Kyle City Limits
by BRENDA STEWART
Coming home on Sunday afternoon, I heard loud slamming and banging noises coming from the long-vacant house across the street, like someone taking it down with a sledge hammer. Surely, I thought, Joe’s not razing the place. There’s been a for sale sign hammered into his side lawn almost as long as we’ve lived there and the ivy has taken over the out-buildings and trees, but I’d be surprised if he’d do something so drastic without letting us know.
With no truck in the drive, I walked up the back alley to check on my neighbor’s house and saw a kid walking hurriedly away and when I yelled “Hey,” his shoulders sank and he turned to face me, grimacing. As I was asking him what was going on, his three companions came slinking out of the shadows. Seems some “older guys” had told them that they should “take the dump over” and make it their club house, so they had decided to smash in some windows and make it their own.
“Really?” I asked. “So, I could just come to your house and bash my way in and you’d be okay with that?” Three of them were looking down, digging holes in the soft alley dirt with the toes of their worn sneakers as I railed on about boundaries and respect and karma. But suddenly one kid tried to stare me down and smirked and said, “Sure. You can try to take over my house. Fine with me.” and turned as if he was going to walk away. And in a split second judgement call, I dialed 911, as his friends winced, and he glowered in defiance.
The cops pulled up and I walked back down the alley, through my front gate, and on with my day. This wasn’t the first time I’d called the authorities. I had called when I smelled gas coming from this same vacant house when I was walking my dog Ginger a couple of years ago. I called a while back when I was driving home late at night and the back door to Library Thrift was wide open and there were no cars in the lot. I called when a guy hit a kid on a bike down the street from me.
Tonight, though, looking back, it didn’t seem so cut and dried. I’ve always been a fan of kids wandering the streets, skateboarding on sidewalks and makeshift ramps, kicking back on curbs, killing time. There is some inalienable right to the outside that these guys have earned just by their sheer willingness to claim it. And when I pulled up in front of my house on Sunday, I guess it just stunned me that they were smashing up this world, not to mention someone’s property. It was so wanton and destructive and it was just hard for me to comprehend.
In retrospect, I’m figuring that had they just heeded my admonishment with a bit of contrition, I would have taken a different tack. I could have just taken names and then let Joe exact restitution for his damages which would have, hopefully, given them a reason to at least think twice before they pulled another stunt like this. But there was something about the look in that one kid’s eyes that made me think that it was just a matter of time before he was back smashing windows, here or across the street. And then when he acted like he was going to just walk away, it pushed me over the edge and I took it a step further.
Tonight, though, I’m wondering if I had really felt threatened by the possibility of this boy’s future actions or if I was just reacting to his defiance and disrespect. When did I become the one to call the cops on kids? When did I morph from that woman of perspective and dialogue to the alarmist, calling out the cavalry? Was it the threat to my property or to my authority that made me snap?
And that’s what’s bothering me tonight. It’s not that these kids didn’t deserve consequences. They destroyed property and they should be held responsible. They were also guilty of being young and foolish and accepting some incredibly asinine advice from older kids. I can only hope that, armed with enough information, cooler heads prevailed and the punishment that was meted out will fit the crime.
My punishment for being a reactionary? Spending five hours pounding out this column to sort out my reaction so that next time I might slow down long enough to hear the whole story and to realize that defiance sometimes comes from a place of fear. And, to once again, be on the side of these stray kiddos.
Tonight, I feel like Bewitched’s Gladys Cravits on steroids.
