First Annual Burglary Day: A Dispatch From the End of Personal Security

    “So, what happened?”

    “Well... someone broke in and stole a bunch of my stuff.”

----- I -----

Our family dog, a miniature schnauzer named Shimmer, used to sleep in a recliner beside the front door when nobody was home.  This may sound sweet, the idea of her waiting as close to the door as possible for her humans to return, but we know that wasn't the case.  For one thing, I'm fairly certain she was more immediately concerned with the view out of the nearby window than she was with our return.  And then there's also the fact that she was never in said recliner when any of us came home.  Because that was against the rules, and she knew it.

Shimmer was only allowed on the couches if she was with one of us -- which was indeed often.  But rare were the times when you might find her relaxing on the sofa alone, catching up on her soaps.  Because she knew the rules (and because she didn't watch soaps).  So when her powerful little ears would catch the sound of her humans' keys jingling before the door, she'd bolt from the recliner, directly into her bed, where she would pretend to be asleep.  That last part is worthy of being read twice, because it was pretty fascinating behavior to witness -- a (guilty) dog pretending to be asleep, only 'waking up' once you'd entered the room completely.

Discovering her deceit was at once frustrating and adorable.  Who knows how long she had us fooled, until the day that I came in and noticed the recliner rocking ever so slightly, in an otherwise empty house.  Across the living room, Shimmer was in her bed, yawning and stretching as if she'd only just become aware of my arrival.  Alternating glances between the recliner and the dog, I realized she was exhibiting her tell-tale habit of avoiding eye-contact when she knew she had been busted.  As I placed my hand on the recliner, searching for the warmed surface she'd left behind, she doubled down on her act, feigning interest in something down the adjacent hallway.

I began to pay closer attention, hoping to ultimately catch her in the act.  The next day, I'd park out by the road, close my car door softly, and approach the house with assassin-like care and pacing, each step landing quietly on my toes.  If I loosened my grip, the keys would jingle, and through the door I'd hear Shimmer's dismount -- the momentary rattle and then abrupt silence of her collar betraying her swift escape.  But if I firmly gripped all of the keys in my palm, save for the house key readied between my thumb and forefinger, she'd never hear me coming.  I’d accepted the challenge of sneaking up on a sleeping dog.

Day after day, we repeated this contest, me sneaking to the front door, attempting to quietly – but quickly -- slip the key into the hole at the end of the door knob.  But so often I would bump into the doorknob, or let a single key clatter into another.  It became an exercise in stealth, precision, speed -- an exercise eventually culminating in a moment of close-quartered eye contact with a startled, stunned schnauzer, the how-are-you-right-here shock apparent on her bearded little face.  Never able to stay mad at her for more than a second, I'd always crumble under the weight of her sad eyes, and so she ultimately got away with the recliner treason.

Nonetheless, we continued this game for quite some time.  And to this day, I never miss a keyhole, often coming in so cleanly that you can scarcely make out the clicks of the key addressing the tumblers inside the cylinder.  A decade later and over seven hundred miles away, I can almost open my front door without breaking stride.

On November 12th, 2015, I'm not even sure I turned the key at all.

----- II -----

“When did you first notice the burglary?" asked the 911 dispatch operator.

I paused, uncertain of an appropriate answer.  I mean, it was an obvious question really, and it probably had an obvious, however approximate, answer.  But not so obvious was the exact moment at which the dawning flooded over me.  Upon pushing open the unrestrained door, I remember looking immediately towards the television stand, seeing only an outstretched cable and a handful of speaker wires, lunging for connections they would never again make.  I leaned forward to peer into the shelves at the interior of the TV stand.  The open front of said stand revealed a missing Blu-ray player, as well as a dust-lined clearing once populated by a long-ignored video game console.  Within a couple of steps, and while thankfully noting that both guitars were spared, I remarked aloud, to everyone and to no one in particular, “You’ve got to be [redacted] kidding me, I’ve been robbed*.” 

* -- Note:  I’m well aware that being “robbed” and being “burgled” are not exactly the same thing, with the latter being a significantly less terrifying experience.  In the heat of the moment, though, one doesn’t quibble with semantics, but rather blurts out an expletive-bolstered declaration including whichever term comes to mind.

So maybe that was the moment it clicked.  Or maybe when I passed the disheveled bathroom, cabinets ajar, and entered my ransacked bedroom, with drawers from the chest in my walk-in closet scattered across the floor.  Maybe it was the comforter, mattress, and box spring askew, and the (clean) laundry in an uneven pile at the food of the bed.  Even if the unkempt laundry was really my own fault, it only added to the discombobulated scene before me.

