The Gate

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"Sally, there's nothing that anybody can do to change somebody's mind, especially about something scandalous. The more you protest, the more they'll persist in their belief. Just let 'em go and don't worry about what they think."

"That's easy for you to say, but their gossip is giving me a reputation I don't deserve. I try not to let it bother me, but I just know they're talking about me behind my back."

"Any one person in particular that you've singled out?"

"I think Mrs. Morgan, up the street, is probably the source of the rumors. But I can't be sure."

"I think most of the neighbors know her for what she is, and if she's the source of your problem I'd just try to forget about it. She's started rumors about everybody in town at one time or another. But if it's really getting to be a problem for you, I can have a talk with her."

I had an opportunity the very next day, and decided to take a shot at it. Mrs. Morgan was out working in her flower bed when I was walking past with my dogs. She said hello, and I paraded the dogs up her driveway to get to a conversational distance. "Mrs. Morgan, you know everybody in the neighborhood, and I wonder if you could help me out. Somebody seems to be spreading malicious rumors about my young housekeeper, and it's getting to be a problem for us. She can't concentrate on her work, and she's upset because it's making her angry, which is against the religious vows she took as a young teenager. She tells me she's afraid that if the rumors continue she'll get so worked up that she'll start to lose her faith, and that's one thing that I'd never want to see happen. I don't know how widely it's known, but religion is her life, the only thing that sustained her after her mother moved out on her, and if she feels that she's slighted Jesus I'm afraid it will drive her into a really deep depression."

"Oh, my, that sounds serious. I'll keep my ear to the ground and if I hear anything I'll let you know. You know you can depend on me."

"Thanks a lot, Mrs. Morgan. I don't know what I'd without friends like you."

That afternoon I was running a few errands and I stopped in a jewelry store and bought an inexpensive chain with a cross pendant. That night at supper I gave Sally the necklace, and told her to wear it any time she was out in public. I mentioned that I believed her rumor problems were over, but that people might regard her as a religious fanatic, which probably would be much better than being considered a slut.

Later in the evening, while we were waiting for the TV news to come on, she asked, "Did you think of me as a slut? Is that why you wanted me to move in with you?"

"No, I never thought about you that way at all. To me you were a nice little girl in trouble, and I wanted to help you if I could. You made me think of my own kids, and I only did for you what I would have hoped someone would do for them. If I wanted the services of a slut, there are enough hookers around that I could hire by the hour, and they come with no emotional entanglements.

"I have a happy, peaceful home life and you've enriched that by taking over duties that I was performing poorly when I did them at all. I'm a terrible housekeeper, and yet I like my house neat and clean, and I especially like good food on the table. I shudder to recall what life here was like before you showed up."

She got up and came over to where I was sitting, and gave me a peck on the cheek. "Thank you. You're very sweet." That came as a surprise to me. I'm sweet? I never thought of myself that way. I get hungry, yes. I like a neat home, yes. Is that what sweet is like? Who knows?

* * * * *

The next day I borrowed a friend's truck and hauled a sheet of plywood and some 2x4's home from the lumberyard. "What's all that for?" Sally wanted to know.

"The day that you showed up here I was figuring out how to make a new gate, and this is some of the material for it. In fact, I need your help to get this plywood into the back yard where I can work on it."

We got the plywood set up on some concrete blocks and I set to work measuring and cutting, and then fitting a two by four frame onto it. At first it didn't look like much, but with the hinges temporarily set in place, it started to resemble a huge door. But when we turned it over, exposing the open cavity that would eventually be covered up with the other sheet of plywood, it didn't resemble anything. From that point on it was a slow process, gluing a few blocks in place with the plywood facing down, letting the adhesive set and get semi-hard, then turning the whole thing over to put some screws in to hold the blocks firmly in place. Every day started by turning the plywood side down, and ended by turning the plywood side up. And every time we turned it, the assembly had a few more pieces of wood on it, so it had gained that much weight. We made jokes about it being like an exercise machine, with a few more weights added each time we went to exercise with it.

