“How come they didn’t like the fence?” the second officer asked.
I had a dull sinking feeling in my stomach, like when getting caught in a lie.
“Look. These people kept using our yard for all kinds of things and we got tired of it, so we put up the fence.” The officers were impassive. “It doesn’t matter if they liked it or not,” I added, “they shouldn’t have torn it down. It’s our property. They intentionally damaged our property.”
“Well, you got that right,” the first one said. “It’s definitely damaged property.”
The second one turned away, unable to suppress a smile, and spat his gum on the grass.
“Well,” the first one said, “if you wanna file a complaint, we’ll have to talk to your wife and get a statement.” He looked at me, waiting for a response.
“What would happen then?” I said. “It’s not like you could do anything, right?”
“No,” he said, “but if you know who did it, and where they live, you could take them to court for damages maybe.”
The other cop had wandered over to the fence and was poking it with his foot. I looked over at Roxie’s door and windows and thought about Eddie running through our yard and jumping the flowers and going in to her place.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think so. It’s not that big a deal.”
“It’s your call,” he said. He clicked the pen and returned it to his pocket.
“Thanks but no thanks. We’ll just take care of it ourselves.”
Late the next morning, I happened to be in the alley behind our garages, vacuuming out one of our cars. I intentionally hadn’t done anything about the fence, preferring to let it stay there, speaking for itself. In the sober light of day, it made quite a mess. In addition to flattening the flower bushes, it covered most of the apartment building walkway, down to the sidewalk. The perpetrators wouldn’t be able to ignore it as they went to and from the street—they would have to traipse around it, or over it. I told Megan, and myself, it was just deserts for their misdeeds. I was ruminating about the situation while vacuuming when Eddie walked up and, a little too eagerly, gestured for me to turn off the vacuum so he could say something.
“Man oh man!” he said, “What happened to your fence?” He was giddy with barely suppressed glee.
“Beats me,” I said. “What do you think happened to it?”
“How would I know?” He grinned and looked around the corner of the garages, up the walkway, to where the mangled fence could be seen. “Man. That thing is wasted. Who would do something like that?”
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