Standing among the wreckage in my bedroom, I checked my watch -- exactly 5:00 p.m.  Walking back towards the front door and drawing my phone from my pocket, I paused to take a breath, pumping the brakes on my needlessly-surging adrenaline.  With a slow, deliberate exhale, I straddled the blurring border between fear and anger, both useless by now.  I glanced at the door, surveying the thief's method of entry.  The interior door frame beside the lock housing was snapped in the middle.  The broken molding, jutting out from the wall, pointed a triangle in my direction;  the deadbolt now comically ornamental, at best.

Playing back the 30 or so seconds before I dialed 911, I wondered about the look on my face when I had pushed open the door.  There was a haze around those first few seconds.  I’d been opening that same lock daily -- often multiple times per day -- for almost five years, becoming so routine, so standard, as to render the task completely invisible in my memory.  Maybe that’s when I noticed something was wrong.  I’d effortlessly slid the key into the cylinder so quickly that I wasn’t sure if I’d even attempted to turn the lock and recall the bolt.  It hadn’t mattered, of course, as the door was already opening under the ever-so-slight pressure applied by my arrival.

I remembered, at that initial moment, wondering if I’d simply forgotten to lock the door before leaving for work that morning.  Or if perhaps my brother had my spare key and was playing a prank on me.  Maybe maintenance personnel were inside, working on something, or maybe I’d absent-mindedly come to the wrong door.  Or had my subconscious, schnauzer-prompted key-precision finally outpaced my nervous system, opening the front door before I had consciously sent the command from my brain to my key-wielding right 
hand?

----- III -----

“Five o’clock, sharp.”  I responded.  This, the obvious answer, was the one best-suited for the dispatch operator’s notes.  She didn’t require the lengthy diatribe to which you, dear reader, have already been subjected.

“Is the burglar still there?” she asked.

“I wish he was,” I seethed, naively bent on vengeance.

After a few more questions, an officer was on the way.  While I stepped outside and downstairs to wait, I called the main office of the apartment complex – partially to bring them up to speed, partially to ask if anyone else had also come home to a similarly disconcerting surprise.  Aside from assuring me that the emergency maintenance guy was on his way to fix my door, the poor girl who answered the call had no idea what to do for me, especially not just before closing the office for the evening.  I didn't really mind, as I'd only intended to let them know, in case any other residents had been similarly burgled - which, by the way, is such a fun word, it's a shame that the experience is so decidedly not.

Ending that phone call, I then called my older brother, Steve, who lived nearby.  “You ever been robbed before?”  On a couple of occasions his car had been broken into, he said, but never his abode.   This was an experience that I, the younger sibling, would be having first.  I tell him I need to call my girlfriend, Lauren, but before I can hang up, I notice a police officer staring down at me from the third-floor breezeway of my apartment.  I abruptly end the call and rush up the stairs.

As the officer and I stand outside my doorway, he explains that he is not necessarily the one assigned to this incident.  He was already in the area, though, so an abundance-of-caution protocol sent him my way.  The other officer arrived only moments later, and we congregated in the breezeway.  They asked a few more questions before turning towards the front door.  They paused, glancing at each other, and then back at me.

O1: "There is nobody in the apartment?"

Me: "No, I've already been in there."

O2: "So you've checked?"

Me: "Well, it's not a big place, so unless he's hiding in the dishwasher or something... I mean, I didn't perform a full, bank-opening sweep but..."

O1: "We'll check."

Me: "You want me to wait here?"

In unison, drawing their guns: "YES."

I took a single step backward, caught off guard by the suddenly unsheathed weaponry. Having already taken a brief inventory of the damage on the other side of the door, I was confident nobody was inside, but this -- rightfully -- did not matter to the two officers now dutifully checking my rooms, closets, and (maybe) dishwasher for the law-breaking interloper.  They didn't know me, they didn't know my home, they had no reason to let their guard down before performing an adequate sweep of the apartment, making sure it was truly empty.  I appreciated the professionalism and seriousness with which they approached their service, and felt a vengeful grin curling across my face, the thought of a bullet-riddled bandit being stretchered out of my apartment.  Draconian is not always a bad word in my internal dictionary, you understand.  I knew nobody was in the apartment, and that even if someone was, an altercation was far from guaranteed.  But so long as the angry, hateful, knee-jerk portion of my gut was hoping for a burst of one-way gun fire, I figured it'd be wise to take a few more steps away from the door.  Despite the relative intensity of the prior ten minutes of my life, I found myself unprepared for the rapid procession of awe, anger, and anxiety spurred by the readied pistols.

----- IV -----

My apartment's diminutive floor plan took the officers little time to peruse. Within a minute or two, they'd opened the door and were beckoning me inside.  They exchanged a few sentences in terms largely foreign to my civilian ears before the first officer wished me luck and made his way back to his vehicle.  The remaining officer, Officer Dent, quizzed me on the missing items, provided a case number, and informed me that a crime scene team was on the way (I've watched exactly zero episodes of the eponymous television drama, but I couldn't help raising an excited eyebrow: CSI is coming!  I think Ted Danson stars on that show now, and if he arrives at my place, I am going to absolutely pepper him with questions about his time on Cheers).  In the meantime, Officer Dent was going to step out to his vehicle to get paperwork started.
 