* * * * *

All the while that the gate was taking shape, so was the inside of the house. New curtains on my bedroom windows. Sally's room, which was on the south side of the house and therefore got the most sun, was bright and cheerful. The windows were all washed, which made a huge difference. Then there was the old carpet. It was worn out, threadbare in spots, the rubbery layer under it pounded to nothingness in spots by years of foot traffic, and unattractive to look at. We agreed that the carpet had to go, but we had no plan in place for getting rid of it and replacing it with some other floor treatment. We agreed that it would be a big project, and would have to wait until a lot of smaller jobs had been taken care of.

With cooler weather upon us, we were able to leave a few windows open to let fresh air blow in, and at night I felt good snuggling under a quilt while the air temperature in the bedroom dropped along with the outside air. One night I was in my usual position, all the way over on one side of my king size bed with a small dog snuggled up against my leg, when something woke me up. I came to life quickly, as I always did if something surprised me in the middle of the night. Sally was standing there, a hand on my shoulder, whispering something that I didn't understand right away. "Say that again, Sally. What's going on?"

"Somebody's moving around out in the front yard, and around the side of the house too. It's three in the morning. There shouldn't be anybody out there. Do something."

I grabbed the phone and punched in 911. When the police 911 operator came on, I identified myself, verified our address, and said we had prowlers, then handed the phone to Sally so she could tell the police operator what she'd heard. "Please send somebody to investigate, but have them come quietly so they don't scare the prowlers away. Come quickly, please. They're going to break in. I'm scared."

She handed the phone back to me. The voice on the other end said, "Please don't hang up. Help is on the way but the nearest car is about ten miles away from you right now, so he won't get there immediately. Do you have a safe room?"

"Pretty safe. The door is hollow but it locks."

"If you think somebody is in your house, get everybody into that room and lock the door. Then stay there until our officer says it's safe to come out. That's all you have to do. I'll stay on the line with you so you can tell me just what's happening, and I can tell the officer so he knows what to do when he arrives."

That touched off a long conversation. We handed the phone back and forth, and the 911 operator whose name turned out to be Mattie stayed on the other end. Sally crept back into her room and listened at the window as two people outside talked softly about what they'd do next. She showed me with hand gestures what they were going to do, and I retreated to my bedroom to tell Mattie about it.

The people outside planned to go over the wall into the backyard and attack the house from the rear. The place where they planned to go up and over was a short stretch of wall at the east end of the house, and what they didn't know is that they would be dropping down into a cactus garden, which would probably slow them down some. It woule probably make them mad, too. It would have been easier to come through the gate, but that would have exposed them to the eyes of neighbors in two houses. The route they had chosen wasn't visible except from a short stretch of the street, and there wasn't anybody on the street at that hour.

I left Sally in the master bedroom with the phone and a revolver, while I took a shotgun for protection and a nine millimeter automatic for good luck, and went into the dining room.

The logical point of entry from the back yard would be the sliding glass door into the sun room. I very quietly slid that door open, leaving only the sliding screen door to block the way. I hoped that the burglars were smart enough to come in that way, and that they'd enter by just sliding the screen door open and they wouldn't have to damage the house.

I had no idea when the police would arrive, and I couldn't just wait for us to be attacked. I didn't want anything to happen to Sally, so I hoped to stop the invasion at the back door with the shotgun, probably shoot the first one to come in and hope that the other one would run away.

The central point of the traffic pattern in my house is where the dining room and living room come together. All of the traffic lanes converge there, so no matter where a person comes from or where he's going, he has to pass that magic spot, at the south end of the dining room table. I got under the table with my weapons, a big flashlight, and a spare cordless phone, and waited.

Pretty soon Sally tiptoed out of the master bedroom and got down on her hands and knees to get within whispering distance of me. "Mattie says that two police cars are on our street now, one coming from each end with their lights off. She wants you to come into the bedroom with me now, so that if the officers find anybody walking around they'll know he's a bad guy."

