untitled but true

It started with a knock on the glass of the unlocked front door.  Followed by Beach sounding nothing like herself, with a scratchy throat and a hint of fear, “Mom, I don’t know who it is….”

I struggled off the sofa and down the stairs. Beach isn’t well but I am painfully sick.  Every breath hurts deep in my chest, every step jarring, the light is loud, and my eyes burn.   

When I saw the man on the front porch smoking I did the math: 1 scary ass unknown man verses 2 girls alone, home sick, and the dogs aren’t even in the house.

Part of me wanted to wonder if he might be there for BC but I really knew that wasn’t it.  And yet I opened the door anyway.

I cracked it a few inches planting my foot firmly on the floor, my knee bracing against the wood.  The man was rough and filthy.  He leaned in talking and smoking, making little to no sense something about a man named Alex, about a car, about jail...

“You have the wrong house.” I told him.

He kept talking and smoking. He leaned his hand inside the crack of open door so much so that when the long ash fell from his cigarette it fell inside the house.  

I repeated myself, “the wrong house” I must of said it half a dozen times.

When I felt his weight testing the hold I had on the door I turned to Beach, “Get the phone.”

The man kept talking even as I inched the door closed and dialed BC’s number.

“I need you to come home. There is a man here trying to get into the house.”

Last week BC's truck was broken into and a bucket of hand tools stolen.  This man fit the circumstances and it seemed he was back for something else.  

With the door closed the man stayed on the porch for another minute talking at me through the glass.  He lingered taking his time moving down the driveway.  Fished his bike off the sidewalk and started down the street. 

I followed him out; standing in pajamas on the sidewalk, the cold concrete stinging my barefeet. 

Before the man was out of sight BC’s big blue truck rounded the corner. The truck slowed and Miguel in the passenger seat unrolled the window.  

I stared at the 2 of them, BC and Miguel dressed in construction wear, bearded, sunglasses, in need of haircuts, possibly a shower.  Both looked bigger (and meaner) than I know they really are.   

“He went that way.” I told them pointing down 10th.  They nodded in tandem and drove off after the man.  

I went back inside and waited for the big blue truck to come back.