One Way To Lose Your Breath and Your Shoes

Part 1

The Saturday night darkness set in and a cool desert breeze passed through the house and all peacefulness was halted to attention. Angry yelling streamed in the open bedroom window, footsteps from a chase ensued, and the panic of scared voices echoed off the walls. 

My ears perked and the beating of my heart picked up its pace as the front gate to my driveway screeched along the concrete. The garbage bins banged together and I was officially on high alert. The door leading into my side yard, where the commotion was occurring, had been wide open to welcome the breeze. Now it loomed as a portal of invasion. Someone was nearby. 

Much of my life I’ve wrestled with a sense of loneliness and as fate would have it, following a day of grappling with this sense, I was sitting alone in my house. Glancing back toward the portal, I exited through the front door to investigate the shouting from the street. 

A hyped-up hodgepodge of people clamored near my front yard instigating with a riled up blend of English and Spanish. It was a difficult situation to interpret. Eventually I mustered a voice, and in a flush of constrained breathing I beckoned, “What’s going on here?” 

It was the most timid “get off my lawn!” synonym ever uttered. 

The ringleader of this neighborhood-ho-down shouted that some guy was trying to get up on his girl (she’s standing between him and my house). As he’s giving me his answer, this supposed girlfriend and an older Latina woman, who might have been his madre, try to coerce him back in the direction from which they came. The fourth member, another young man, lurked near the location where their supposed target had entered through the gate at the edge of the driveway.. 

My breathing, typically off rhythm and prone to being held, was not operating at its peak. Still, I managed to squeak out, “Does he have anything on him?” For those unfamiliar with a question like this, I’m alluding to weapons. I do not want to get hurt, I do not want to die. But apparently, with my breath catching, the question seeps out with a bit more edge than intended and the ringleader immediately takes exception to my tone. Maybe he was scared too.

He rushes to the edge of the short chain link fence that separates us and threatens to fucking kick my ass, too. Hindsight tells me no asses had yet been kicked, but I’m thankful I was not the first. The women of the crew rounded him up and, in the midst of a night that was still to take more wild turns, he apologized for freaking out at me. He’s protecting his girl ya know, and I’m just trying to get some sleep. 

The front gate remained open, the location of their target still unknown, and the four of them turned back to their residence without ever providing me an answer as to whether the unknown scrambler in my backyard was packing. 

Standing still, I wondered if I’d been holding my breath the entire time. 

Part 2

The streetside kerfuffle had served as a distraction to the reality that my house had been wide open on the adjacent side the entire time someone, supposedly, had sought refuge in my yard. Were they still there? If so, did they go inside my house? My throat tightened as I steeled myself to walk back into my home in search of a stranger. As I opened the front door with slow, gentle intention the curtain from the backdoor wafted with the draft and an eerie sensation filled the space. 

The wafting curtain on a “normal” day.

Sliding my bare feet along the hardwood floor, I began to turn on more lights. With the resolve of a detective, but the bravery of a spooked deer, I entered every nook of every room in the house looking for an intruder. Nothing. The swoooooosh of my exhale released when I locked the doors and sat down to think. And exhale.

The sensation of being violated was reverberating through the house and I didn’t feel safe. Safe-r, but not safe. Taking a seat on the edge of my bed, with the breeze still blowing in through the open window, the reality of the ringleader's return hit me like the punch I never received. I lost my wind knowing I needed to find this stranger and confirm the coast was clear. 

Part 3

Locked inside my house alone, besides my deaf dog who had yet to stir to the commotion, I contemplated my next move. Alert to my body’s needs, I tried to breathe in a calm, serene flow. Moving about the house I began to turn off the lights and look out the windows into my yard. I couldn’t see anything. However, caught up in the intensity of the situation, I realized I’d neglected looking in one crevice in a tight corner of my yard. The only view was from my office window and, with the lights off, I crept to the edge of the window and squinted into the darkness. 

There he was. 

Unable to see me while he was lying on the ground, panic covered his face. There was only one way out of my yard, unless he was going to scale the 6ft wood fence, and that was in the direction he had entered. I knew I could not coerce or confront him because he had trapped himself in a dead end corner with a fence blocking his path. Unsure if he was dangerous, or would be dangerous, I tried to breathe again. 

In a burst of inspiration I decided to don some shoes for the first time that night as I stepped out my front door. Now what? I locked the door behind me. Nowhere for him to go, nowhere for me to go. 

Standing alone in my front yard, I glanced around. Down on the other end of the street a group of ten or so neighborhood cholos were gathered to watch the Friday night fights on the TV in their front yard. Maybe I should arrange for some back-up? They knew me afterall. However, I didn’t for one moment consider calling the police. First, I don’t trust them as our local officers are known as one of the most violent police forces in the nation. Second, I am one of only a few White men in my entire neighborhood and I can’t be calling the police to handle my business every time some (weekly) shenanigans break out. 

Part 4

Hospitality is the recognition and recovery of human dignity. In my faith tradition, to welcome a stranger is to welcome the divine. But what does one do when a stranger has chosen your yard as an escape route and is heaving with panic on the ground amidst the cobwebs and weeds? 

I decided to go my own way and circled around the house. Standing on the opposite side of a six foot by four foot stretch of fence, squinting through the slats, I’m able to see him lying there. As I summon the courage and count to three, I shout-whisper, “Hey man, you’ve got to go.” He stirs, looks in my direction, but stays on the ground.

I assure him I have not called the cops, his assailants are nowhere to be seen, and no one else is looming nearby. He still doesn’t stand up, but speaks from the ground in a frightened voice. 

Excuse me, my head shaking, questions swirling. “Do you have any shoes?” he asks. 

Um, yes. In fact, I’m wearing shoes for the first time all night. I instruct him to “hold on,” as if he might escape from my backyard like I want him to. As a person of privilege, I happen to have a spare pair of shoes I was using for yard work and projects. Size 9, still in good condition (a testament to how many projects I actually accomplish). 

Arriving back at the fence, as if we’re neighbors, I reach over and hand him the shoes. He confirms the shoes fit and we agree to meet on the other side of the gate he originally busted through. 

I wait. And wait. 

Then I hear it. My dog, Maia, has decided now she wants to be a guard dog. She’s barking in the back. Scooting my way around the not-yet-renovated Airstream that’s squeezed into my driveway, I spot my shoes sticking out from under the RV. My dog is barking at the backdoor, thinking I’m inside. She’s trying to alert me to the intruder who HAS BEEN IN MY YARD FOR ALMOST AN HOUR. 

After corralling her back inside, I invite our uninvited guest to make his escape once again. He sets down the three foot long piece of scrap wood he’d been wielding and chooses to consent. 

But first, he asks, “Can you give me a ride?”

At this moment my hospitality only extends to the front gate he entered through. I assured him no one was out front and if he simply turned right, away from where he’d been chased, he could walk away from the neighborhood and go wherever he might need to go now that he has a pair of running shoes. Fittingly, he walks out of the yard and turns left. Left. Are you serious? 

Still panic-stricken he realizes his mistake, maybe for the first time this evening, and speed walks back the other direction toward the alley and into the night.