I answered the phone and he said, “Mom, were you praying for me last night? I have to tell you what happened!” He went on to tell his story.

 

It had all started a few weeks before when David accidentally had broken his friend’s PlayStation. He felt so bad over the fact that he had broken it that he decided he would try to replace it.

 

David happened to know that his neighbor who lived in the duplex beside him owned a PlayStation. So one night when David was high on alcohol and Xanax and knew that his neighbor’s car was gone, he used a credit card and began trying to get into his neighbor’s door.

 

Little did David know that the neighbor’s wife was at home. When she heard someone trying to get in her door, she quickly called the police. Within minutes, the police were there with guns drawn and yelling at him to get on the ground. He was handcuffed and taken to jail.

 

At the police station David told the detective that he’d simply had too much to drink and had accidentally tried to get into his neighbor’s duplex, thinking it was his own. The police bought his story and charged him with public intoxication instead of breaking and entering.

 

He stayed in jail for five days, but while he was there, someone broke into his duplex and stole his keyboard. His neighbor’s duplex was also broken into and several items were taken from him as well. Because the neighbor didn’t realize David was still in jail and because David had tried to break into his duplex before, the neighbor assumed it was David who had broken in and stole his belongings.

 

So now it was around two that Saturday morning, the same Saturday morning I was awakened to pray. David had just gotten back to his duplex from a long night out, and his neighbor knocked at his door. When David opened the door, he was a bit startled because his neighbor was standing there dressed completely in black, along with a black toboggan on his head. He proceeded to tell David that he wanted to get high with him and talk about some things, so David invited him in. The two of them smoked marijuana for a while, talked a few minutes, and then suddenly his neighbor said, “You know, I’m not afraid to go to jail.” David asked what he meant and when he did, his neighbor lifted up his hand from his side and was holding a gun. He pointed the gun straight at David, put in the clip, and again said, “I’m not afraid to go to jail, and I want my things.”

 

Excerpted from Weeping may Last for a Night… by Kimberly Youngblood

Copyright © 2016 by Kimberly Youngblood

 

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