Prowlers in the Wrong Place

Several months ago there was a break-in at an untenanted home not far from here. It was the first time in a long time that something like this had happened, and a fairly jarring reminder that not everyone who lives around wants to play nice. Consequently the jungle telegraph, which had begun to slack off a bit due to lack of juicy news, became a serious matter and any stranger – but any stranger – who hung around in a less than completely businesslike in-and-out manner will be noticed – and commented on – and reported on – and likely followed and confronted. There will be guns.

This weekend there was quite a flurry of that sort of thing. I got phone calls from all over, including from Darrel the Former Cop who was in the Big City at the time and clearly feeling left out of the fun. I suspect the whole thing was just a perfect storm of weekend tourists going where they weren’t welcome, but nobody was making it up and none of the persons-of-interest seemed interested in hanging around for a chat when approached.

Which meant I needed to pass all this on to Landlady. She was in her house alone without even a car for a backup plan, her car being parked on the other side of the mud and ice several miles away. And though armed, she’s not a trash-talking hardass wannabe like, say, me. In fact she was suddenly quite concerned.

I tried to calm her fears, in my trademark style which may not have helped much…

“Half the people who live back here are tweakers and losers, so there’s always a danger of burglary. No house that’s locked up and clearly unused is safe. That’s a given.

“But look around! There are more guns here than people, and nobody’s got any reason to be afraid to use them. Cops? Hell, they’d give you a medal. This is a small, poor county: The cops know who the losers are, and wish they’d move away. I’d have some explaining to do, but if a respectable lady like you blew a prowler off her porch with that 12-gauge right there, there probably wouldn’t even be an investigation. Hell, you could probably get away with shooting me … though I would prefer you didn’t.

“My point being, hot break-ins don’t happen here. It would be suicide. They wouldn’t last a night.”

On the other hand, I told her that if she needed somebody to show up in her driveway with an AK, all she had to do was use that phone right there at any hour and it would happen. Because that’s what the jungle telegraph is for, and ours is quite healthy.