A Stony Threat

"Maaaamaaa! Shshsh! Loud noiyze! Shshshsh! Mamaa!" Little Man was hollering at me from the big bed but there was no way I was going to get in bed, knowing The Man was out waging war somewhere in the neighborhood. I shuffled window to window, peering out into the dark in the hope of some clue as to what was going on.

"It's okay Little Man, I'll be there in a minute, just lay down and rest and be quiet."

"Mama! It's a minute!" he countered but I kept moving.

From Little Man's window I suddenly saw a head pop up from the other side of our six foot wood fence and three seconds after I saw it was The Man I jumped three feet in the air. After he glanced down the narrow passage along the side of the house and the fence he disappeared, moving toward the back of the house.

"Shit" I hissed and dashed to the kitchen to grab a phone. After another round to all the windows on every side of the house I realized that whatever was happening, it wasn't happening where I could see it and went to the big bed and half crawled in, soothing Little Man into hushing for awhile by handing him his sippy cup of water. Moments ticked by for an eternity and just when I had decided I had to go after him, at least out to the front yard to try to see where he went and had wandered back to the window in the master bedroom I saw something out in the dark, coming from the track.

It was The Man strolling along in his underwear in a way that told me he had accomplished something. I dashed to meet him at the front door. "What happened!? Where were you! I didn't know what I should do!"

"I chased the bastard down! Caught him on the other side of the track"

"What? Who? How did you catch him?"

"When I first looked out the back door I saw the kid, maybe sixteen or something standing on the other side of our fence, by the corner looking in our backyard. By the time I got out there he was crouched down along the fence waiving a lighter along the dead weeds along the fence where the school sprayed. When he saw me he took off. I circled back around to see if he hopped the fence but he wasn't there. Then I spotted him over by the pump house and took off after him." The Man paused to drink an entire glass of water. "he had a huge head start but I had adrenaline going and I couldn't even feel my legs I was" he demonstrated pumping his arms hard with an angry face and grunting and I laughed "I just had to get him and I was getting close, getting ready to kick his feet out from under him when he looked back and saw how close I was, he tried to dodge to the right but he tripped so he was down on the ground and I raised my arms up holding the rocks,"

"what rocks?" I asked him with huge eyes. "You had ROCKS??"

"Yeah, when I was out front I grabbed those two big rocks you have on either side of your little trail thing."

"You brought them back right?"

"Yeah! I put 'em back."

"Okay so you held up the big rocks at this kid!?"

"Yeah I held the rocks up and was saying what the fuck are you doing? and the kid was blubbering on in Russian so I said You better speak English or I'm going to bash your head in! and The Man demonstrated the way he shook the rocks menacingly at the kid cowering on the ground "Right away he starts saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It was a dare! So I told him never to come anywhere around our house or I'd break his legs and scared the shit out of him and he swore he wouldn't and that's it."

"Wow." We were back in the bedroom by now, climbing back in bed and I was overcome with the hilarity of it.  "Can you imagine what went through that kids' head? A crazy man in his shoes and underwear chasing him down with two giant rocks?!?"

"I don't think he noticed the underwear." The Man was not laughing.

"Oh yes he did. A person notices things like that." I giggled about it some more.

"You know what I wonder?" the man asked me. "IF his friends dared him, where were they? Why didn't they come out and stick up for him?"

"friends!?" I snorted "They ran when he picked up the rock! I bet the entire group hates that little shit and always make him do stupid things. Didn't you know people like that? They hang around and won't go away so everyone picks on them?"

"I don't get that. Back in the day, if that was one of us, even if we didn't like them we would have been right there in the mix."

"Not everyone is like you and your brother, hon."

"Mama? Night night?" Little Man asked longingly between us.

"Yeah baby, let's go to sleep." We all burrowed down in the covers and tried to relax after the excitement. "You sorta wish a big mob came out and you all had a beat down fight, don't ya?" I asked The Man around a yawn.

"nooooo…." he said in a tone I knew was a lie. "that would be wrong." he sighed.

"Well, I'm glad you just scared that kid."

"Yeah. Me too."

"Me too." Little Man contributed and we all laughed.