It began as all bad days do: I woke up to the sound of breaking glass. Snoring, Denny was sleeping the sleep of the just. I let him rest and reached for the Louisville Slugger I kept next to our bed. Quiet as a church mouse, I lowered my feet to the bedroom floor. My ears strain for another sound. Quiet. I scrolled through my phone checking my cameras.

I calmed my racing heart. I know if the sound had come from our house the alarms would have already sounded. Our security service would be ringing our phones; the police would be on their way. No I know the source of the sound of broken glass.

Evergreen Terrace was a quiet street, so so we thought. Deliciously boring Denny called it during our first walk-through. After years in Center City, boring was what we desperately craved. When we moved in six years ago we were nervous the neighbors might be standoffish to us, the new neighbors, the new gay couple neighbors, the new gay interracial couple neighbors. I chuckled remembering how Denny was worried that the neighborhood would be pissy about his plans for a native plant garden instead of a lawn. That was before we knew we had moved next-door to chaos.

In bare feet, I walked over to the window overlooking the Sanders’ house. I can remember when it started. It was Fourth of July weekend. We had spent half the day painting and then went over to Angel and Marisol’s for a cookout. Once back home we crawled into bed achy and full-bellied. Denny had green paint in his hair that I didn’t bother to tell him about. We noticed a lot of cars parked on the street and in the nextdoor neighbor’s driveway. Hard Rock and hard partying blared out into the street. We figured well it was a holiday. The fighting started around 3 am.

That became the pattern. Every holiday from Christmas to Arbor Day, the next-door neighbors partied, drank, and fought. Over that first year we learned from the normal neighbors that Mr. Sanders had a drinking problem and a wandering eye and that Mrs. Sanders had a lot of trust issues and a mean left hook. Apparently the only thing the Sanders agreed on was throwing furniture as an emotional release.

Denny insisted we talk to them. We talked to them. We brought over homemade snickerdoodles. They were terse. The next day they hung up a Confederate flag and all of our trash cans were tipped over. We never got back our good cookie plate. We never spoke again.

Looking down I detected movement. It looked like flashlights moving inside the house. That’s new. Over the years the normal neighbors and I took turns calling the police. We hoped things would quiet down when SWAT arrested Mr. Sanders as part of a car theft ring. Things only got worse. The Sanders’ kids grew up. The music switched to skinhead punk and Ke$ha. Natural entrepreneurs, the Sanders teens peddled drugs and pit bull puppies. Nancy and Keith, the neighbors on the other side of the Sanders were convinced there was an underground dog fighting ring in the Sanders’ basement, but Denny and I think the basement is a grow house.

Below I watched as a couple of guys try to maneuver a flatscreen out of the Sanders’ front door. The thieves’ Corolla is already loaded with what looks like bags of weed and dog food. The Sanders’ dogs are barking to beat the band in the backyard. Denny snorted in his sleep and rolls deeper into sleep. I set down my bat and pull edover an ottoman. My phone vibrated. It was a text from Brad from across the street: What a couple of yahoos! Suze is calling 911. Next Nancy sent the group text a gif of McGruff the Crime Dog. I sent a laughing emoji as the bandits tried to fit the tv into their car trunk.