From the quiet, dim interior of my car, I watch the quiet neighborhood, settle into the upholstery. Autumn. Leaves lofting on cool air. Tacky, ghoulish Halloween decorations adorning stoops and lawns, hanging from trees—skeletons, and jack-o’-lanterns, witches on brooms. It’s a school night, so no kids playing flashlight tag, no pickup soccer match in the street. Maybe kids don’t even do that anymore. That’s what I understand, anyway. That they’re all iPad-addicted couch potatoes now. It’s the new frontier of parenting. But you’ll know better about this than I’m likely to.
Younger families live on this block. SUVs are hastily parked. Basketball hoops tilt in driveways; bikes twist on the lawn. Recycling cans wait patiently at the curb on Wednesday, garbage on Friday. Tonight, there’s a game on. I see it playing on big-screen televisions in three different open-plan living rooms.
But the house I’m watching is dark. A beautiful silver Benz that’s about to be repossessed sits in the driveway. It’s one of those cars—the kind that people dream about, an aspirational car, the kind you get when… But it certainly hasn’t brought its owner any happiness. The guy I’m watching—he’s depressed. I can see it in his slouch as he comes and goes, in the haunted circles that have settled around his eyes.
I can’t muster any compassion for him. And I know that you aren’t shedding any tears. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you’ve spent at least as much time thinking about him as I have—even though, of course, you have other things on your mind now.
An older man walks his dog, a white puff of a thing on a slender leash. Not a dog at all really, more like an extra-large guinea pig. I sink a little deeper in my seat, then stay stone-still. I haven’t seen this man on this street before, and I’ve been here most nights for a while. He’s out of his routine, I guess, maybe decided to take a new route tonight. I’m not too worried, though. My car—a beige Toyota Corolla—is utterly forgettable, practically invisible in its commonness; the windows tinted (but not too dark). If he doesn’t see me, a lone person slouched in the driver’s seat and clearly up to no good, he won’t even notice it.
I’m in luck. He’s squinting at the screen on his smartphone. He’s older, not fluent with it. So it takes all of his concentration. That device is the best thing that ever happened to people who want to be invisible. He walks right by, oblivious to the car, to me, to his surroundings. Even his dog is distracted, incurious, nose to the pavement. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Finally, they’re gone and I’m alone again.
Time passes. I breathe into the night.
One by one, windows go dark except for the odd light here and there. There’s an insomniac in 704, a nurse who comes home after 3 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays to 708.
Just after 2 a.m., I slip from the car, close the door silently and shoulder my pack. I am a shadow shifting through the shadows of the trees, drifting, silent, up the edge of the house. I easily pick the lock on the side entrance—you can learn how to do anything on YouTube these days—and enter the house through the unlocked interior door. From the garage into the laundry room. From the laundry room into the kitchen—a typical suburban layout. I stand inside for a moment, listening.
I can still hear it, you know, the sound of her father’s voice.
I am willing to bet that you hear it, too. Maybe in those quiet moments, when you lie in bed at night, the wail of total despair comes back like a haunting. I imagine that your mind drifts back to that courtroom. Your face pulled tight with that helpless mingle of anger and sorrow, nostrils flaring just slightly. I was right there with you even though you didn’t know it. Or maybe you did. Sometimes I wonder if you know how close I am. If you sense me.
When the verdict was delivered, there was a moment, remember? A tiny sliver of time where the information moved through synapses and neurons, a heartbeat. In that breath, I watched her mother drain of what little energy and color remained in her too-thin body. I watched her father buckle over, her brother dip his head into his hands. The unforgiving light of the courtroom grew brighter somehow, an ugly white sizzle.