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When he put the gun up his finger couldn’t let go
Two dozen police cars, a swat team, yellow tape blocking off the street, the news channels in big white vans with hairsprayed women in for pain.
My husband coaxing me from the bedroom because a man is in the yard.
But that’s getting ahead of it. Think back one day. Six months to the day in my first house and I finally learned what it means to have neighbors.
I guess I am lucky. For twenty-seven years I'd managed as many locales. Mostly in apartments roughly hewn from Midwest farm houses. But now the octogenarian gardener brings over a grocery bag of lemons, the homemaker offers rocks and drywall, and the disabled gossiping man who doesn't read the social signals of goodbye lays out the neighborhood. They ousted a drug house that stole city water and have this on video. The burnouting youths were quelled by an old-fashioned fence raising. The previous owner of my house was charged with murder for helping his wife die because she was dying from cancer. And the city almost took him to court because they had all the evidence but by then he had cancer too and wouldn't have made it through the paperwork. I took that story with me to bed last night, dreamt of the way light overtakes the windows, and awoke by the cats chasing headlights on the wall. Then it’s morning and there really is a man in the yard. The bullhorn calling
Patrick, I’m gonna call you on your cell.
Patrick, you’re not in trouble yet.
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The police passing over the dying doorbell to hammer on the screen door. My husband fumbling for clothes as the officers evacuate five houses. I don’t even know a Patrick as I shuffle to the corner in bed clothes to speculate with the neighbors. Men in Police Negotiator vests plan, snipers in fatigues use a ladder to scale my house and wait ready. This is what I know: This Patrick has a little girl and an ex wife. He has a male roommate and a gun. Some say he forgot his meds or maybe it was a suicide attempt. But after it was over I’m no wiser. I watch him toss his yellow mattress from the door as I leave for work.
Patrick, come out with your hands above your head where I can see them.
A murderer, a drug ring, and a Patrick. I waited on cold concrete for Patrick to wake up, for the tank to load up and move, for the robot to gather speed,
and for the negotiator to finish conferring with Patrick’s parents. I was past pleasantries. I wanted buttered popcorn and a sixty-four ounce soda. I had the admission ticket with front row seats. I wanted the show. If Patrick was gonna do it, he better hurry up with it. But Patrick wasn’t man enough for that. The police did their job. Yet six hours later I watch him through the window into his. Five trucks park outside and he’s rocking in silhouette. And I’m wondering if he’d wished he’d gone and done it. He could have been the next big story passed down neighbor to neighbor. I could be telling the story right now: My husband shakes me and I hear Patrick, I want you to take this nice and slow. But Patrick doesn’t take it slow.
He wants every goddamn one of his demands filled. And he starts with me.
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