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Alarms and Excursions
Aug. 25th, 2006 07:42 pmSo my brother Matt is staying with us for a while. He arrived here on Monday, August 14, and we started unloading his truck. I took an assortment of food into the kitchen and hastily cleared space for it. When I came out again, a police car with its lights flashing was parked a few houses further south. I didn't actually think much of it -- until a couple of guys in shorts, T-shirts, and baseball caps, looking weirdly alike, and with cellphones clamped to their ears, converged on the sidewalk with our nearest neighbor to the south, and demanded, "Where is he, did you see him?" "He's in her back yard," said our neighbor. "He jumped the fence and he's hiding in the weeds." The guys in baseball caps took off around the side of the house. "He's in your back yard," repeated my neighbor. "He dived headfirst over the fence and he's hiding in your weeds. He said somebody was trying to shoot him."
Matt and I went into the house, agreeing to defer the unloading for a bit. I went downstairs and apprised David of what was happening. We looked out the glass of the back door just in time to see a young man being escorted away in handcuffs. The baseball-capped guys then conducted a minute search of the back yard, which I do not envy them, since it is quite wild at the moment and many plants are prickly. The young man, who had apparently got rid of the drugs he had bought at the house a little north of us (not, thank heaven, right next door), had landed in a patch of daylilies. The baseball-cap twins gave us to understand that they thought they would have found anything that was there, but that if we ourselves found something, they'd like it back.
I wish it had been the wild roses that he landed in. Well, unless he is innocent. But since he showed up a few days later in a near neighbor's yard, claiming to have lost a cellphone while actually talking on one, I tend to doubt it.
Last Monday, Raphael and I had just come in from a walk and I had just ordered Chinese food, when I heard five very loud bangs. Not like fireworks. I leapt from my office into the library, dithered a moment, and, things remaining quiet, looked out the library window. A group of people was gathering down at the corner of our lesser cross-street. I distinctly heard one woman say, "Do you think everything's all right?" and another answer, "I don't know. I'm calling 911 right now." Relieved of the need to do just that, I went on looking out. Four or five police cars showed up in less than ten minutes and blocked off the street. Vast numbers of uniformed officers got out with flashlights and conducted a minute examination of the street and the curbs and any parked cars. They also went up to the House of Ill Conduct, but I don't know what they did or found there.
I was worried about the deliverer of the Chinese food, and wondering whether to call the restaurant and warn them that the street was blocked. A lot of neighbors were milling around, talking and gesticulating. I couldn't hear much over the engines of all the cop cars; I did hear one officer say, "Well, we don't know; we haven't found [something]." As I was about to call the restaurant, I saw the intrepid delivery guy walking along the sidewalk, dodging neighbors and cops. I thanked him and reflexively asked for the usual amount of change. Then I was was sorry that I hadn't had the sense to tip him more than the usual. A couple of neighbors were arguing over whether the shots had come from inside the Evil House, but there was a secondhand report that a couple had been walking with their kids and had seen a car driving east on the cross-street, and that the shots had come from that. Nobody got hurt.
Our neighbors gave us a lot of background on the Evil House. It's clear to me that I am a very oblivious person.
A few days of quiet ensued. David went to California on business.
Yesterday the weather radio started going crazy at around seven-thirty in the morning. It was a dark humid day; we ended up under both a tornado watch and a severe thunderstorm watch. The latter turned into a warning as I was making a batch of fish chowder, but all we got was premature darkness, a little wind, a huge amount of much-needed rain, and continued alarms as the storms moved around the Twin Cities from both directions and then went on to ravage Wisconsin and south central Minnesota. Just what south central Minnesota needed. A little before sunset, the sun came out while it was still raining. I looked out the back stairway window. Sure enough, a big pale rainbow. I alerted Raphael, ran downstairs, yelled, "RAINBOW!" in the general direction of Lydy and Matt, and went out into quite a hard rain. The trees were obscuring much of the rainbow, so I went around the garage and stood in the parking lot of the business across the alley. The northern end of the rainbow was brilliant, glowing, with all the colors. When I was well and truly wet, I went in and finished making the fish chowder, and we all had some. It was really good, especially considering that it was made with olive oil and soy milk rather than butter and cream.
Just before ten, I left my bedroom to get a drink of water before watching fake news with Raphael. I was opening the refrigerator when I heard a gigantic whumping boom. I looked out the library window, reflexively. The police were already there, blocking the street in front of the Evil House.
I watched Jon Stewart with something less than full attention, and then went downstairs to check in with Matt and Lydy. Lydy had been asleep, but thought the noise was too loud for a shot. Matt thought it might have been a shotgun. We all agreed that we did not care for this form of excitement.
The police cars were there for more than two hours, and people with huge flashlights were going through the Evil House and its yard and garage. I could have sworn that I heard power tools, and wondered if we would wake to find the entire place dismantled.
When I did get up in the morning and look, once more, out the library window, to my amazement there was a yard sign for Ralph Ellison, a DFL candidate for the legislature, firmly planted in the Evil Yard; and what looked like sawdust in the street. Matt informed me, via a neighbor, that the whumping sound had been made by a SWAT team; it was a concussion grenade. It had blown out at least one window, which the police had boarded up before they left; hence, the power tools and sawdust.
Further second- and third-hand information: the people in the upper half of the house, which is a duplex, are innocent bystanders, and fairly freaked out. They weren't home for the raid. The pit bull that people have been worrying about belongs to them and seems to be a happy dog. Police cars have been going through the alley and along the street quite frequently. Several people did return to the downstairs unit, looking very put out. The stream of customers seems to have dried up for the moment.
