Not in My Backyard

• Published in: Fourth genre 2018-04, Vol.20 (1), p.61-76
• Main Author: Franklin, Joey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Backyards; City councils; Curfew ordinances; Downtowns; Electronic cigarettes; Essays; Fences; He Jiankui; Homeless people; Homelessness; Homes; Libraries; Police; Tents; Tinkers
• ISSN: 1522-3868; 1544-1733
• DOI: 10.14321/fourthgenre.20.1.0061

For a few months one summer when the author was a kid, a homeless man slept in the alleyway behind our home. Our backyard shared a fence with a two-story Methodist church that went largely unused during the week, and the small concrete patio beneath its back stairs made for a quiet, inviting shelter from the rain. The man generally came and went under the cover of night, so we didn't notice him much, but occasionally we'd hear him cough, or smell cigarette smoke wafting over the fence, and we'd know he was back again. the author don't remember actually fearing him, per se, but fearing the idea of him that someone could so easily breach our quiet suburban bubble. And he don't know how many nights he spent sleeping on the other side of our fence, but he knows that whenever they caught wind of him in theirr backyard, Dad would pick up the phone and call the police. He felt bad for the man on those nights, and he knows Dad did too, because after he hung up the phone, he always stuck his head out the window and hollered, in a voice that was not unkind, that the cops were coming and he ought to get moving.