I love my nosey neighbors. I live in a “bedroom community” – the houses are 15 feet apart per city code, lining one street after another. One day in winter as I was performing my daily 5-loads of laundry routine, we received a phone call from a concerned neighbor – across the street and down a couple of houses. She had noticed the steady stream of steam out of the house near the garage and became concerned. Obviously, she doesn’t have three small children or she would not have been. I explained to her that this was the norm and that I appreciated the call – why, it would have been GREAT if she had called and there had been an actual emergency that needed my attention. How nice would that be to have forewarning that your house was burning down?
Although I now refer to her as the nosey neighbor, and smile and chuckle a bit more when I wave to her across the street thinking that she is monitoring my every move, I do sincerely appreciate the fact that someone else is paying attention to things… Even more so now… Now that nearly 3 weeks have passed since someone brutally beat - and God only knows what else - Anne Pressly from Channel 7 news…
I am just obsessed with this… Mainly the fact that they cannot catch the person or persons responsible, then with the fact that she lived in such a close community, a safe community, which I used to live in myself….
When I lived in Cammack Village, just a few streets north of where Anne lived, it was a very quiet neighborhood. We were renting, just as she was (there are a lot of those)… But we had several neighbors that had lived in the area for 20, 30, 40, 50+ years… The houses were close together, although ours had a large front yard, long driveway, which made it not feel as if you were right on top of each other. We hadn’t “met” our neighbors, much more than just waving when you passed each other, maybe saying “Good Morning” as you both traversed the driveway, seemingly side-by-side, so as not to seem like you were ignoring each other. You wouldn’t want to seem rude by any stretch.
We eventually knew enough to find out in advance when the neighbors would be leaving to go visit their child ( daughter? Son? didn’t ask that ) in another city… One of those “We’ll be out of town, please keep an eye on the place” things… Thinking back, since it was an elderly couple it may have been more of “Don’t call the police if you don’t see movement for a few days” kind of thing… This notice that they would be gone was once met with a graduation party my husband threw for me – which worked out great – we had a crawfish boil and ‘borrowed’ their water hose to help with ‘purging’ them in the coolers that we had filled… I digress…
One day I was heading out and the “neighbor wife” was outside. She made some comment like “You are on the computer at all hours of the night”… I was taken aback a bit, but not surprised. I was finishing up my Computer Information Systems degree, and, being a very early riser, would do my homework in the wee hours of the morning. I just explained that, yes, I get up at 3:00 a.m., and yes, I’m in there programming for school… Then it became one of those “there is our nosey neighbor” things, and I would smile and chuckle a bit more when I waved to her across the yard thinking that she was monitoring my every move…
I can’t help but think of, and try to come to terms with what happened to Anne Pressly in such a quiet neighborhood on such a horrible night. I hear rumors of things that happened, to her and in the neighborhood that night. I heard that a group of three young men, appearing to not be from the neighborhood, had earlier that evening approached some kids from the neighborhood asking for money… Haven’t heard that reported on any news outlet, so purely speculation on my part. But, interesting…
Interesting that these kids didn’t find it odd enough to report it to anyone at the time… Interesting that they were not scared, didn’t have any uneasy feelings about it… Interesting that if they stared in the eyes of someone so brutal and violent, that they would not have ‘felt’ anything…
Maybe they went home that night and told their parents… Maybe the parents turned on the porch light and looked out… Maybe they double checked the locks on their doors that night… Maybe they were concerned... Maybe they weren’t…
I don’t have dogs… I have cats. And protector-cats they are not – although since they sleep with me, they will perk up their little ears and look toward any bumps in the night. So I guess they could be called watch cats. But you know, they can meow, but nothing that would actually frighten anyone away, at least not anyone with any sense. But I know people with dogs. And I know that dogs are very loyal to their owners and will do what they can to protect them – whether from another rogue dog down the street or a crazed lunatic wanting to cause you harm. They bark. That’s what dogs do. Some people believe that dogs can ‘talk’ – that they have distinctive barks for things. Like a happy “hi mom glad you’re home” bark and a “get the heck away from me before I eat you” bark… I can see that. I think I’ve heard both before in my lifetime.
We’ve all lived beside the people with dogs. There are the dogs that incessantly bark through the night. The dogs that live inside and you only see or hear when being walked by their owners. The happy dogs that you never hear – you only see wagging tails and smiling at you from the yard. What happened that night with Anne is just hard to try to deduce. Judging from the pictures and stories, I would think that her dogs were the wagging, smiling type. And judging from stories, they were very loyal to Anne.
