Member-only story
Shootout at Dawn
an essay of real life
5:15 Monday morning. I was taking a shower, congratulating myself on actually being up, when I heard my doorbell and someone pounding on the front door. I assumed I was hallucinating and continued washing my hair. Again came the doorbell and the pounding. I got out of the shower and grabbed a robe, imagining various things as I went to the door — was it a neighbor come to tell me my house was on fire, a long-forgotten lover who’d suddenly gone berserk?
I opened the door and in the gleam of the yellow bug light I keep burning all the time was a tall man all in black with a helmet and heavy things on the belt around his waist. Police, I knew immediately.
“Ma’am, please turn out the front light,” he said. I turned off the light and leaned closer to the latched storm door. It was still too early to be unlocking the storm door and letting strangers in my house, even if they did seem to be policemen.
“Ma’am, are you aware of what’s going on?”
“No.”
“There’s a guy on this street firing a weapon out in the open, and we’re evacuating everyone on the street. Is there anyone else in the house with you?”
“No. How long have I got to get out?” I asked, a few bubbles of shampoo sliding down my cheek. “I was in the shower.”
