Other Columns by Doug Patton
Doug Patton Bio

Printer-Friendly Version

Where No One Locks The Door
By Doug Patton
July 22, 2002

Imagine you are a child of ten growing up in a small town. You have always felt safe there. The crimes of big cities seem distant from your serene world, where no one ever locks the door.

Then one night, your next-door neighbors are murdered in their home, which is burned to the ground. Drawings of the suspects are printed in the newspaper. They look like dark, scowling men who haven't bathed in a long time. No one in your town looks like that. So why are the police planning to search everyone's car as they enter or leave the city limits?

The sheriff says that the leader of the gang that murdered your neighbors lives in a town made up of people very different from the people who live in your town.

"That's why they hate us," says one of your friends. "I heard that everybody in their town hates us."

Your parents gather the family together for a reassuring pep talk.

"The men who did this will be brought to justice," your father says. "And until they are caught, I will protect you."

Your parents announce that the front and back doors of your home will not only remain unlocked; they will be left standing wide open. You are astonished. Murderers who hate your family are out there, looking different. Why don't we just bolt the doors? Why doesn't the sheriff just stop people who look like them? Your mother says that would be 'profiling.' You don't understand, but the way she says the word, it must be worse than what the murderers did.

Miraculously, nothing happens for five nights. On the sixth night, you hear a noise downstairs. You wake your parents and follow your father down to the kitchen, where you discover a dark, suspicious-looking man rummaging through your trash. You can smell him from across the room.

Your father opens the refrigerator and tells the man to take what he wants and turn the lights out when he is finished. Amazed, you ask why he doesn't throw this man out and lock the doors. He tells you that locked doors are not the way in your town; to do so would be to admit that the murderers have won. "Besides," he says, "do you want him to hate us?" Angry, confused, you go back to bed and listen to the sounds of the filthy man in your family's kitchen.

Over the next fourteen nights, six men wander into the house and take what they want. One night, you open your eyes to find one of them standing over your bed. In answer to your screams, your father puts his arm around the man and escorts him downstairs to the refrigerator. The next morning your family discovers their home theater system is missing. Your mother sighs and shakes her head, while your father simply shrugs.

On the second night of the third week, just before sleep comes, you smell something that sends chills over every inch of your body. Gasoline!

This time, you don't wake your father. You reach for the phone and call the sheriff, who arrives just before one of the three dark, strange-looking men in your living room lights the match. The men are arrested, taken to the county jail and never heard from again. When you ask about them, you are told that it is a secret you have no right to know.

The next evening, your father gathers the family together again.

"I have made a decision," he says, looking straight at you. "We are going to have to institute a new policy. From now on, I want each member of this family to watch the others and give me a full report each night on what you have observed that day."

"You mean like spy on each other?"

"It's not spying," your mother snaps, "just tips on suspicious activity...tips your father needs to keep us all safe from the murderers. Show a little more gratitude, young man!"

"If we're going to be safe in our home," your father says, "we all have to make sacrifices."

"Besides," they announce in unison, "if you're not guilty of anything, you have nothing to worry about!"

You stare at them and realize that they are serious. Are they losing their minds? Are you? And suddenly you know that life in your town will never be the same again.

Note: Although inspired by policies about to be implemented by the United States Government in pursuit of "The War on Terrorism" (see www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html), the preceding story is fictitious and any similarity to actual people or events is entirely coincidental.