Love Thy Fence

Police cars zoomed in the distance, their sirens piercing the crisp summer air. Birds flew from the trees, their wings fluttering as they soured into the sky, overlooking nosy neighbors peering from behind their fences. A short, stout police man parked abruptly in front of my neighbor’s house and quickly stepped out of the car. He then signaled to his partner, a slimmer man, who stepped out of the passenger side nonchalantly. They strutted over to my neighbor’s door, rapped on it several times, and peered into her small living room, yelling, “Police!” As silence met their call, one man walked to the back door. Suddenly, my neighbor, her hair flying behind her, dashed from her front door as the other officer cantered forward, wrestled her to the ground, and slapped handcuffs on her. The next morning, my parents built a fence. My father hammered wood polls into the ground while my mother rolled evergreen wire around the property. They planted trees that have since grown to ten feet along the border of our property. Then, they clipped the police blotter description of our neighbor’s crime (holding her boyfriend-of-the-week and his children “hostage” by locking them in a room) and hung it with a plaque of their favorite proverb: “Love your neighbor, but do not pull down your fence”. This fence and my parents’ obsession, both a blessing and a curse, overwhelm and restrict me, like Barthelme’s balloon, always protecting me from harm--and from the neighbors. Even though some days, like the day of my neighbor’s second arrest for theft of credit card numbers, I feel a “sheltered, warmed” feeling, most days, I feel “constrained” (3). Most days, I find myself dreaming of taking risks, scaling the fence and escaping my parents’ secure little world. Yet, I still find myself building internal fences, never letting down my own guard, rarely leaving my comfort zone. One day, I suppose, I may scale the fence; but I know that inevitably I will reconstruct that barrier, forgetting the constraint, only remembering the warm brown and evergreen hues of the fence my parents simply loved.