I am an avid reader. At least I am when not in the throes of an obsession with Sudoku or a jigsaw puzzle. I am susceptible to falling into some kind of unhealthy jigsaw puzzle spell, resulting in an OCD-like singular focus that has been known to interfere with other day-to-day activities, such as sleeping, getting to work on time, or spending time with my family.
Despite these occasional lapses from my usual state of sound mental health; I have been a reader my whole life, and enjoy talking about books with friends–preferably while also drinking wine. A couple years ago, I initiated a book club with a group of friends, and our unofficial name became “The CSI Book Club” based on the memorable evening that a SWAT team livened up our gathering. Below is a photo from my friend Kate’s front window, taken by myself before the cops advised me that it would be best if I wasn’t standing at the window. I believe the actual quote was more along the lines of ” GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW NOW!!!”
I saw the wisdom of that advice and withdrew to the couch, where I took immediate action by posting this photo on FaceBook. I was immediately inundated with comments of concern. When I posted that this was taking place NOW at book club, one of my friends asked if we had an overdue library book. She cracks me up!
Clearly, I did not feel in real danger, or I would have been shivering in the closet, versus sitting on the couch finishing a bottle of wine and posting pictures on FB from my phone. Our book club session had started in the usual fashion: with us circled around Kate’s kitchen table with a view of her backyard while snacking and uncorking the wine. At one point, one of the ladies calmly asked “Why is there a man in your yard with a gun?” Huh, that was kind of weird. We watched the man with what looked like a shotgun wander about for awhile in Kate’s yard and debated whether or not to call the cops. Our judgement may have been slightly impaired. At one point he wandered out of sight, and when he came back into view, he did not have the gun.
One of my book club friends works in the criminal justice system. Shelley is all of 5’2′ and one of the bravest individuals I know. She went out to talk to the man. Shelley kept her distance and we could not hear the conversation but we were watching intently and knew what to do when she looked up at us and pantomimed putting a phone to her ear. Kate made the 911 call, and Shelley calmly rejoined us in the kitchen. Apparently mystery man denied having gun at all, which was clearly a lie and highly suspicious.
We were expecting 1-2 cops at the door, but what showed up was a SWAT team in full riot gear. Our mystery man had disappeared and wasn’t in sight when they arrived, so the police were sweeping the area with weapons at the ready. They interviewed several of us (not me, I was too busy posting pictures on FB and refilling my wine glass).
They did find the man and the gun. It turns out that he was from the neighborhood and did not have a plausible reason for being in Kate’s yard with a weapon and was taken into custody. The end to the whole episode was somewhat anti-climatic.
As a post-script Kate moved about a year ago to another neighborhood. She was robbed last week. I don’t think we’re going to let her host anymore.