Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Advent 6: Foiled
I look out the window at our truck parked across the street in front of our neighbor’s giant maple tree. The light at the base of the driver’s side view mirror is on, glowing like a tiny flashlight. It seems strange to me so I wait and then the light goes out. Seconds later, it comes back on and I take the set of keys by the bed and press lock just to make sure. The lights flash, the lock sounds, and the car beeps. I put the keys down and the mirror’s light resumes its shining.
I decide that someone must be trying to break into the truck so I go outside, open the front door, and stand on our porch. I yell, “Get away from there!” and a man in a trenchcoat and a hat, as if dressed by a Hollywood studio for a thirties noir film, steps out from behind the truck. He is holding a gun with both hands and aiming it at me like a well-trained cop might do when he tells the suspect to “Drop it.”
He threatens me with the gun, motioning me to go back in the house so he can resume stealing our truck. But I stand still on the porch. He walks around to my side of the truck, getting closer, still motioning with his gun for me to turn around and go in the house. He waves the gun around as if to make sure the one streetlamp, dim as it is, shines off the gun so I see that he really has a gun and isn’t pretending.
His taunting makes me angry, so angry that I run off the porch and into the street straight at him and I yell as loud as I can, “I’M GOING TO GET YOU!” And I feel my husband pat my shoulder to wake me up. He says, “You were shouting.” I try to tell him why but he is already sleeping. I slide my arm under his and I try to fall asleep, but my eyes are on the window in case the light is still on.
6 Comments on “Advent 6: Foiled”
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect.
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect May 27, 2020
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
OMG, Jan. I am so glad you were dreaming. I was ready to yell at you through my computer screen to go inside and call the police. Promise me that you are smarter than that in waking hours. LOL
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Clearly no one should mess with you Jan!
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Ha! The Pelosi effect.
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I’m not that brave even in my dreams!
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Says the lady on the motorcycle who walks past snakes like they’re kittens. You’re way braver in real life than me. That’s for sure.
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I’m not the one who gets up and speaks in front of audiences, either!
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