My girlfriend and I are spending a quiet evening at home. It’s one of those Saturday nights you start to look forward to in your late thirties, a night with no plans. When a quiet evening at home with someone you love sounds better than a night out at the club.
My girlfriend Jamie is settling in on the couch with our dog, Bucky—a Wheaten terrier poo, the cutest thing ever. Fluffy, white, big brown eyes, and hair like a cotton ball on the top of his head. We’ve just finished dinner and we’re watch a movie.
I sit down on the couch next to her—we’re talking about what movie we want to watch—when there’s a knock at the door.
Now it’s the beginning of summer, and the days are getting long, especially here in Southern California, and people are staying later, and admittedly, Venice Beach, where I live, is a pretty popular area with locals and tourists alike. I live on a walk street just off the boardwalk, which is more secluded. Cars can’t drive down my street, so it’s typically just people passing through on their way to the beach or back to their car. But usually, it’s pretty quiet despite the proximity to all the action, and you never—ever—get somebody knocking on your door unless they’re coming to visit you. And like I said, we had no plans for the night.
I look at Jamie. Maybe it’s some kind of salesman, although that’s unusual for this hour on a Saturday night. I get up and go to the door.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“LAPD,” comes the reply.
I look back at Jamie.
“LAPD,” I mouth the words, confused. Why in the world would the cops be here?
I listen for a second to see if I hear any sirens or something going on in the neighborhood that might suggest this is an LAPD officer alerting neighbors to some kind of public safety danger. But I hear nothing.
“Who is it?” I say again.
“LAPD. Open up please, sir.”
I get a bad feeling.
Normally, I’m someone who respects cops. I always advise anyone to just do what they say. It’ll go smoother. If you disagree, that’s what we have courts for. But a cop knocking on your door at 8:30 on a Saturday night is unusual.
Something—a voice in my head, maybe—tells me: Don’t open the door.
So instead, I go over to the window in the room just off the front foyer—my office. From that angle, I can see into the yard giving me a partial view of the front door.
I pull back the curtain. I can see a man, — or at least half of him anyway. His body is partially obscured, cut off by the edge of my window. Even without a clear view, I know this guy is no cop. He’s wearing baggy beige pants that look dirty and stained, and a white T-shirt that looks about three sizes too big. He’s lanky and raggedy. Skeletal. Like a meth addict or something. He’s rocking back and forth.
My breath catches in my throat.
In his hand he holds a gun.
I step away from the window.
I lock eyes with Jamie. She’s about to say something. I put my finger to my lips. A look of panic comes into her eyes, but she understands I want her to be quiet. I wave her away from the door.
I shout loud enough to be heard through the door.
“You’re not a cop. Now get the hell off my property. I’m calling the real cops. Then I’m going upstairs to get my gun. And I’m coming down here, and if you’re still fucking here, I’m gonna fucking shoot you.”
Normally, I’m not the kind of person who curses, but I’m trying to intimidate the guy. I guess that’s my impression of how tough guys speak. Okay, maybe I laid it on a little thick
It’s not true that I’m some kind of tough guy.
It is true that I have a gun.
Like I said, it’s upstairs in my bedroom, in the drawer of my night table. When I first got it, I took a bunch of classes and did some training, but I haven’t practiced with it much lately. In fact, can’t remember the last time I took it out of the drawer. I use it so infrequently I don’t even keep it in its lock box anymore.
Fortunately, my tough guy act works. The guy clears off my porch, so I don’t need to go get my gun.
Once I’m sure the man is gone, I tell Jamie to call the cops. She already has. She puts me on the phone with them, and I give a description of the man.
The cops say they’ll send someone by. But I’m not holding out much hope. Cops in the city stopped enforcing the law a long time ago. It’s the reason I got the gun.
After I hang up, I open the front door and step outside onto the porch. I look around. I don’t see the guy. Like I said, I live on a walk street and my property is closed in by hedges and trees, so from my yard you can’t see anything unless you walk all the way out to the walk street.
I start to do that but my mind flashes on an image of the guy waiting for me, behind the hedges, just beyond the entrance to my yard.
I hesitate…but I want to see if I can spot the guy so I can point him out when the cops arrive…whenever that might be.
It’s still light out, though the sun hovering just above the horizon is starting to slip away. I hear Bucky barking. I turn around and see him at the front door. He probably has to go out for a walk, but Jamie’s holding him by his collar, not wanting him to run out.
