Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: FINISHED (04/09/20)
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TITLE: Fait Accompli | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
04/16/20 -
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For weeks, those neighbors who had moved into the run-down rental house across the street with the ever-revolving door had way too much noisy company. My elderly relative and I had begun a prayer session every day in front of the kitchen window over the sink.
Calling the police did not seem to help. When they would drive up, the party-bunch would scatter like roaches and then reappear as if by magic when the law rolled away. It was time to bring in the big guns—so to speak!
I am not known to be an angry, confrontational person, but something finally rose on the inside of me that had all the symptoms of being a righteous indignation take-down. When I did all that springing from bed, I forgot I was barefoot and wearing my oldest ankle-length flannel gown. Nonetheless, something propelled me out the front door and into the middle of the wet grass like rocket-mom.
Cars were lined up as if this were Mickey Dee’s place. Some kind of foolish ugliness was brewing as half of the crowd seemed to be facing the other half, all picking up rocks and wearing menacing, snarly faces. For a second, I almost laughed as I pictured a West Side Story dance breaking out in the moonlight.
I yelled, “Drop those rocks!”
Silence. No one moved. They must have been shocked to see a woman the age of most of their mothers assuming management of the threatening situation. One very intoxicated young man still sitting behind the wheel of an old dented station wagon didn’t seem to realize I was there. His loud cursing reverberated through the neighborhood and only ceased when I wheeled around and let him have it.
“Shame on you! There is a sweet, elderly lady trying to sleep in this house, and your language is extremely disrespectful, as well as ignorant and stupid. What if it was your grandmother? STOP IT RIGHT NOW!”
His drunken response stunned me.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Please excuse me.”
Wow. This was turning out better than I had expected. Give a tired, sleepy, aggravated middle-aged woman a little success and stand back.
“Okay,” I continued, quieter now and with the unquestionable authority of a nun-teacher or General Patton, “get in your vehicles and drive out of here as quiet as little mice on tippy-toes. I don’t want to go through this again. I’m exhausted, and I want to go to bed. You’re giving me heart palpitations.”
As I raised my arm and pointed, they climbed in the cars and pickups and drove single file down the street like a brigade of enemy tanks with no firepower. Not even a radio blared.
The next morning, I related the story to my little housemate. She said she had never heard a thing since her room was on the back, and mine was closer to the goings-on in the street.
We decided to step up our prayers at the window. We rebuked the evil coming into this quiet neighborhood of mostly older folks and asked the Lord for a solution. We even decided big angels at either end of the street would be a great deterrent.
In a few days, my son came in and said, “I was just talking to those people over there in the brown house. Did you know they’re moving?”
“Wonder why,” I smiled with feigned innocence.
“I don’t think they know. They just are,” he said, a little puzzled.
He added, “Just as well. There are so many cars stopping there at all hours, it has all the earmarks of a drug-dealing thing. I’m glad they’re going. You and Grandma don’t need to be around such a dangerous element."
By the next week, a couple moved in who seemed to be invisible. They were so quiet we began to wonder if they were okay. Most of the time, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. That was music to our ears.
What I learned for sure is this. Prayer changes things, sometimes we have to speak up in the face of evil, and there really are ministering angels. I left a few posted back on either end of a quiet, pretty little street with a flower name.
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*True
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