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s wearing pleated pants and black dress shoes and a blue jacket. It’s a . . . Oh wait, you know I think he’s drunk. Wait a minute, now he’s seen me and he’s coming over to the window.”
As Bill spoke, I could picture him in his big chair beside the window, the phone cradled against his ear, this stranger just inches beyond the glass.
“He’s motioning at me,” Bill said, a note of exasperated perplexity creeping into his voice. “He wants a drink of water. I’m going to tell him to use the hose.”
“That’s probably all right,” I said. “Then tell him to get the hell out of there.”
“I will,” Bill said, “but stay on the line will you. Who knows? You may be listening to a murder here?”
“That’s not funny,” I said as anxiety, like a sour meal, rose in my throat.
“I know, I know,” he chuckled. “Oh, oh, he’s coming back. Now he wants a cigarette. I don’t understand how he got in. I was sure I locked that gate.”
“Bill,” I said, “whatever you do, don’t let him in the house.”
“I’m not going to, but I can’t seem to get rid of him.
“Now he’s walking around sort of admiring the garden. Now he’s trying the door to the bedroom. Now he’s coming back. He’s motioning at me. He wants a cigarette again. I’m shaking my head, telling him no. Now he’s going away . . . Whew, he’s leaving. He’s going around the side of the house toward the gate.
“Can you follow him? Can you see what he’s doing?”
“No, but wait a minute. I hear a funny noise over there. . . . Oh my God, he’s coming back. He’s got a brick. He’s smiling at me. He’s . . . “
Through the phone, the crash of broken glass roared.
“Bill,” I screamed, “run out the front door! Run out the front door!”
I pressed the phone tightly to my ear, but all I could hear was the endless sound of breaking glass. I tried to hang up, but the connection remained open.
For a brief moment, I stared dumbly at the phone, then wildly about. Time seemed to have stopped: The soft white blossoms at the top of the pea vines bobbed gently in the breeze; beneath the arbor, the cat rose and stretched herself.
Everything was as it had been--and everything was suddenly, utterly different.
I raced into the house and into the study with its second phone line. I dialed 911 and stammered out an account of what had happened. The patient operator at the other end did his best to sort it out. I was stunned to realize I did not know the exact address of a house I have visited almost weekly for 20 years.
I sprinted to the car and sped toward Bill’s house. The next nine minutes were among the longest of my life. I tried to hold my imagination as tightly as I did the wheel. Driving east on Melrose, I cursed every light I did not run.
As I slammed to a stop in front of the house, I saw a small knot of neighbors gathered in the driveway.
“Is Bill OK?” I asked.
“He’s all right, but he’s a little shook up,” one of them said. “He’s back in the house.”
I went up the steps and Bill met me at the front door. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” I sighed in relief, “I thought I’d see you dead.”
Inside there was broken glass and a trail of blood. The thief had used his brick to shatter one of the tall windows and, apparently cut himself as he pushed his way through it. Bill had done the sensible thing and fled through his own front door. Once inside, the thief had simply grabbed the stereo, ripped it loose from its speakers and gone through the open doorway.
The neighbors had seen him making for the anonymity of Western Avenue’s crowded sidewalks.
Twenty minutes and two phone calls after I arrived, the police came. It’s a tough neighborhood and response times are slow. They took a report. A neighbor and I helped Bill board up his window. We found the place where the intruder had scaled and crossed the garage roof into the garden. Bill and I talked a bit and, when he was feeling better, I left.
I drove home along Melrose. By now, the sun was red behind the clouds. Women with the week’s wash in a bundle atop their heads trudged toward the Laundromat, their children trailing behind them like lines of ducklings. At the brightly lit bakery customers were buying dessert for Sunday dinner. A family of Pentacostals, with tambourines in hand, made its way toward a storefront church.
Everything was as it had been--and I was suddenly, utterly different.