"Um, Officer Dent?  So I'm not sure how these things go but... I kind of need to use the restroom.  Should I... should I wait?  Ya' know, until after the crime scene people have left?  Because, I kind of need a few...  How long do they usually take?"

His professionalism shaken by my inquiry, Officer Dent barely stifled a sympathetic laugh.  "I can't tell you what to do, there.  I mean, it's your place, do what you gotta' do.  Just... they'll be looking for finger prints and stuff, so, try not to touch too many surfaces or anything."

I opened the balcony door and lit every candle I could find.  I was about to have the fourth and fifth strangers of the day entering my home, and come Hell or high water, it was going to smell like French Vanilla or Clean Cotton or that "Leaves" candle my mom gave me, whichever scent proved dominant.  I'm typically pretty mindful of having the place clean (and pleasantly scented) when guests arrive.  It annoyed me to not yet be able to straighten the mess left behind by the burglar.  Under the circumstances, I had to accept that Ted Danson and his CSI crew would understand.

----- V -----

Emerging from the restroom a few minutes later, I folded my arms and leaned against the built-in bookshelf between the kitchen and the dining room, taking a moment to collect my thoughts again.  Maybe an hour before, I'd swiveled in my office chair, snatched my keys and wallet from a desk drawer, and hustled to the elevator bay, hoping to beat traffic on the Turnpike.  I'd had a normal day, and was about to have a normal evening, I'd thought.  And yet there I stood, overlooking the upheaval of my day, my home, and, to some degree, my long-term sense of security.  I'd lived in this place for the better part of five years, and, aside from occasionally-noisy neighbors or limited space for entertaining, I'd loved my apartment.  It had both my literal and figurative fingerprints all over it -- in the artwork, the plants, the well-stocked bookshelves.  It was very much my home, very much me.

The apartment complex itself is located in a markedly affluent and well-regarded area in the northern reaches of suburban Dallas.  The high school kids here play lacrosse (aka 'Privilege Stick') and are provided brand new, high-end cars at age sixteen.  There's not a single house listed under a half-million for a few miles, and the Tesla-per-capita of the surrounding neighborhoods demolishes the national average.  Yardwork, Christmas lights, and various parental duties are contracted out.  There are very nice parks, hospitals, restaurants and grocery stores within walking distance, and I lived right next to the three best freeways -- all tollways, incidentally -- in the metroplex.  Multinational corporations are headquartered here.  This is a safe area, a clean area.  The roads are smooth, free of litter, and well-lit during the evening.  The police are reassuringly ever-present.  I've never seen a nicer Wal-Mart.  This wasn't supposed to happen here.

And yet...

----- VI -----

I began to recount all that was missing or awry.  The big items were easy -- the television, the XBox, and the blue-ray player.  I'd actually only bought the Blu-ray player because it came with a subwoofer and some five or six speakers, which, combined with apps and Blu-ray capability, made it particularly more attractive than the lone speaker bar I'd initially set out to purchase.  Ironically, when the burglar took the device out from under the television, he apparently did not have time for gathering the speakers, as well.  With that observation, I could rule out Daniel Ocean's crew as suspects.

My watches were also gone, one being a groomsmen gift from my brother, a much nicer timepiece than I would have ever purchased for myself.  The other was my relative 'beater,' which I'd had for well over a decade, weighted only by sentimental value, despite its age and relative condition.  My everyday watch was still affixed to my left arm, comforting me with its wrist-specific embrace.  The valet from which the watches were taken remained tucked away in the only drawer still in the chest.  My sushi knife from the fish-slinging days of my early twenties sat untouched -- likely unnoticed -- on the bookshelf by the fireplace, and, as noted earlier, my two guitars were still on their stands in the living room.  My desktop computer also appeared undisturbed (precisely because it's a desktop, I assume).

Finally, stepping back into my bedroom, I marveled at the negligent stupidity of the Cro-Magnon invader.  As I’d been on the golf course roughly a week before, my brand new clubs and bag were still standing in the middle of the bedroom floor.  In order for him to get into my closet, where he'd discovered my watches, he'd have had to walk around the clubs, both coming and going.  Clearly, not everyone knows how much golf equipment costs.

Things grew a little more interesting from there.  Having recently been out of the apartment for a few days, a mostly-unpacked suitcase had been left on the floor beside the couch.  The vacant, suitcase-sized impression in the carpet made clear that it was now gone.  The new duffel bag I'd purchased only a couple of weeks before was lying closer to the front door, empty.  Putting the pieces together, Officer Dent and I surmised that the burglar had used the suitcase to carry everything but the television downstairs in a single trip.  He'd probably started with the much smaller duffel bag, before realizing the suitcase was a larger and more valuable option.   Later that evening, after law enforcement had departed, I picked up the duffel bag only to find the small, golden, Soviet-era medal that my Uncle Bruce had given me years ago, after his post-collapse visit to Moscow with President Clinton.  Until then, I hadn't even noticed it was misplaced.  This was a happy discovery.

