Brute Sleep

It's late Tuesday night, the six-year-old junior apostropher is asleep in his room upstairs, and I step out on the front porch to have a cigarette. But when I go to re-enter the house... Uh oh. The knob's locked. My keys are inside. And my wallet. And the phone. And my shoes.

Sigh. I've only been in this house a month and haven't gotten around to hiding a key anywhere. After a good ten minutes of ringing the doorbell, it's clear that strategy won't be sufficient to rouse him. Gravel at his window. Not pebbles, gravel. Lots of it. Nothing. Either he's deep deep asleep, or he's terrified and hiding under the sheets. Clearly this is going nowhere.

The good news is that nobody's breaking in through my windows without shattering glass. Deadbolts are locked on all the other doors. It's just the knob on the front door, but after a thorough search of the grounds, nothing in my vicinity approximates the strength and flexibility of a credit card to try that method. The corroding piece of aluminum from the little grill would almost work, except it keeps crumbling into showers of red dust.

I haven't gone and bought a ladder yet, but pushing the yard waste bin over by the lowest part of the roof, I manage to clamber up onto it. In front of my bedroom windows lies a good six or seven feet of shingled roof; in front of his window, about a foot. I had already established earlier that short of breaking glass, the windows in this house are frustratingly secure.

I crawl onto the little one-foot ledge and knock on his window. Nothing. Again. Nothing. For twenty minutes I pound on the glass, crouched up against the cedar siding, and I do mean pound. He never once even stirs. Dammit. Getting down off of the roof is a little more daunting than getting up was.

Walking back past my windows, though, I notice that the latch is not quite closed on one. I wrench the screen off, hoping I can jiggle the latch free. One touch, snaps shut. Everything is making me laugh now, and the laughter has an unsettling edge. I'm pouring sweat. Getting back off of the roof involves a shingle burn here and there, but all in all a successful dismount.

I'm going to have to break a window. I really, really don't want to break a window. But for some reason, it seems okay to try to break down the door instead. On the fifth shot with a lowered shoulder, the door actually flies open. The door frame was intact and unharmed, the piece of the door where the lock protrudes had given way enough to force the lock past the plate in the door jamb. Miraculously, the door still closes fine and can be locked with the deadbolt.

The kid never did stir. And I've got some serious doubts about the effectiveness of my neighborhood watch program. But I gotta say it's a seriously satisfying feeling to successfully run through a solid wood door.