Kristen Fabick's Blog
beer and pants... / 06.09.08, 01:26 PM
this past weekend, lorens parents and a friend were in town visiting for our “come and see weekend”. they stayed at our house from thursday night until sunday afternoon. tiara, lorens friend, slept in my bed, and her parents slept in the mattresses in the quiet room. i slept downstairs on the couch….and its a good thing…
we went to bed relatively late (relative to my habits anyway) around 12:30. since we’ve been having record heat for the past couple days (and unfortunately it is to continue for a few more days) i had some trouble sleeping (we have no a/c, and our house traps heat quite efficiently). i heard loud and deliberate pounding on our front door around 6:45 am. i quickly got up and answered the door. it was a couple from our block. they asked “is that red car down the street yours?”. i said “its my roommates, yeah”. then they told me it had been broken into last night.
we went outside (i dumbly went out barefoot…apparently not considering that there would be broken glass all over) to inspect the damage. someone had used a screwdriver to break out the entire drivers side window and steal haleys car stereo. i know they used a screwdriver because they left it in the passengers seat. as we were talking about the car, another lady (i later learned her name is veronica) came up and joined us. i thanked the couple and they went on their way. as i was getting ready to go inside veronica said “do you have i beer? i could really use a beer.” i said “no, sorry, i cant help you with that.” (who wants a beer at 6:45 in the morning anyway?!) i told her we had a cookout last night and i could get her some food if she was hungry. she agreed so we went inside for a strange breakfast.
at her request, i heated up some mac n’cheese and a hamburger from the night before. she ate and we had a nice discussion about cigarettes (she asked—hoping she could bum a cigarette off me—if i smoked) and grandmothers. i told her in fact did not smoke. then i told her about how my grandmother died of lung cancer and made an early impression on me of the dangers of smoking. i also asked her about why she was in the neighborhood. she said she did not live around here (though i think she looks familiar..maybe from Franks Place—the homeless day shelter down the road). so naturally i asked why she was in the area. she said “oh, i have a honey who lives out this way.” i said “oh, ok” and that was the end of that conversation. though i must admit that in my head i though “wow, he kicks you out early, huh?” (remember..its still on 6:45 am!)
as i packed up a hamburger for her for the road, she asked what size pants i wear. i told her and she said she really needed some new pants. i tried hard not to laugh, thinking of her wearing my shoddy pants, and told her that i dont really have a lot of pants myself. i asked her if she knew about Franks Place (they have a huge clothing distribution room, among other things to help the poor and homeless). she said “yeah, im gonna get over there tomorrow”. and with that settled, i sent her on her way.i didnt think it was really that important to wake everyone in the house up at 7am, so i kept quiet about the car until about 9. then i woke up haley and told her i was going to call the police but that she would have to get up to give them her information and file the report. we would be leaving for church around 10:30, so i wanted to try to get the report filed before then.
throughout the day, our neighbors kept giving us advice about what to do with haleys car—where we should park it overnight, where we should get it fixed, how we could fix it cheap (by taking one of our neighbors who does car repairs to the junkyard to rip a window out of on old car himself and install it instead of getting it professionally done), and so on. they all seemed genuinely angry that someone would do this to us (and do it on their block…no one wants crime to happen close to their families). it was cool to see how the neighborhood acted like family and wanted to defend us and even avenge us (though we discouraged anyone to take avenging action.
we figure they targeted haleys car because she has out of state tags (missouri) and her car is an old dodge shadow that obviously looks like it does NOT have a car alarm. (and it doesnt.) also, that night there was an all day concert at the susquehanna bank center at the waterfront (2 blocks from our house). the guy that stole the stereo probably thought we were at the concert. that same night, i heard that 7 or 8 CARS got stolen from the concert’s parking lot. at least we have the car…
i say the “guy” that stole the stereo, because our new neighbor jack (hes actually homeless—though living with his brother merv just across the street from us—because he has cancer and cant work, but the government has been denying him disability checks for about a year) took it upon himself to do some investigating yesterday. i talked to him several times throughout the day about various things, from where we should park the car, his struggles with cancer, grilling hotdogs (he borrowed some charcoal to get his grill going), and how to get the car fixed. he sort of treated me like his daughter about the whole car thing. he knocked on our door around 8:30pm and simply said “i know who did it”. he told me he had done some investigating and heard that a crack fiend was bragging about stealing a car stereo on our street to some of his buddies. he said the guy is called conan and “hangs on benson st. in the empty lot”. he didn’t know the guys real name. i said “thanks for looking out for us, i don’t really think we are going to do anything about it.” he said we could call the police and give them a description of the guy. i said “yeah, i guess we could,” but i don’t think we will. at the end of the conversation, in reference to a conversation we had earlier in the day about parking the car right in front of our house for the night, he said “oh…and uh…now would be a good time…” and he looked from where our car was parked down the road to the empty spot right in front of our door. haha…i almost laughed, but instead i just said “you’re right. ill get right on that.”
there were so many positives to this event. yeah…i mean haley lost her cd player (it wasnt that spectacular in the first place). and yeah…it is a hassle to get the window fixed. and yeah…it will cost some money. but we really got to feel the neighborhood rally behind us. they treated us as family. it also gave me a lot of opportunities to meet some new neighbors and engage in conversation/build deeper relationships with neighbors we were already acquainted with. it also gave us an opportunity to respond to the situation with love. i could open our home to veronica and offer her food (though i think she would have rather had beer and pants). we could take the advice and guidance of our neighbors.
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That was a great story. I really enjoyed reading it, thanks for sharing.
By Joe Grove / Jun 10, 09:28 AM / #
It stinks that there was that damage, but like you said, your neighbors did rally around you, which is cool. God does work all things together for the good of those who love him.
How was your cookout? We had one Saturday too. It was cool… we had a lot of people we didn’t really know from just around in the neighborhood come by.
By Andrea in Chicago / Jun 10, 08:00 PM / #