I get to the edge of our property, and step out onto the walk street. I feel my heart skip a beat. I’m holding my breath. I didn’t realize I’d be this nervous.
I look to the right. Nothing. Look to the left. Nothing.
I suppose it’d be easy for someone to walk to the end of the block, hit the Venice boardwalk, and disappear into the crowd. Still, that bad feeling lingers.
I shake it off, turn around and go back inside. I shut the door and tell Jamie the guy is gone.
She breathes a sigh of relief and says, “Thank God.” Then she asks, “You’re sure he had a gun?”
I nod. “I saw it.”
We get comfortable on the couch together, watch some tv and more or less forget about the crazy guy who came to our door pretending to be a cop.
About twenty minutes later, Bucky barks and goes and stands by the front door, his tail swishing back and forth.
Jamie looks at me. “He needs to go out,” she says.
This is the last thing I want to do, but the dog’s gotta go. Besides, I need some air.
“I’ll take him,” I say.
Jamie looks concerned. “Are you sure? What if that guy’s still around?”
“He’s long gone by now,” I say dismissing her concerns. “I’ll be right back.”
I clip Bucky's leash and step outside. The sun is lower now, casting long shadows between the hedges. Venice at dusk has this weird energy—equal parts beautiful and ominous. The ocean breeze carries the smell of salt and seaweed, mixed with the faint scent of weed from the distant boardwalk.
We head down the walk street, past the other houses tucked behind their walls and hedges like mine. Most of my neighbors keep their properties pretty private—high fences, overgrown landscaping, the kind of deliberate seclusion that gives these residential blocks their quiet, almost hidden feel even though we're just a few streets back from all the boardwalk chaos.
Bucky's doing his usual thing, sniffing every gate post and hedge like they're holding state secrets. I'm starting to relax a little. Maybe this whole thing was just some tweaker looking for an easy mark. Maybe my tough guy routine actually worked.
That's when I see him.
He's about fifty feet ahead, kind of swaying near the corner where our walk street intersects with another residential block. Same skinny frame, same oversized clothes. The area is completely deserted—just rows of private properties behind their barriers, no foot traffic, no one around. We're totally alone.
I stop walking. Bucky tugs on the leash, wanting to keep going, but I can't move.
Then the guy notices me and sort of shuffles in my direction. His movements are twitchy, erratic. Like he's having an argument with someone I can't see.
"Hey," he calls out. His voice has this weird, sing-song quality to it. Almost friendly.
I don't answer. I'm calculating distances. How fast can I run dragging a twenty-pound dog? The nearest house is behind a locked gate, and there's no one else on this quiet residential street. This guy looks completely unpredictable, and we're completely isolated. My mouth feels like it's full of cotton.
He's closer now, maybe twenty feet away. And then, almost casually, like he's showing me something interesting, he raises the gun.
At first, my brain doesn’t process what I’m seeing—there’s this moment of cognitive disconnect.
Is he pointing a gun at me?
I’m standing there with on my quiet walk street where the biggest drama is usually someone’s recycling bin getting knocked over, or wondering how long it’s going to take Buddy to poop and , and this skeletal stranger is pointing a pistol at my chest.
The incongruity is so complete that for a second I almost want to laugh. Like, what the fuck is happening right now? I’m wearing flip-flops and board shorts. Bucky’s sniffing a fire hydrant. There are kids’ chalk drawings on the sidewalk behind me. And this guy—this twitchy, talking-to-himself guy—is aiming a gun at me like we’re in some action movie.
But then the reality hits.
This is actually happening.
My whole body goes cold. Like every drop of blood just drained out through my feet. I can feel my heartbeat throbbing in my throat and the whoosh of blood thrumming in my ears. It’s like all my senses are suddenly heightened, each one of them attuned to the gun pointed at me. Bucky tugs on the leash again, which shakes me out of my stupor, and then like a linebacker on the blitz, the thought comes rushing at me that I could die right here. Right now. On a Saturday evening dog walk three blocks from my house.
For what? I don’t even know this guy. I’ve never seen him before tonight. What could he possibly want with me?
The gun wavers slightly in his grip—his hands are shaking, which somehow makes it worse. An unsteady crazy person with a weapon is pointing it at me for no reason I can understand, and there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
That’s when I hear it—sirens. Faint at first, then getting louder.
