That’s what the deputy on our doorstep
says he’s giving the three shooters
who park their 2018 Lexus in our driveway
and fire fifteen bullets into the darkness
while we hide under a desk on the phone
with a 911 dispatcher who tells us to stay safe.
The deputy says he’s not going to arrest them.
They’re just dumb kids who know nothing
about the law. They drove sixty miles
from the city to shoot guns in the desert.
They said they didn’t see the No Shooting signs.
They have a clean record and show remorse.
He sounds like a permissive parent or grandparent
unlike my strict husband who lays down the law:
No shooting after dark. No shooting near a residence.
No shooting on private property. Disturbing the Peace.
The deputy’s face reddens and his voice raises:
You are not a victim. They were not shooting at you.
We insist on pressing charges. I’ll need identification
to fill out the paperwork. He goes to his patrol car,
returns with a younger deputy and no papers.
You don’t have any priors or warrants, he says
handing back our driver’s licenses, letting us know
who he thinks are the real lawbreakers.
The younger deputy speaks in a level tone,
his eyes begging us to listen to reason.
They are only seventeen, they can’t pay the fine,
you’d have to go to court, and there’s paperwork.
We’re going to let their parents handle it
and if they come back they’ll go straight to juvenile hall.
In the end, we reluctantly relent if the shooters apologize.
The younger deputy herds them across our lawn
and under the dim porch light I see my grandsons
in the young man with the wheat colored curls
and the tall teen in glasses, but the ringleader,
who makes excuses, looks just like a politician’s son.
You tortured and terrified us for an hour, I lecture them.
Would you want your grandparents to go through that?
They shake their heads. But I see no trembling lips, shaky legs
or hangdog looks and know this is a familiar routine to them.
They look us in the eye, say sorry and shake our hands and promise
never to do it again after a stern warning from the older deputy.
We never see them out here again. But we do see them on TV.
Hauled off in handcuffs, they look right into the cameras and say
they are sorry for shooting up the school and promise to never do it again.
Sharon Waller Knutson, a retired journalist, writes poetry from her Arizona desert home. Her work has appeared in The Orange Room Review, Literary Mama, Verse-Virtual, Wild Goose Poetry Review and Your Daily Poem. She is the author of five chapbooks: Dancing with a Scorpion, My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields, Desert Directions, They Affectionately Call Her a Dinosaur and I Did It Anyway.
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