Home Invasion

Home Invasion

At first I assumed it was a combination of obvious external sources?a dread overcast day, a lack of sleep, some recurring digestive problems and a double-whammy of bad news on the professional front. Add to that a mountain of chores, both large and small, which needed to be taken care of in the immediate future, and you've got yourself a surefire recipe for a mild case of misery.

It wasn't the devastating kind of existential misery that makes you seriously contemplate anything nasty?it was the kind that would pass. I've had enough experience with both kinds, so I can recognize what sort will pass, and what sort won't. Most miseries pass. Most, in fact, are pretty pathetic when you look back on them. Yet as I sat there in the office, staring at the screen, trying to work up the energy to be "funny," I knew it wasn't going to pass immediately. It might have been ultimately pathetic, but it still wasn't any fun. I felt myself sinking lower, growing more surly and grim, without really knowing why?apart from those things I'd already mentioned. All of those things together might've been enough to bring it on, but I still had the sense there was more to it.

Around 2, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to type another word for the rest of the day. Besides, there were a few daylight errands that needed doing. I had to pick up a new set of contacts and was hoping to scan over the new construction site just outside my subway stop. It had tripped me up but good every morning and every night that week. I figured if I could get some sense in broad daylight of how it was configured, it might cut down on my traveling time and frustration.

So I packed up and slumped to the train. Once in Brooklyn, I surveyed the construction site and its rickety pedestrian walkway, wondering how in the hell I ever made it through that thing alive once, let alone half a dozen times. Some things are better left unstudied. I picked up the contact lenses, picked up some beer and continued slumping toward my apartment.

I unlocked the front door and let myself in. Checked the mail. Nothing. Then slowly began climbing the stairs to my small apartment. The hallway smelled of Pine-Sol.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I found my apartment door open. Not much?just a crack, really, but still?that's all you need. My door was open, it didn't matter how far. That's not right at all.

When things like that happen, the mind immediately begins racing through all the possibilities: maintenance man? Cleaning lady? Some old stalker? Burglar? (You always save burglar for last.) And what about the damned cats? Where are they?

I stood outside the door for a moment, studying it. It was still locked?I knew I locked it that morning?but it was open.

I pushed it open a few inches more and stuck my head inside. It wasn't the cleaning lady, I could tell that. And I hadn't heard anything about any maintenance man coming over for any reason. That left just two possibilities?neither of them good?along with the cat question.

"Hello?" I asked stupidly, as if someone who'd broken into my apartment would answer a friendly greeting.

I stepped inside completely, closing and locking the door behind me.

The smaller of my two cats?the evil one, who would be much more likely to make a break through an open door?came trotting into the kitchen, yelling at me. One down. If she was still here, I was pretty sure the other one would be, too.

I stomped into the other room, completely ignoring the fact that there might well be someone there waiting for me, to check on the big cat. He was there on the bed, right where I knew he'd be. He shook himself awake, and meeped.

Well, they're fine. Now the real trouble.

Ignoring all the rules I should have learned from thousands of movies, I turned my back on everything to look for evidence of a robbery before I searched the place more thoroughly for intruders. TV and computer were still there. Nothing was on the floor that shouldn't've been. Everything seemed fine. But still?what if I caught them in the act? What if they hadn't had a chance to steal anything yet? I was home several hours early, after all. What if they were hiding someplace?

I dropped my bag and, being an idiot, grabbed the largest butcher knife in my collection. I don't really have any other obvious weapons around anymore, figuring they'd just end up hurting me somehow.

I'm in too much of a mood, I thought, to have my night transformed into a bad remake of Wait Until Dark. I didn't even have a can of gasoline around.

I made my rounds through the apartment, throwing open closet doors before jabbing the knife in and among the coats and the pants. I went into the bathroom and checked not only in the tub, but beneath it as well. (If there had been someone under there, I would've been very impressed.) Knife in hand, I searched under the bed and behind the television, knowing full well how stupid I looked.

Because my apartment is a small one, none of this took very long. I found nothing.

Satisfied, more or less, that my place was free of lurkers, at least the human kind, I replaced the knife in the knife bucket. If I had other things to worry about, a knife wasn't going to help me.

No, it seemed pretty obvious that I was alone.

I sat down at the table, picked up the phone and called Morgan. Then I lit a smoke. What had happened, now that I sat and thought about it more rationally, seemed perfectly obvious. When I left the apartment that morning, I was in a mood, I had too much on my mind and I'd had about four hours' sleep. The closing and the locking of the door is such a reflexive action that I wasn't thinking about it. Not even thinking enough to pull the door all the way shut before I turned the key. That had never happened before, but hey?after a decade-plus of closing and locking that very door, I figure I'm due a major fuckup. Nothing was hurt, nothing was stolen, I got away, for once, very lucky.

Now that it was over, despite the unexpected stress and distraction, I found that my mood hadn't improved all that much. I'd been certain a scare like that would force the mood right out of me?but I guess all the things that were quietly feeding it were still there. Nothing had changed. After I got off the phone, I opened the afternoon's first beer, carried it into the living room (still keeping an ear open for errant coughs or shufflings), sat down on the floor and watched The Blob, waiting for night to fall.