Just inside the front door, unnoticed until now, was the black plastic box in which my hair clippers were originally contained, the #3 guard resting on an adjacent bookshelf.  I couldn't understand why he'd have been interested in a small plastic box full of clipper guards, or why the bastard had stolen the cheap clippers I used to keep my dome so well mowed; just to add balding insult to burgled injury, I suppose.  Only weeks later did I put it all together when I noticed that the charging station for my Braun electric razor was missing (I believe it wise to shave one’s face and one’s scalp with separate items) and that the original packaging for said electric razor was still under my cabinet -- $80 price sticker included.  This genius must've seen the price sticker and started grabbing anything razor-like that he could find, mistaking my vanity-ready clippers for the pricier (and relatively hidden) Braun.  I reveled in his minor oversight.

----- VII -----

The crime scene team arrived within fifteen minutes, and consisted of two women armed with a nice camera and a dusting kit.  Ted Danson was disappointingly absent.  Officer Dent, now back in my living room, inspected the books on the shelf by the fireplace.  He pointed out a couple related to the Second World War, and we warbled casually about military history and related podcasts. The crime scene team maneuvered around us, taking photos and dusting for prints.  I learned very quickly that I'm great at getting in the way.  As I am wont to do, I made jokes about my apartment, the robbery, and what everyone would like me to make for dinner.  For a man in an uncomfortable position, I was admittedly impressed with my own nonchalance.  As the dusting and photography proceeded into my bedroom, Officer Dent took note of a prescription medicine bottle on my kitchen counter.

"You know what really surprises me?"  He points to the medicine bottle, "That. They didn't take any interest in your medicine."

"That?  That's just for blood pressure."

"They don't know that, they just know it's as likely as not to be valuable.  Was that the only bottle, or were there others?  Are they still there?"

"I actually haven't checked."

We're in the kitchen now and I'm opening the cabinet in which I keep any medicines I have.  Making a quick pass with my eyes, I can tell that my daily prescriptions are present.

"All here.  Doesn't even look like he came into the kitch..." my voice trails off as I notice Officer Dent's fixation upon a particular item standing alone on the second shelf.  Raising an eyebrow, he picks up the unlabeled prescription bottle and partially turns to me with an inquisitive glance.

"Ihaveaprescriptionforthat," I blurt.  Inside the bottle are a handful of 0.5 mg alprazolam tablets – generic Xanax – for which I do indeed have a very limited prescription.  "I don't do very well with flying, so my doctor prescribed me Xanax.  I tore the label off a while back, I don't know why, embarrassed I guess.  I can find the prescription papers if..."

"I'll take your word for it,” he interjects, “you've already been through enough today.  But do not be caught outside of your home with this."  He places the bottle back on the shelf.  "That is a controlled substance, and you will be arrested."  For the first time since he drew a gun and inspected my apartment, I am reminded that Officer Dent is a member of law enforcement, and not just an affable member of the investigation crew.  I assure him that I travel with the prescription paper work in my jacket (which I do), and close the cabinet.

----- VIII -----

  Brad, the man assigned to handle emergency maintenance, slowly leans through the unlatchable front door, and I step out into the hallway to discuss with him what needs to be done.  The crime scene duo assures me they're done working near the door, so Brad gets to work, reconstructing and securing the door’s framework with 4- or 5-inch screws.  As Brad moves in and around the doorway, I am reminded of a minor detail I'd only half-noticed just before discovering that the burglary had occurred:  the neighbor's stupid penguin-and-snowman doormat was gone.  Having a Christmas-themed doormat in mid-November isn't (entirely) unreasonable, but this thing had been there since the guy moved in, back in May.  And now, just weeks before Christmas was to finally arrive, the mat had vanished.  I point this out to Officer Dent, finding it suspicious that the doormat, and likely the tenant, had disappeared on the same day that my place was robbed.  He'd already told me that most burglaries of this nature occurred between 10 and 11 am, which seemed to me the most likely time for a neighbor to be moving out.  Unfortunately, Officer Dent told me, without any prior argument, altercation, or threat, it was merely speculation, not enough to justify hunting down the doormat's owner.  I shrugged, but my suspicions were mounting, with frustratingly little I could do.