So what in the world happened that night? If it was someone she knew, and she opened the door and at the same time let the dogs out, the “protector” ability of the dogs just disappeared. But, what if it wasn’t... What if Anne was letting the dogs out that night and someone pushed their way in the house? If more than one person, it would be simple enough to move the small dogs out of the way with your foot and shut the door behind you… But they would bark. They would fuss at least a bit – whether for the fact that they were pushed to the side or the fact that they didn’t know the people.
Where were her nosey neighbors? We all hear dogs barking in the neighborhood. But we know what is ‘normal’. So what happened? Neighbor hears the dogs barking, looks out front. Maybe looks out back… Perhaps turns on their porch light… Then goes back to watching Desperate Housewives or whatever else they have TIVO’d for the night… Thinking “Hmmm… Her dogs usually don’t act like that” and then continues on with their evening routines…
I sleep with a fan on for the noise… I used to enjoy hearing the train in the distance, the crickets chirping, occasional car passing on the street out front, but my husband has ‘trained’ me to sleep with a fan on… Now I can’t sleep without it. I cannot stand silence anymore, not complete silence. White noise is what they call it. I have to have it. My husband was out of town the week that Anne was attacked. My first thoughts were “I am turning the fan off so that I can hear everything.” We have the alarms on the doors which I can hear over the fan, but I can’t hear ‘everything’ with the fan on.
I lied in bed and tossed and turned well past midnight without the fan on… I heard everything – I heard the neighbor’s dog barking… I heard the tens of cars pass by out front. I heard the train in the distance. And all I thought about was the one window in the back of the house that lacks a blind. It’s our back door – and the kids gave the blind on it a run for its money when we first moved in. Now it’s just a window. If you were positioned just so in my yard you could see my kitchen cabinets. If you were standing on my back porch, you could see us all in the hearth room. I hadn’t thought about it much before that – it had never bothered me.
But that night, that is all I thought about. I also became aware of the leaded glass in our front door. If you stand on the porch, and lean in to the window, you could see what’s happening in my living room. Hmm, I never thought much about that either. And without a porch light, how easy would it be to stand on the front porch unnoticed peering into someone’s house? We don’t leave on outside lights for the whole “wasting energy” reasoning. We have a nice house, but nothing over the top. I don’t have a beautiful fountain or extravagant landscaping out front that I want to draw attention to. But, maybe looking good isn’t the only advantage to landscape lighting. I once thought that landscape lighting would just serve to light the way for criminals, now I see it as putting a spotlight on them. But this will only help you if you do indeed have nosey neighbors…
Anne fought and fought hard according to the grape vine… Good for her. I cannot imagine what this poor woman endured and can only hope and pray that she was unconscious and unaware for the majority of this attack. It was so brutal and evil, that I cannot wrap my head around what type of person would do this to an animal, much less another human being.
By fighting, surely she got in a couple of good blows to his / their faces. Scratching always comes to mind from my years of watching police dramas on TV. You always see the perpetrator with a line of fingernail scratches prominently on his cheek. Perhaps her wounds to him were not as pronounced, but they were there. Somewhere in our city, someone was walking around early that week with some bumps and bruises that were not there before that dreadful Sunday night.
Somewhere in our city, there is a man or men who participated in this horrible, evil, unimaginable crime. How do you get by with scratches and bruises like that and no one take notice? Where are his nosey neighbors? Did he come home at 4:00 in the morning a little more ‘energetic’ than usual? Did he give some lame excuse for some bruising and scratching on his face? Was he a boxer? Was he a drug dealer? Was he just a deranged lunatic that people know isn’t “right” so they let him go about his way? Did someone see him on Monday morning, before anyone knew what had happened, and stop and think “Man – what happened to him” only to turn away and continue on with their life. After hearing the news, did someone think “Oh, I saw so-and-so this morning and he looked awful, but, no… Couldn’t be him…” so just continued on with their life…
Is he the man standing in front of you in line at McDonalds? Shopping next to you in Wal Mart – buying antiseptic for some scratches on his face and arms? Is he the man in the car in front of you at a stop light? Is he sitting next to you on a pew at church – seeming a bit more intent on the sermon today than normal? The thought that the people that did this still exist in this world is so hard for me to grasp. The thought that this person is being allowed to see his friends, his family… He’s being allowed to go to his job if he has one… He’s being allowed to draw breath on this earth, and he has drawn several since this happened. All while Anne’s life is done… Her family only has memories and their grief left. This person is out there – perhaps sitting right next to you.
