Butler, Octavia - Parable of the Sower

“Make sure they see you if you get first watch,” Dad said. “The sight of you will remind them that there will be watchers all through the night. We don’t want any of them mistaking you for thieves.”

Sensible. People go to bed soon after dark to save electricity, but between dinner and darkness they spend time on their porches or in their yards where it isn’t so hot. Some listen to their radio on front or back porches. Now and then people get together to play music, sing, play board games, talk, or get out on the paved part of the street for volleyball, touch football, basketball, or tennis. People used to play baseball, but we just can’t afford what that costs in windows. A few people just find a corner and read a book while there’s still daylight. It’s a good, comfortable, recreational time. What a pity to spoil it with reminders of reality. But it can’t be helped.

“What will you do if you catch a thief?” Cory asked my father before he went out. He was on the second shift, and he and Cory were having a rare cup of coffee together in the kitchen while he waited.

Coffee was for special occasions. I couldn’t miss the good smell of it in my room where I lay awake.

I eavesdrop. I don’t put drinking glasses to walls or crouch with my ear against doors, but I do often lie awake long after dark when we kids are all supposed to be asleep. The kitchen is across the hall from my room, the dining room is nearby at the end of the hall, and my parents’ room is next door.

The house is old and well insulated. If there’s a shut door between me and the conversation, I can’t hear much. But at night with all or most of the lights out, I can leave my door open a crack, and if other doors are also open, I can hear a lot. I learn a lot.

“We’ll chase him off, I hope,” Dad said. “We’ve agreed to that. We’ll give him a good scare and let him know there are easier ways to get a dollar.”

“A dollar… ?”

“Yes, indeed. Our thieves didn’t steal all that food because they were hungry. They stripped those trees— took everything they could.”

“I know,” Cory said. “I took some lemons and grapefruits to both the Hsus and the Wyatts today and told them they could pick from our trees when they needed more. I took them some seed, too.

They both had a lot of young plants trampled, but this early in the season, they should be able to repair the damage.”

“Yes.” My father paused. “But you see my point.

People steal that way for money. They’re not desperate. Just greedy and dangerous. We might be able to scare them into looking for easier pickings.”

“But what if you can’t?” Cory asked, almost whispering. Her voice fell so low that I was afraid I would miss something.

“If you can’t, will you shoot them?”

“Yes,” he said.

“…yes?” she repeated in that same small voice.

“Just…‘yes?’” She was like Joanne all over again—

denial personified. What planet do people like that live on?

“Yes,” my father said.

“Why!”

There was a long silence. When my father spoke again, his own voice had gone very soft. “Baby, if these people steal enough, they’ll force us to spend more than we can afford on food— or go hungry. We live on the edge as it is.” You know how hard things are.”

“But…couldn’t we just call the police?”

“For what? We can’t afford their fees, and anyway, they’re not interested until after a crime has been committed. Even then, if you call them, they won’t show up for hours— maybe not for two or three days.”

“I know.”

“What are you saying then? You want the kids to go hungry? You want thieves coming into the house once they’ve stripped the gardens?”

“But they haven’t done that.”

“Of course they have. Mrs. Sims was only their latest victim.”

“She lived alone. We always said she shouldn’t do that.”

“You want to trust them not to hurt you or the kids just because there are seven of us? Baby, we can’t live by pretending this is still twenty or thirty years ago.”

“But you could go to jail!” She was crying— not sobbing, but speaking with that voice-full-of-tears that she can manage sometimes.

“No,” Dad said. “If we have to shoot someone, we’re together in it. After we’ve shot him we carry him into the nearest house. It’s still legal to shoot housebreakers. After that we do a little damage and get our stories straight.”

Long, long silence. “You could still get in trouble.”

“I’ll risk it.”

Another long silence. “`Thou shalt not kill,’” Cory whispered.

“Nehemiah four,” Dad said. “Verse 14.”

There was nothing more. A few minutes later, I heard Dad leave. I waited until I heard Cory go to her room and shut the door. Then I got up, shut my door, moved my lamp so the light wouldn’t show under the door, then turned it on and opened my grandmother’s Bible. She had had a lot of Bibles and Dad had let me keep this one.

Nehemiah, chapter four, Verse 14: “And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, be not afraid of them: remember the Lord which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses.”

Interesting. Interesting that Dad had that verse ready, and that Cory recognized it. Maybe they’ve had this conversation before.

SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 2025

It’s official.

Now we have a regular neighborhood watch— a roster of people from every household who are over eighteen, good with guns— their own and others’-and considered responsible by my father and by the people who have already been patrolling the neighborhood. Since none of the watchers have ever been cops or security guards, they’ll go on working in pairs, watching out for each other as well as for the neighborhood. They’ll use whistles to call for help if they need it. Also, they’ll meet once a week to read, discuss, and practice martial arts and shoot-out techniques. The Montoyas will give their martial arts classes, all right, but not at my suggestion. Old Mr. Hsu is having back problems, and he won’t be teaching anything for a while, but the Montoyas seem to be enough. I plan to sit in on the classes as often as I can stand to share everyone’s practice pains.

Dad has collected all his books from me this morning. All I have left are my notes. I don’t mind.

Thanks to the garden thieves, people are preparing themselves for the worst. I feel almost grateful to the thieves.

They haven’t come back, by the way— our thieves.

When they do, we should be able to give them something they don’t expect.

SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2025

Our thieves paid us another visit last night.

Maybe they weren’t the same ones, but their intentions were the same: To take away what someone else has sweated to grow and very much needs.

This time they were after Richard Moss’s rabbits.

Those rabbits are the neighborhood’s only livestock except for some chickens the Cruz and Montoya families tried to raise a few years ago. Those were stolen as soon as they were old enough to make noise and let outsiders know they were there. The Moss rabbits have been our secret until this year when Richard Moss insisted on selling meat and whatever his wives could make from raw or tanned rabbit hides out beyond the wall. The Mosses had been selling to us all along, of course, meat, hides, fertilizer, everything except live rabbits. Those he hoarded as breeding stock. But now, stubborn, arrogant, and greedy, he had decided he could earn more if he peddled his merchandise outside. So, now the word is out on the street about the damned rabbits, and last night someone came to get them.