Trespass

Getting out to look over my backyard was a wet prospect this morning. Nevertheless I went out to check on a sixteen wheel-trailer parked by the apartments on the south side of the shelter belt. It looked like a long one. You know when states outlawed double trailer-trucks, the trucking industry simply manufactured ordinary trailers as long as two trailers. Problem solved. No double trailers. But that is not my concern. You see when I went to my back cedar fence I discovered vandalism. Right. My fence extends four feet farther towards the shelter belt than my neighbor's chain-link. A piece of one board was broken off, as if an outsider thought to pull the four-foot part back, thinking that it looked to be on hinges. Of course it is not. It is an extension of my back fence. In years past the west side of the cedar fencing stopped with a four-inch post anchored in concrete. I had to add four more feet of fencing to the edge of my back slope. It was not on hinges and therefore defied entrance. Now I have a repair to make. My first reaction was: “Oh Bother” but it is more than a bother. I drove on the back street to see if graffiti once more adorned the south side of my boards. None. Good. Yesterday a strange man came through the neighbor’s back yard, looking back toward the fence with a strange smirk. As if he had disdain for such a mundane thing as a fence. He did not look like an ordinary high school kid taking a shortcut. He was tall and thin, dressed in black, his black baseball cap on backwards with the brim at the back of his neck. He looked older, quite out of place, both as a student and as an apartment dweller that previously cut across to visit with friends across Abbot street. I had not seen anyone like him before and many school kids walk past every school day. He did not walk toward the schools. He crossed the street and continued eastward on the sidewalk. That part is public property so I shrugged and went about my business. I wondered again about him this morning so I drove by the apartments curious to see if anything was amiss. I do not often police my backyard. Should I worry? That is not in my repertoire. I lock my doors.
Naomi Sherer