"That's a relief. Go ahead. Here, take the shotgun with you. I'll bring the rest." I crawled out between two chairs and followed her down the hallway.

In the master bedroom I locked the door and slid an easy chair up against it for added security. Unless a person has police training he will usually walk through a doorway and then get his gun pointed ahead. That forces his focus on what's ahead of him, and leaves him vulnerable from the side for half a second or so. I figured if I could slow down the bad guys just inside the doorway, maybe give them something to do with their hands, I'd have a good chance of shooting them right there before they could hurt us.

I sent Sally into the bathroom and told her to get in the shower stall with the curtain drawn, and keep her revolver pointed straight ahead. I got down alongside the bed, hidden from the doorway unless I popped my head up to look. I laid the shotgun across the bed, aimed right at the doorway. Then we waited.

Sally still had Mattie on the line. She said the police tried the front door and found it locked, so they were checking the gate. What a lucky thing that we still had the old three foot high gate there, which they could easily open and come on in. Through the open window I could hear somebody walking on the crushed stone of the backyard, so I supposed they were about to come in and confront the burglars. Then I heard a loud voice call out, "Police! Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!"

Somebody bumped the door of the bedroom where we were holed up, and a shout came from the same general location, "Fuck you!" Then several things happened at once. Two shots were fired, and someone screamed from the hallway. A foot crashed through the bedroom door and a man lunged through the doorway and ran into the chair. I had a light on in the room and could see that he wasn't a policeman and he was holding a pistol, so as he turned toward me and then brought his pistol around in my direction, I fired the shotgun at his chest. Blood splattered out so I knew I'd hit him, but my attention was mainly focused on his pistol, which wavered and then dropped to the floor. I laid the shotgun back down on the bed and ducked down out of sight, holding my pistol and wondering where the police were.

The same voice that had announced the entry of the police called out again, "Police! Drop your weapons! Everybody come out where we can see your hands!" Down on the floor I peeked around the end of the bed, to see the burglar I'd shot draped over the arm of the chair with his head on the seat, not moving, and blood forming a pool on the carpet. I could see that his pistol was still on the floor where it had fallen, out of his reach. It seemed to me I could forget about him. A police uniform came up against the back of the burglar, and I could see the policeman's face. I set my pistol on the floor and raised up so my head and hands were above the bed.

I could hear a muffled voice on the phone as Sally came out of the bathroom saying, "We're both okay. Yes, he's right here. Here, Mattie wants to talk to you," and she handed the phone to the policeman in the doorway, then turned and helped me to my feet. I nudged the shotgun with my knee so it wasn't aimed at the doorway any more, and walked around the end of the bed, but my legs felt shaky so I sat down on the foot of the bed and waited for whatever was coming next.

The policeman was talking on the phone and holstering his pistol at the same time. Then he reached down and felt around on the burglar's neck for a pulse. "This one is still alive but seems unconscious. Maybe he is, maybe not. Jerry, how's the one you shot? Jerry says he's dead. Here, Jerry, talk to Mattie," and he handed off the phone into the hallway out of my line of sight. Then he pulled handcuffs off his belt and cuffed the guy I shot, with his hands behind him. Turning to me, he held out his hand as Sally helped me to stand, and with the help of both of them I got across the legs of the bleeding burglar and out into the hallway. Sally came right behind me and we walked around the other burglar and out the wide open back door, and flopped down onto the patio chairs.

When you shoot a twelve gauge shotgun in a small room, it seems like a cannon going off, and it does bad things to your hearing. Gradually the ringing in my ears decreased its volume, and I could hear a lot better. Sally said, "You were very brave to do that."

"It didn't seem that way to me. I had to defend myself and you, and shooting that guy was our last chance. I never wanted to be a hero, just a survivor. The graveyard's full of heroes."

"Well, you're my hero. What will happen now? Do you suppose they'll put yellow tape around the whole house, and we'll have to go to a motel? This was very exciting while it was happening, but now that it's over it's a pain in the butt. We can't even go in and get dressed."

