The List
Between our back fence and Yolanda ’s apartment, was a thin tangled path that opened into acres of high grass. We called this place, the Field, where neighborhood kids played ball. My mom picked wild strawberries in the Field, sometimes enough for eight jars of jam we’d help her smash and stir. I collected caterpillars in the Field. The Field was our place to sink into tall weeds, making green angels with our arms and legs, looking up at the sun, wondering how many hours were left in summer, to splash in the pool, to catch pond frogs with our bobby socks. And then the bearded man showed up and changed everything.
My sister was in the Field with Yolanda. I was with my mom, in her bedroom. We were cleaning the tall floor mirror slanted against the wall. My mom sprayed the windex and I kneeled below, waiting to catch the blue streaks in my paper mitt. Her cleaning towel dropped onto my foot. “Something’s wrong,” she said, pressing her palm into her forehead, and called the police. There were no signs, no portents I could see, but she had seen some vision in the mirror, in the smudges, in the reflection, something that I couldn’t. “Yes. Please. Send someone. I don’t know. We need help.” And then she ran downstairs and let the dogs out. These were kid dogs, you know, fluffy with names like Benji and Twinkie and Snoopy-Come-Home. These weren’t protectors. These were pillow-napping dogs with cuddly ears and big dots on their backs that needed scratching; but she released them and the barking began as soon as their paws hit the deck. I walked into the yard and out the fence. My mom’s red station wagon sat in the quiet driveway. I moved towards the thin grass path, closer to Yolanda’s sliding glass door. All three dogs were barking and scratching at the wooden fence, smelling me through the slats or smelling him-- the man tapping on the glass. He was talking to Junior, Yolanda’s little brother. “Open the door little boy,” he said and kept tapping. I could hear high-pitched screams. It was Annette and Yolanda yelling from somewhere behind Junior, “No, Junior, don’t.” But it was too late. Junior was still half asleep in his Yogi Bear underwear, and he removed the thumb from his mouth and opened the door. I bolted back behind the fence crying out for my mother. And then there were more cries, “Mom! Mom!” The fence door shook open. The dogs barked madly and ran to my sister’s side. Her halter top was torn, her pony tails dipped too low, and her face streaked with tears and mud and grass blades pressed into her skin, on her hands, into the back of her thighs. She was trembling, holding on to the fence latch, using all of her weight to keep the peg from rising up. We were both pulling down hard, trying to keep the fence shut, to keep the man out. “Where are you?” he asked. A big hand with pudgy fingers, reddish hair dirtying the knuckles, reached around, feeling for the metal latch. The dogs squealed and growled. “Get inside!” my mother yelled and we dashed for the house. The police pulled him off of the fence. The blue lights were spinning just like the flashlight toys we loved at the circus. We stood in front of my mom’s legs as she spoke to a female officer. Two rugged officers emptied the man’s pockets onto the hood of the car.
1. Rope
2. Wire
3. Scissors
4. Butcher’s knife
5. Duct tape
6. Black gloves
7. Plastic bag
8. Butterscotch candy wrapped in yellow foil.
This list sits forever in my head. It pops up unexpectedly while compiling names for Thank you or Christmas cards, or scribbling items to buy at the grocery store. It will creep in and rattle itself off. Rope.Wire.Scissors. Butcher’s knife. Duct tape. Black gloves Plastic bag. Butterscotch candy wrapped in yellow foil.
But what we all remember most from that day when the man came in his black trench coat and his heavy boots, wearing the small dogtoothed cap, over his bushy red hair, was how he smiled at us and winked. “I’ll see you soon,” he said before the officers shoved him into the back of the squad car. He was right.