I used to check the crime statistics for this neighborhood assiduously, but since, aside from a scary rapist who got caught, they consisted of garage theft, car theft, and minor vandalism, with the occasional burglary, I stopped doing it for a while. Catching up left me feeling quite cold. I did not know that there had been driveby shootings, with fatalities, a mere six long blocks away, nor how greatly local gang activity had increased.
P.
Matt and I went into the house, agreeing to defer the unloading for a bit. I went downstairs and apprised David of what was happening. We looked out the glass of the back door just in time to see a young man being escorted away in handcuffs. The baseball-capped guys then conducted a minute search of the back yard, which I do not envy them, since it is quite wild at the moment and many plants are prickly. The young man, who had apparently got rid of the drugs he had bought at the house a little north of us (not, thank heaven, right next door), had landed in a patch of daylilies. The baseball-cap twins gave us to understand that they thought they would have found anything that was there, but that if we ourselves found something, they'd like it back.
I wish it had been the wild roses that he landed in. Well, unless he is innocent. But since he showed up a few days later in a near neighbor's yard, claiming to have lost a cellphone while actually talking on one, I tend to doubt it.
Last Monday, Raphael and I had just come in from a walk and I had just ordered Chinese food, when I heard five very loud bangs. Not like fireworks. I leapt from my office into the library, dithered a moment, and, things remaining quiet, looked out the library window. A group of people was gathering down at the corner of our lesser cross-street. I distinctly heard one woman say, "Do you think everything's all right?" and another answer, "I don't know. I'm calling 911 right now." Relieved of the need to do just that, I went on looking out. Four or five police cars showed up in less than ten minutes and blocked off the street. Vast numbers of uniformed officers got out with flashlights and conducted a minute examination of the street and the curbs and any parked cars. They also went up to the House of Ill Conduct, but I don't know what they did or found there.
I was worried about the deliverer of the Chinese food, and wondering whether to call the restaurant and warn them that the street was blocked. A lot of neighbors were milling around, talking and gesticulating. I couldn't hear much over the engines of all the cop cars; I did hear one officer say, "Well, we don't know; we haven't found [something]." As I was about to call the restaurant, I saw the intrepid delivery guy walking along the sidewalk, dodging neighbors and cops. I thanked him and reflexively asked for the usual amount of change. Then I was was sorry that I hadn't had the sense to tip him more than the usual. A couple of neighbors were arguing over whether the shots had come from inside the Evil House, but there was a secondhand report that a couple had been walking with their kids and had seen a car driving east on the cross-street, and that the shots had come from that. Nobody got hurt.
Our neighbors gave us a lot of background on the Evil House. It's clear to me that I am a very oblivious person.
A few days of quiet ensued. David went to California on business.
Yesterday the weather radio started going crazy at around seven-thirty in the morning. It was a dark humid day; we ended up under both a tornado watch and a severe thunderstorm watch. The latter turned into a warning as I was making a batch of fish chowder, but all we got was premature darkness, a little wind, a huge amount of much-needed rain, and continued alarms as the storms moved around the Twin Cities from both directions and then went on to ravage Wisconsin and south central Minnesota. Just what south central Minnesota needed. A little before sunset, the sun came out while it was still raining. I looked out the back stairway window. Sure enough, a big pale rainbow. I alerted Raphael, ran downstairs, yelled, "RAINBOW!" in the general direction of Lydy and Matt, and went out into quite a hard rain. The trees were obscuring much of the rainbow, so I went around the garage and stood in the parking lot of the business across the alley. The northern end of the rainbow was brilliant, glowing, with all the colors. When I was well and truly wet, I went in and finished making the fish chowder, and we all had some. It was really good, especially considering that it was made with olive oil and soy milk rather than butter and cream.
Just before ten, I left my bedroom to get a drink of water before watching fake news with Raphael. I was opening the refrigerator when I heard a gigantic whumping boom. I looked out the library window, reflexively. The police were already there, blocking the street in front of the Evil House.
I watched Jon Stewart with something less than full attention, and then went downstairs to check in with Matt and Lydy. Lydy had been asleep, but thought the noise was too loud for a shot. Matt thought it might have been a shotgun. We all agreed that we did not care for this form of excitement.
The police cars were there for more than two hours, and people with huge flashlights were going through the Evil House and its yard and garage. I could have sworn that I heard power tools, and wondered if we would wake to find the entire place dismantled.
When I did get up in the morning and look, once more, out the library window, to my amazement there was a yard sign for Ralph Ellison, a DFL candidate for the legislature, firmly planted in the Evil Yard; and what looked like sawdust in the street. Matt informed me, via a neighbor, that the whumping sound had been made by a SWAT team; it was a concussion grenade. It had blown out at least one window, which the police had boarded up before they left; hence, the power tools and sawdust.
Further second- and third-hand information: the people in the upper half of the house, which is a duplex, are innocent bystanders, and fairly freaked out. They weren't home for the raid. The pit bull that people have been worrying about belongs to them and seems to be a happy dog. Police cars have been going through the alley and along the street quite frequently. Several people did return to the downstairs unit, looking very put out. The stream of customers seems to have dried up for the moment.
I used to check the crime statistics for this neighborhood assiduously, but since, aside from a scary rapist who got caught, they consisted of garage theft, car theft, and minor vandalism, with the occasional burglary, I stopped doing it for a while. Catching up left me feeling quite cold. I did not know that there had been driveby shootings, with fatalities, a mere six long blocks away, nor how greatly local gang activity had increased.
P.
