My backyard has a fence. It’s the kind that’s shared with the yards next to it, and the gaps between the slats are pretty wide so there isn’t much privacy all things considered. Because of how the area is set up we have a parking lot right behind us so I’m pretty used to strangers coming and going. This isn’t a sketchy neighborhood. I mean, it’s in a city so it’s not exactly a suburb but nothing suspicious ever goes down around here. Sometimes someone will mistake our back gate for there’s and try to get in and that can be pretty spooky if it happens at night, but they usually realize their mistake pretty quickly and move on. We’ve never had people try to purposefully fuck with us or mess with the fence before so I was pretty surprised when the other night I saw a pair of hands reach over the top of the gate and rattle it around.
After the initial shock of “woah someone I don’t know is trying to get in” settled i noticed something weird. Try as I might I couldn’t see anyone through the slats. The parking lot is well lit by street lamps, but not even a shadow seemed visible. I yelled that they had the wrong house but they kept on rattling the gate, in short bursts, like they wanted to rip the hinges off. I yelled that they should back off, that I would call the cops, and that made them stop. For a minute. The hands stayed there gripping the top of the gate, I almost want to say the knuckles were white with effort. Right as I was about to yell again the hands let go. I thought that meant whoever it was moved on, but then I heard a gruff voice say “If you don’t let me in I’m going to climb over this fence!”
The anxiety that kept me rooted in place, fear of turning my back on the hands, switched to the adrenaline rush need to bolt back inside the house and lock the door. I yelled at my roommates that there was a guy trying to get into our backyard and that we needed to call the cops. I grabbed a knife that someone was using to cut fruit and told everyone to make sure the place was locked up. After what felt like forever, but was more like 10 minutes, there’s a knocking at the front door. The police were here. 2 of them. I told them what had happened and they went to the back yard to check it out. They sent someone around the street and the other looked out the window before talking on his radio and then entered the back yard.
As far as they could tell no one was around. The officer that went around searched the parking lot and the one that stayed behind checkout our small back yard. Maybe it was the paranoia, but I swear the back gate had a scratch on it that wasn’t there before.
And the worst part? The thing that keeps me up at night? Our back gate doesn’t lock. Been busted for months.