While Brad attached a new strike plate (flat metal piece on door frame which receives an engaged deadbolt) and the CSI team wrapped up their brief investigation, Officer Dent and I continued chatting about crime, the military, and history, more or less at random.  Occasionally Brad or one of the CSI women would chime in.  I found myself in an odd position between the three parties -- CSI, Officer, maintenance.  Varying education levels, upbringing, and personal opinions were on display, however muted by politeness and unfamiliar company.  Above all, there was a palpable sense of self-restraint in almost all commentary or expressed certitude, reminiscent of the conversations that take place among onlookers immediately following a jarring accident or tragedy.  Standing literally in the middle, the victim here had indeed had a rough afternoon, and as such, nobody seemed particularly interested in making it worse by risking offense.  All the same, my anxiety over potentially non-harmonious conversation crept in, and I was as agreeable and mediating as ever.  I am eternally grateful that no one attempted to steer the conversation towards politics.

----- IX -----

While the women from the CSI crew ask Officer Dent a few questions, I again think of Lauren, and retrieve my cell phone.  I'd debated calling or texting her earlier, as I knew I wouldn't have any time to explain until all of the intervening parties had departed and I'd made strides with my insurance provider.  Shy of a full explanation, all I'd be doing, I figured, was giving her something to worry about for the next hour or so, until I could find time to fill in the details.  On the other hand, if I waited until later in the evening to alert her to my plight, I'd probably be in trouble for not having contacted her earlier.  Now, I understand this is a unique and extreme scenario, but it feels like a microcosm of being in a relationship with a woman -- to be faced with a scenario wherein any and all decisions you make will be wrong.  May as well text her now:

     Hey, I am completely fine, but my
     apartment was broken into while I
     was at work today. Police and crime
     scene team here now, as well as
     maintenance guy. Cannot talk now, but
     will call when they leave.

     I am not joking.

        For some reason, that last comment felt important.
        Send.

----- X -----

The CSI duo departs, and Officer Dent fills me in on the basics of what will happen in the days and weeks to follow, including how to obtain a copy of my police report, which my insurance provider will surely request.  Exchanging the expected pleasantries, he bids me farewell and good luck.  We have that awkward-but-predictable "have a good evening" exchange, followed in this case by a sheepish, sympathetic chuckle from him, acknowledging the unlikelihood of my evening being a "good" one.  By comparison, I'd only previously enjoyed this sort of exchange after being delivered a traffic fine for doing 11-15 mph over the posted limit.

Brad struggles a bit to properly align the deadbolt and strike plate, but is soon demonstrating its sound construction.  As he tugs violently on the doorknob, he assures me of the deadbolt's fortitude, suggesting that the reconstructed frame is stronger now than when it was originally built -- likely by a disinterested subcontractor many years before.  Suddenly he pauses, sighs, and turns his face to mine.

"There's only so much I can do, though.  I mean, I can't guarantee that this is unbreakable.  Most of the time, if people want to break in, they're gonna' break in.  I mean, whoever did this, they're done here, man, they're not coming back.  But I don't want to lie to you..."

His tone, expression, and matter-of-fact delivery suggest that he knows more about this sort of thing than I do.  Perhaps in his younger days he participated in such activities.  Or perhaps in his more recent days, he, too, was victim of similar crimes.  Maybe he’s just repaired enough door frames to know how these things usually happen.

I hold the door for him as he steps out into the breezeway in front of my apartment.  As he guesses at a timetable for future cosmetic repairs, his eyes float towards the numbering plate at the upper third of the door.

"Look at that.  The knocker, the peephole thing.  They probably did that."
 
The metal cylinder that would otherwise function as a who-can-it-be-now peephole is missing.  Brad explains, in short, that burglars will often pry the cylinder from the outside first, allowing them to look back through the hole and confirm that nobody is home.  He assures me that he'll replace this piece – and possibly the entire front door -- in the morning.  I look past him and across the hall.  The entire knocker-and-peephole apparatus is gone from the door of the apartment from which the Christmas-themed doormat had also recently disappeared.  After following my eyes across the hall, Brad raises his eyebrows, looks down again, and shrugs.  It's clear we're both doing the same math now – that the intruder had practiced removing the peephole on his own door before venturing to remove mine – but without complete certainty.

"I find that suspicious," he says, "but, you know, I can't really say anything, working here and all.   But... yeah."   
And with that, he too is gone.  I close the door and sigh, knowing I still have phone calls to make and at least one ball -- insurance -- to get rolling. 

----- XI -----

Having gathered pen, paper, and my policy declarations, I sit down at the dining room table.  My first attempted phone call finds only Lauren's voicemail.  I hang up and call my parents to briefly outline the afternoon's events.  In the interest of time, I keep the conversation short, promising to better explain things the next day.  I let them know I'll stay at Lauren's for the evening and we say goodnight.  After a brief conversation with a member of my insurance provider's claims department, I have my homework assignment for the approaching weekend -- receipts, statements, photos, police report.

It's dark outside by now, the misappropriated halogen flood light over my dining room table giving a sort of garage-like glow to the apartment.  The relative hammer blows of my pendulum clock provide the incessant contrast necessary to properly define the otherwise crushing silence.  I'm finally alone, and am immediately exhausted, both physically and emotionally.  Did the last three hours really happen?