The guy hears them too. His head snaps toward the sound, and for just a second, his attention wavers.
I turn and run.
I’m sprinting back toward my house, Bucky bouncing along beside me, barking and nipping at my heels, wondering what the hell is going on. The sirens are getting louder. I hear shouting behind me, but I don’t look back.
I make it to my front door just as two police cars pull up at the end of my street and two cops come down my street and surround the crazed man with the gun. I watch from my doorway as they box the guy in. They pull their own weapons and tell the man to drop it. After a moment where it seems like he’s deciding what to do, the crazy man finally drops the gun and puts his hands up.
No dramatics. No final standoff. Just deflation.
Thank God.
Once the man is subdued and in cuff, one of the two cops comes over to me.
“You the one who called this in?” he asks.
I nod. Still breathing hard.
“You did the right thing, not opening that door. Guy’s completely off his rocker. High on something, mumbling about voices telling him to knock on doors. Been wandering around the neighborhood for hours.”
The cop takes my statement. The whole thing is surprisingly routine. They load the guy into the back of one of the cars. He’s talking to himself now, something about angels and radio signals. His voice gets more and more distant as they drive away.
Jamie’s been watching from the window. When I come back inside, she hugs me tight.
“Jesus,” she says. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Guy was just completely out of his mind. Cops said he’s been wandering around talking to voices.”
I shake my head, feeling a familiar anger building up. “You know what really gets me? How the hell does someone like that even get a gun in the first place? I mean, we live in California—supposedly the strictest gun laws in the country—and some strung-out psycho is just wandering around Venice Beach with a pistol, pointing it at random people. It’s completely insane.”
Jamie nods. “It’s terrifying.”
“The whole system is broken,” I continue. “I had to jump through hoops, take classes, get background checks, wait weeks just to legally own a firearm for protection. And meanwhile, guys like that—people who are clearly mentally unstable—they just get weapons somehow. From where? Street dealers? Gun shows? It’s fucked up. Completely fucked up.”
I’m getting worked up now, the adrenaline and stress of the evening channeling into frustration. “What if he had actually used that thing? What if I hadn’t seen him through the window? We could be dead right now because some lunatic can get his hands on a gun easier than I can get a decent burrito in this neighborhood.”
We settle back on the couch. Try to find our movie. But I’m still wired. Still thinking about that gun pointed at me. About how different this night could have gone.
“You know what?” I say to Jamie. “I think I’m gonna start going to the range again. Get some practice in.”
She nods. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“Yeah. First thing tomorrow,” I say. “In fact, I’m going upstairs right now to clean my gun and load it. Make sure it’s ready if something like this happens again.”
I climb the stairs to our bedroom, feeling more settled than I have all evening. There’s something reassuring about taking action. About being prepared.
I open the drawer where I keep the gun.
The drawer is empty.
I stare at the empty space where my gun should be. My hands start shaking, but not from adrenaline this time. This is something else entirely. A cold, creeping realization.
I check the other drawers. Under the bed. In the closet. Nowhere.
The timeline suddenly becomes crystal clear, and it’s terrifying. The guy showing up at my door. Me threatening to get my gun. Him leaving immediately after.
He didn’t leave because he was intimidated.
He left because he already had what he came for.
The gun that crazy man had been waving around tonight—on my street, pointed at me—that was my gun. My own weapon, stolen from my own bedroom, used to threaten my own life.
I think about the past few weeks. The times I came home and felt like something was off. The way Bucky would bark at nothing in the middle of the night. The back door that I could have sworn I locked but found unlocked the next morning.
He’d been in our house. Multiple times. Learning our routines. Taking what he wanted.
And tonight, in his twisted mental state, he’d decided to come back and use the stolen gun on the very people he’d stolen it from.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, trying to process this. He could have killed us both. Could have walked right into our bedroom while we slept and shot us with our own weapon. Instead, for whatever reason—maybe the voices in his head told him to knock first—he announced himself at the door.
The irony isn’t lost on me. All my ranting about gun control, about how dangerous it is that mentally unstable people can get weapons, and here I am—a responsible gun owner who followed every law, took every precaution—and my own legally purchased firearm nearly got used to kill me.
We came within minutes of being murdered by a lunatic with my own gun.
I look at the empty drawer again, my whole body trembling now. Not from fear, but from the horrible understanding of how close we came to death.
How close we came to being killed by our own protection.