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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 3, 2002
My wife and I were on the verge of going to sleep the other night when somebody rang our doorbell -- frantically.
"What time is it?" asked my wife. It was 10:15. Too late for visitors. The doorbell rang shrilly.
Downstairs, I looked out the window. Saw nobody. Turned on the porch light and studied the night through the peephole.
A stranger trembled on my porch. A kid, maybe 16.
These are paranoid times, so I debated opening the door. But I did.
He was crying, hysterical.
"Please, Mister," he sobbed. "Let me in. My dad is trying to kill me."
I live on a dark cul de sac in a quiet neighborhood in the middle of the county. Nothing like this had happened here before. Why my home? Where was the kid's dad, if there was a dad?
Maybe the kid had a gun and his crying was a con to get into my house. All this passed through my mind in a second or two. I kept my hand on the door, ready to slam it if necessary.
"Please! Please! Please!"
Home invasions. Terrorism. Snipers. But the kid seemed genuine. Still, no way was he coming into my house.
"I'm not going to let you in," I told him. "But wait here. Duck behind my truck. I'll call the police."
I punched the 911 buttons and told the dispatcher what was going on. He asked good questions, told me not to let the kid in but to wait for the police.
Minutes passed, but it seemed like hours. My wife joined me downstairs and tried to look through the peephole.
"I don't see anybody," she said. I pulled her aside. What if somebody, crouched below the peep hole, fired a gun through our door? I turned out all the lights inside just in case somebody was in the back yard watching us.
Finally, lights flashed in our driveway. A car. Then another car. Then a third. The posse had arrived.
I ventured outside and told the officer I was the one who had called. I retired to my front porch and eavesdropped, because I do it well.
He was 14, the boy told the police. He didn't know what had set off his dad, but his dad had chased him down the nearest major highway, and he'd run into my complex and raced to the darkest place on the block. My front door.
The cops were sympathetic but tough.
"Son, have you been drinking tonight?" No.
"Have you smoked any pot?" No.
"Have you ever been arrested?" No.
"How about your dad?" Yes.
"For what?" Didn't know.
They got his address. A police officer roared away to check things out while the others continued the interrogation.
A officer came to me and asked a few questions, and I told him exactly what I have told you. And that was it. They took the kid away, leaving me on the porch with my thoughts.
I was thinking about my new granddaughter, born days ago, and babies everywhere, coming into the world as innocents, loved by imperfect parents and sometimes hurt by them beyond belief.
I have three grown children. I never spanked them, but I know I was tough enough on them emotionally to leave scars. My parents were good people, imperfect like their parents.
My late father was almost always patient, and funny, a terrific musician who loved taking me fishing and camping and to baseball games. We'd play catch when he came home from work and sometimes fool with my electric trains.
When I think of it, my childhood sounds to me like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, except for my dad's dark side, his infrequent violent temper.
Four times when I was small he beat me so hard with a belt that I ended up with bruises and lacerations on my bare buttocks. When I saw him coming with the belt, I'd shriek and run in terror, but I was a little boy, and he'd always catch me.
I said good night to my wife and tried to sleep.