----- XII -----

My phone screams to life, shattering the silence – and most of whatever nerve remains.  It's Lauren.

"Hey,” I answer flatly, attempting -- via tone -- to beg for sympathy.

"Hi, babe, what's up?" she cheerily responds.

I'm immediately perturbed at her unencumbered and seemingly jovial tone.  This is not an appropriate tone for addressing such a delicate flower as myself shortly after said flower has been burgled (I do so love that word).

"Uh, did you not see my text?  I was robbed.  Or, burgled, whatever.  Door broked.  Things goned.  Much mess." 

I've clearly been rendered a caveman by the brain-taxing events of the early evening.  She had not, in fact, seen my text message, but rather was returning my missed call from earlier.  Naturally, my burglary news comes as a complete surprise.  Our brief conversation continues generally as you would expect -- her unleashing a machine gun burst of questions, me absorbing them like the heavy sandbag I've become.  I'm thoroughly drained, though, and especially tired of the now-violated apartment.  I tell Lauren I'll be on my way after a change of clothes and a final look around.  We hang up our phones.

I find myself afraid, for maybe the first time.  The adrenaline rush of initially discovering the burglary had overwhelmed most of the fear I must've felt at the time.  I was too angry, too frustrated, and too busy working out the next steps.  But now, in the silence of the television-less living space of my apartment, with all of the lights on and the window blinds still open to the rapidly darkening sky, I feel doubly exposed.  The living and dining rooms have taken on the feel of those which have just been vacated by a departing resident.  The furniture is all still there, of course, but the space feels empty, gaping.  I know immediately that I won’t be renewing the lease. 

----- XIII -----

There is that old, well-known saying, that a man’s home is his castle.  Perhaps an apartment is better described as a resident’s modern, feudalistic yurt -- but this one was still my home.  However unimpressive in terms of size and opulence, it remained the seat of my domain, heretofore untainted by the trespassing gait of unwelcome visitors.  From my third floor doorway, behind brick, drywall, and deadbolt, I could believe myself, my belongings, and my privacy to be safe.  There was a limited-but-certain sense of impervious defense enjoyed within my home.  That tiny apartment was the corner into which I could back, whether against a real, physical assault, or some intangible, emotional storm.  From that corner, I had believed I could defend myself against – and counter – any attack on my body, heart, or mind.  In this way, even a one-bedroom apartment can indeed become a castle.

But now my castle walls were in ruin, or, at the very least, damaged and vulnerable.  For the first time ever, I could sense the wolves looking in from outside and could feel the stranger’s breath still present in the well-conditioned air.  The prints of his shoes were not visible on the floor, but his heel-striking footsteps echoed in a space that was at once closing in and increasingly cavernous.  For him, it had been nothing more than a quick smash-and-grab, but for me, the events of the day represented full exposure and defeat. 

----- XIV -----

Within weeks, I’d replaced many of the items which were stolen, fully aware that I’d soon be reimbursed by my renter’s insurance.  Given time to think about it, I realized how fortunate I was to own the material possessions that I did, as well as to enjoy the financial security that allowed me to move on from the burglary with relative ease.   I also realized that a seemingly infinite number of instances over the course of my life may have led to my not being able to possess -- let alone replace -- the stolen items so easily – in short, I was lucky.  And that's without acknowledging my good fortune in not having been home when the incident occurred.

In all honesty, my usual toe-dragging may very well have found me without renter’s insurance, had the apartment complex not required it.  Aside from the cheap, older watch I’d hung on to for a decade and a half, nothing of particularly heavy sentimental value had disappeared, and my apartment was relatively whole again.  (And yes, Mr. Durden, I do realize that I am not my possessions – but I am aware of the ways in which many of said possessions enhance my life in a manner that I accept and appreciate.)  Sure, my sense of impregnable security had been shaken, and I’d perhaps learned to find better hiding places for jewelry, as well as the value of in-home security cameras, but nobody was hurt, and life was humming along with little-to-no financial interruption.  So this is clearly not a story of having my heart ripped out and my life turned upside down by mayhem and tragedy.  Clear perspective requires such acknowledgement.

----- XV -----

On the other hand, a new timidity and wariness crept into my daily life.  Within a couple of days, the entire door to my apartment was replaced.  The new door was white, as opposed to black like its predecessor or the doors of the other nearby apartments.  It was an eyesore, to be honest, contrasting not only the other doors, but also the dark brown walls of the hallway.  More problematic, though, was the half-inch gap at the bottom of the door, through which both air and light were freely exchanged by my apartment and the atmosphere of north Texas.  Though I brought the floor-to-door division to the attention of the appropriate apartment personnel, it would be a couple of days before a sort of customized gasket would resolve the issue.  In the intervening evenings, I found it difficult to keep my eyes off of the horizontal beam coming from the light of the outside hallway.  Over and over, my brain projected the dual shadows of an unwanted visitor’s feet suddenly piercing the otherwise solid beam.  Though I was well aware of my imagination’s penchant for betrayal, this involuntary trick of the subconscious was sufficient for maintaining my elevated post-burglary cortisol levels.