"I'm still shaky. When they let you go in, see if you can grab my pants and shirt that were laid on the chair. I suppose they're on the floor now. And clean underwear. Toss it in on your bed, and after you're dressed I'll go in there and get dressed. But I need to sit here for a while and try to calm down."

About an hour later we were wearing real clothes, we'd given statements to the police, been fingerprinted, and talked with the people who came to look at the burglars. The ambulance crew that came for the one I shot checked him over and found that he'd died while they were on their way, so they took him in a body bag, just like his friend. I didn't want to look at him, but the ambulance guy told me the twelve gauge had got him right in the middle of the chest and made a mess of his plumbing, and maybe his spinal column, too. The two policemen had searched the whole house for any evidence the burglars might have left, and had taken away all the stuff they brought in, including their guns. A tow truck had taken away the truck the burglars had traveled in. The policemen had been the first good guys to arrive and they were the last to leave, with the house messed up but nothing damaged beyond repair.

It was too late to get any sleep so I drove over to the nearest exit on the interstate and we had a hearty breakfast at a truckstop. To make good use of our time, we went to an all-night supermarket and shopped for groceries that we needed to get anyway. Using rare foresight I had grabbed the big cooler from the back room and put it on the back seat of the Buick, so we loaded our perishables into it and added a big bag of ice.

I called my lawyer and caught him in his office, where he had gone much earlier than usual to catch up on some paperwork. He agreed to take a statement from us about what happened. We went into a room where he had a videocam all set up to record depositions. There was a lot of introductory stuff, like our names, ages, address, and the time the event happened. Then Sally told how she heard the men outside her window, and everything that led up to the shooting. The critical questions for me had to do with the actual shooting of the burglar:

"What happened after you heard someone call out, 'Fuck you'?"

"I heard two shots, sounded like a handgun. I heard a scream and a thud, like a person falling on the floor. Then somebody in the hallway jiggled the doorknob and kicked the door in. A foot went right through it, and the part with the latch mechanism was broken right off from the rest of the door. A man wearing a black knit cap pushed the door open and started into the room, in a big hurry. He fell across the chair that was in his way, went face down. He was holding a gun, looked to me like a nine millimeter automatic, and as he fell across the chair it pointed down at the seat cushion."

"You saw that, the man pushing the broken door open and then falling across the chair?"

"Yes. I was kneeling beside the bed, the side away from the door, and I was aiming a shotgun over that way. As the man straightened up he was looking around frantically. He looked right at me and started to lift his pistol up and turn it toward where I was. So I shot him before he could shoot me."

"This was with a twelve gauge shotgun?"

"Yes. It was loaded with shotshells, I think number six shot, like what you'd use on rabbits or birds. I just fired once, pumped another shell into the chamber, and then watched to see what would happen."

"And what did happen?"

"I was mostly concentrating on the pistol that the burglar was holding, the one that he was trying to aim at me. He sort of froze in midair, not quite standing up straight. The pistol was in his hand, and it went up, not aimed at anything of importance, and then he dropped it to the floor and pitched forward onto the chair. He never moved after that while I was watching."

"What did you do then?"

"I laid the shotgun down and ducked down behind the bed. I thought there was probably no more threat, but I had to play it safe. I heard a loud voice say, 'Police! Lay down your weapons and come out with your hands where we can see them.' I was holding my own pistol as I knelt on the floor, and I laid it on the floor and stood up, with my hands held up about shoulder high."

"Why did you shoot that man with your shotgun?"

"Because I was in mortal fear for myself and Sally. He had refused to surrender to the police when he had a chance to. He could have gone into the other bedroom. That door was standing wide open, so he could have ducked in there to evade the police, and escaped out the window. But he broke into the master bedroom, through the only door inside the house that was closed and locked. He had to know there were people in that room, so I knew that instead of trying to make a clean getaway he was looking for a hostage. I was, and I still am, firmly convinced that if I had not shot him I would have been killed and Sally would have been seized as a hostage, kidnapped, and ended up dead or raped or severely harmed somehow. Shooting him was the only way that I could save us from great bodily harm."