The Prowler

One time when I lived in Kalamazoo a few decades ago, I was reclining on my couch reading when I heard a slight commotion outside my apartment door. I was sure I had turned the deadbolt, but I got up to check anyway. There was also a chain lock which I put in place making as much noise as I could doing it. I had heard it discourages a housebreaker to know there's somebody inside.

Then I stood on my tip-toes to look out the peep-hole, but I didn't see anybody or anything except for the door to the apartment directly across the outside entryway. As I backed away from the door, I looked down and saw that the doorknob was turning very slowly.  I looked out the peep-hole again and still saw nothing, which meant that whoever was out there was either crouching or standing off to the side so as not to be seen.

I didn’t exactly panic, but it frightened me. I went directly to the telephone and called 911. The dispatcher took my address and told me she was sending a patrol car, and she made me stay on the line with her until it got there.

When the officers arrived, one scouted around outside while the other came to my door to let me know they were there, and then he too went off to see what he could find. Other apartment doors began to open and neighbors stuck their heads out, curious about the arrival of the police. I made a very brief explanation, and the man from the apartment across from mine waited with me until the officers came back.

The two policemen came back to my apartment having found nothing suspicious. They checked my windows and the locks on the door, and they recommended charlie-bars for the windows, but otherwise said my apartment was pretty secure. After they left, I locked the door behind them and tried to calm down.

About four days later, the man across the way came out to talk to me as I was coming home one evening. He said he had seen who was trying to get into my apartment and had chased him off. I asked if he got a good look at the guy and could describe him to the police. “Sure, I can,” he said. "It was a great big black cat."

What!?!

It seems this big cat was standing on his hind legs, stretching up to rub one front paw across the top of the doorknob, which is what made it turn. Maybe the cat had lived in that apartment at one time, or perhaps the people who lived there had fed him.

I was relieved, of course, but also somewhat chagrined that I had called police to come save me from a killer-rapist pussy cat.