The molding around the inside of my door, though functionally repaired, still showed cracks where the burglar’s crowbar had split the frame.  The interior paint surrounding the molding had splintered away in irregular patterns, and -- at least for a couple of days -- sawdust and paint chips remained on the tiled entryway.  Outside in the hallway, more sawdust gathered with bits of chipped door frame, permanently entangling themselves in my welcome mat.  The inside edge of the exterior door frame remained cracked and offset, with the aforementioned white door taking on the appearance of a gauze bandage.  It was impossible to come home and not feel at least a little traumatized by the numerous reminders of invasion.

I became acutely aware of the absence of movement on my floor.  Of the three other apartments surrounding mine, the two down the hall were often left empty for days at a time.  One was leased by a middle-aged man who either lived elsewhere or worked elsewhere, as he would only re-appear, suitcase in hand, every other week or so.  The other unit was rented by a guy about my age, whose work schedule regularly found him out of town on 2- or 3-day business trips.  Recently vacated by a young couple I’d befriended, the apartment directly across the hall had subsequently been leased by someone that I had not yet met, and had on only one occasion even seen.  Between the missing doormat, the still-missing peephole apparatus, and the coincidentally-timed burglary of my apartment, I accepted that he and I would remain strangers.  For the first time since moving in, the relative lack of regularly-present neighbors became an imposing burden, a projection of undesired isolation.

Nightly, I stood just inside my apartment, peering through the tiny peephole towards the door of the apartment across the hall.  Recessed a couple of feet from the hallway and set at the far edge of the cone of light coming from the fixture above, the opposing door took on an ominous persona all its own, despite the apparent vacancy beyond its protection.  I knew it was over, I knew nobody was coming home, and, deep down, I knew I’d find neither confrontation nor resolution here.  But the inanimate, emotionless ghost loitered, and I succumbed to the urge to meet its gaze.

----- XVI -----

As weeks passed, I remained wary of the apartment across the hall, always pausing to deliver an accusing glance at the door.  It became, in my mind, a shrine to the thief’s laughter in my face.  I wanted to know everything about that apartment, everything about the vanishing tenant.  I knew the apartment complex could give me no names, workplaces, or forwarding addresses, despite the countless schemes I drew up in my mind for retrieving such private information.  I performed numerous internet searches of the address and apartment number, hoping to somehow stumble into the tenant’s name, Facebook page, résumé, something.  On numerous occasions, I approached the door and peered back into the apartment through the missing peephole.  Filtered through the halfway-closed blinds across the room, only the slim, horizontal lines of sunlight littered the floor.  He was clearly gone, and I felt silly for vilifying an empty apartment.

Days and weeks continued to fly by.  The missing knocker-and-peephole on the opposing door remained unrepaired, the apartment vacant.  No maintenance personnel appeared, and nobody came to replace or even clean the carpets.  I’d lived at this complex long enough to know that the management company rarely allowed so much as two weeks to pass without having a new resident in place.  And yet this particular unit hadn’t received the slightest attention in nearly a month.  I began to suspect that my thieving neighbor had not merely moved out the day of the burglary, but rather that he’d left with an intentional abruptness, bailing on his rent payment, giving no prior notice to the front office.  The apartment complex was unaware that the unit across from me was vacant, which explained their apparent disinterest in preparing for a new tenant.

----- XVII -----

Roughly six weeks after the burglary, the cosmetic evidence of the unhappy event continued to haunt my time spent at home.  The cracked molding, the white door, the chipped interior paint, and other imperfections were not being addressed.  My long-abiding patience had ended.  I fired off a terse e-mail to the office manager, sarcastically questioning the new normal while pointing out the sorry state of having to face invasion reminders daily.  My phone rang within minutes.

The property manager, Janelle, apologized immediately, albeit with no explanation for the neglect.  She mentioned, however, that she had actually been in the breezeway of my floor earlier that day, “for something else,” and noticed the condition of my apartment door.  She assured me that the cosmetic repairs would be made soon.

But why had she been on the third floor that morning?   The two travel-happy neighbors down the hall had not moved out, nor had any routine maintenance been requested by the three of us.  There were no office-to-tenant notices left on our doors, and no walk-throughs by potential “future residents.”  The six-week timeline had pushed us into a new month, and we were now a couple of days past the two- or three-day grace period available for paying rent.  Clearly she had become aware of the vacant apartment across the hall, its status brought to light by another missing rent payment.  This was the “something else” to which Janelle must have been referring.  Not only were my door and living room painted within a couple of days, but between-tenant maintenance started across the hall on the day after this conversation, only serving to prove my suspicions.

