The Reckoning

1981 in a small town in Central Louisiana. A thirty-ish homeowner was awakened in the middle of the night. If you asked him today why he was wakened, he couldn't tell you. Just that something happened and he was awake. He walked through his darkened house, his pistol at his side, then stopped at the living room window. His hand moved the blinds and he saw a dirt bike stopped in the street.

Our homeowner lived on a dead-end street in a subdivision of blue-collar guys and families. He had never seen that dirt bike before, so the homeowner decided to investigate. He went out into the semi-darkness, through his carport, street lights illuminating the front yard. At the edge of his carport, in the darkness, he saw movement on the other side of his pickup truck, parked in the front yard.

That homeowner noticed a sledge-hammer leaning on the wall of the carport and picked it up with his free hand, then moved toward his truck. As he rounded the front of the vehicle, he startled a young man prying the hubcap off the rear passenger wheel. The boy stood, and the homeowner could tell in the light that the kid was high-school age. And scared.

"What are you doing to my truck?"

"Nothing."

"You want to steal? You want to take my stuff? I ought to shoot your ass right where you stand."

"No, mister." The boy was scared. "I didn't mean nothing."

"Well, then, let me show you what it's like. I worked hard for this pickup. How hard did you work for that dirtbike?"

The homeowner moved out into the street and swung the hammer with one hand. Hard. The headlight popped off the motorcycle and pinged down the street. The next swing went though the spokes of the front wheel. He worked on that motorcycle for a few minutes, until the muscles in his left arm protested. Handlebars, gauges, the last stroke broke the sparkplug off in the head. Then he looked at the boy. "That's enough. Take this piece of shit and get out of here. If you want to press charges, the police station is about two miles thataway." He pointed generally west with the barrel of his pistol.

The kid grabbed the bent handlebars and began pushing. The homeowner watched until he couldn't see the kid anymore. Then he walked back to the house, leaned the sledgehammer against the wall of the carport and went inside. He noticed that his alarm would ring in another hour, so he put on a pot of coffee and took a shower. He never heard from the police, or ever saw that kid again.


Some might say that this story is apocryphal, an urban legend. Maybe so. I have just enough inside knowledge to believe it is true.