----- XVIII -----

Before our conversation ended, though, it became clear that Janelle’s curiosity was sufficiently piqued regarding the mid-November burglary.

“So, what happened?” she asked.

“Well... someone broke in and stole a bunch of my stuff,” I sarcastically deadpanned.  Usually friendly and long-winded, I opted instead to continue speaking in the tone of the short-and-decidedly-unsweet e-mail that prompted her phone call.

“Well, yeah, I know that.  I mean, do you know who… Did they find out… Did the police tell you who it…”   She was stumbling over a clear question, presumably stunted by attempted professionalism, the sense that she shouldn’t ask anything too direct, or give away her own suspicions.  But we both knew what she was trying to ask – did I know who did it?   Instead, she finally settled on a question a bit less precise: “Have the police found anything?”

“No.  Not to my knowledge.  But I have my own ideas.”

“So you think you know who did it?”  There you go, Janelle, spit it out.

“I can’t be 100% sure, no, but only because I didn’t watch them do it.  But I have my suspicions.  I don't have enemies in this town, nobody threatening me, and my apartment is not exactly the most optimally located for a random smash-and-grab.  But I know who most of my neighbors are in this building, except for one.  And now he’s gone.  And so is a lot of my stuff.”

“I think we’re on the same page, then.  I think we’re saying the same thing.  And I’ve looked into it… but I’m afraid my hands are tied.”

I hadn’t the nerve to ask Janelle for more information.  It didn’t seem likely that she’d be willing to tell me much more, anyway.  And even if she did, what are the odds I could locate the guy, or that he’d even be in the same state?  Could (or would) the police investigate him if I had the property manager backing me up?   And if not, did I really think I’d be able to track him down and launch his kneecap into orbit with a nine-iron?  And would he even understand why his kneecap was turned into a satellite in the first place? Acknowledging that a single “no” would bring down my entire Pyramid of Revenge, I abandoned the idea altogether.

If I’m being honest with myself, it is at least plausible that the now-missing neighbor was not the burglar.  Perhaps he’d moved out the day before, and I just hadn’t noticed.  Perhaps the following morning, someone had come to break into his apartment, but after prying off the peephole and finding the unit empty, had turned to my place instead.  It is not outside of the realm of possibility that this was the true course of events.  But that’s a massive and unlikely reach.  I accepted that a departing neighbor had broken through my door, ransacked half of my apartment, and stolen a number of expensive-but-replaceable items.  It’s a little difficult to know that, and yet feel so far from seeing justice meted out. 

----- XIX -----

Within a few days, the interior wall, the front door, and the surrounding frame and molding had been repainted.  I’d long since swept away the wood chips and saw dust from the area around my doormat.  New electronics were in the living room, I’d replaced the more valuable of the stolen watches, and with my new clippers, I was again shaving my balding head to a blinding sheen.  Eventually a new neighbor moved in, and though we were never formally introduced, we had at least exchanged a few hellos.  She seemed completely normal, commonly pleasant, and not at all threatening.

I would still hold my breath while ascending the stairs every time I came home, but less and less over time.  I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night believing I’d heard a loud knock at the front door.  I would discover un-stolen items over the next month or two which I had not even considered at the time of the burglary, and be grateful for their having been overlooked by the villain.  I’d tell my friends and coworkers about what had happened, often in a  matter-of-fact delivery, caught emotionless between my anger and the realization of how fortunately immaterial the experience had been.  Within a few months, I’d delivered my sixty-day notice to the ever-changing staff at the front office; none of the new employees had even heard of my unhappy ordeal. 

----- XX -----

        A couple of years have passed, now, and aside from writing long and self-indulgent passages of detailed recollection, I don't think of the burglary very often.  Sure, I'm a little less confident about the security provided by any front door, and I admit that I spent a few minutes inspecting the door frame of the place we moved into a few months after the burglary.  But I'm also more confident in the value of renter's insurance, and perhaps naively confident about the unlikelihood of this happening to me again any time soon.  I again feel safe at home, perhaps mostly because Lauren is there with me.  She's small and presumably not much of a fighter, so I don't necessarily count on her as a bodyguard, but just being at home with her provides its own sense of security.  Besides, the tenacity with which she argues is probably more than any potential home invader would care to deal with. 

        She makes fun of me for locking the bedroom door at night, which I suppose is an unusual thing for me to do. I half-heartedly defend doing so, somewhat certain of its necessity, somewhat uncertain about the extent of my own paranoia.  But more than anything, I hope we never meet a situation where she’s thankful that I've taken the extra security measure.  I feel similarly about the fire escape ladder she purchased for our third-story bedroom window. But at least her preparatory purchase was not prompted by prior experience.  After all, I have to assume that, in most cases, a burglar takes less.