Silver Bullets and Stolen Gold
by Sean J. Kennedy
May 16, 2022
"Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner.
Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword."
-Richard Brinsley Sheridan
One of my father’s favorite radio shows to listen back in the 1940s when he was a kid was The Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger’s calling card was, of course, silver bullets, the symbol of purity. Further, my father’s understanding of the use of the silver bullets was that they were a symbol of justice, but more importantly, to remind the Ranger of just how heavy a price firing a gun can be. Through-out my childhood my father would tell my sister and I the stories of the Lone Ranger and often parallel tales of him and his buddies back in the South Philadelphia neighborhood that he grew up in. He always told us of the grand adventures that he and his friends would go on, and the mischief they would get entangled in, always ending with a good laugh for all involved. He told us so many tales about his youth and his compatriots that we felt like we actually knew the guys and they became the stuff of legend in my mind’s eye.
At the writing of this essay, it is the fourth anniversary of my father’s passing, and of course this past week my thoughts have been of him and of the many lessons that he taught me directly or indirectly. This story is about one of those lessons, which has taken me decades to fully understand the power of a decision that he made. Coincidentally, my father was around 50 years old when this occurred, which is the same age that I am now.
The tale…
Sometime in the spring of 1985 my dad’s friend, from the old neighborhood, for anonymity purposes, let’s call him Larry, contacted him and wanted to stop by for a visit and catch-up on old-times. I’d heard about Larry my entire life in my dad’s stories about their exploits. From everything that I knew about him, Larry was a fun loving, meticulous fellow who had a slight case of OCD. I was excited to finally put a face with a name.
Larry and his wife stopped by late one afternoon, and my father was happy to see him and even happier to tell Larry about my sister and I and brag about all of our accomplishments in school, band, etc…
That evening my dad was surprised at how much Larry was interested in our family dog, Tugger, playing with him, petting him and giving him treats all night. He said that Larry had never been much of a dog-person, oh well. After some light refreshment, Larry wanted ‘the grand tour’ of my parents’ house, inside and out. My parents proudly showed Larry and his wife every nook and cranny of the house and gave them a tour outside, front yard, back yard, and the side yard which butted up to a large cornfield. Larry was curious about the cornfield and especially about what surrounded it. I remember dad telling him that two former Philadelphia Phillies Wiz Kids players owned the golf course on the other side of the field, and that the rest was surrounded mainly by residential housing developments
After the grand tour we ate dinner, and dad and Larry reminisced for hours. It was a great night of friendship, camaraderie and joyful memories.
—--------
A few months later, in mid August my mother was driving my sister and I home from some errands. We pulled into the driveway, and waited for the garage door to open before pulling the car inside. As usual we entered the house through the laundry room and then into the family room. The moment that we entered the house we knew that something wasn't right. The further we went in, our apprehensions were verified, we had been robbed.
The back door had been broken and the threshold had been busted wide open with a crowbar. The VCR was gone, and my mother’s jewelry box had been sorted through and she was missing numerous pieces of jewelry including her high school senior class ring. We called the police. My father left work to come home and assess the physical damages to the house and tally the items that had been stolen, and to take account of everyone’s emotional well being. Until that afternoon, my sister and my upbringings had been nothing but bucolic. After that event, we knew first hand that evil and bad people were not something that we only saw on the nightly news in far away locations. Our outlook on people and the world had changed in an instant. My father fixed the door and installed an all-house alarm system the very next day.
The police came and did a cursory investigation. There were no fingerprints, the thief had obviously worn gloves. The officers said that they were very surprised that the burglar didn’t just take the entire jewelry box. Instead, the criminal had meticulously taken the little drawers out and placed them on the bureau and intentionally only took gold pieces. Nothing was ransacked or knocked over in the second floor master bedroom. And the family VCR which was also taken had been on top of the television in the family room which contained some statues and other heirlooms, none of which had been knocked over. The police had deduced that the burglar arrived and left through the cornfield. He had probably parked his car a mile away in the neighborhood, and through the dense cornfield was able to come and go virtually undetected.
The hours and days that followed led to all sorts of conclusions about the who, what and whys of this situation. I had all sorts of grand illusions as to who committed the crime and suggested them to my parents who gave them little to no credence. I insisted that the perp needed to be found and pay for their crimes, justice needed to be served!
After things had settled down the week following, I asked my dad if he had any ideas about who robbed us. He very calmly said, “yes. It was Larry.” I couldn't believe it. One of my dad’s running buddies from the good ‘ole days who had visited us only a month or two ago?! This guy was the Tonto to my dad’s Lone Ranger. It couldn’t be.
My father then proceeded to illustrate how he knew it was Larry:
- Why did Larry suddenly show up out of nowhere after 20+ years for a visit, to catch-up?
- When did Larry suddenly become such a dog lover?
- Why did Larry insist on a grand tour?
- Why was he so interested in the cornfield and everything surrounding it?
- How did the criminal get in and out so fast and know exactly where everything was?
- The house wasn’t ransacked, heirlooms were not knocked over on the TV, the criminal was meticulous.
My teenage reaction was, “Great! Let’s nail this guy! Call the police!” However my father said that he wasn’t going to do that. I couldn’t believe it. He had him dead to rights. But in my teenage brain I thought it was enough to at least call the cops and have them sort it out and make this guy pay for what he had done. I said, “Dad, you’ve gotta get this guy!” He said, “Don’t worry, I will. But he has a wife and children, none of whom are guilty of this crime. If I call the cops, their lives will all be impacted negatively, plus, there are no fingerprints, no videos, no proof, it is all circumstantial. But, don’t worry, I’ll get him.”
Instead of making a knee jerk decision, like a teenager, I believe that my father realized that this incident was bigger than just losing material possessions and damage to the house. The emotional toll on all of us was the bigger theft. My sister, my mother and I had all lost a sense of security, but the biggest theft in this situation was the theft of my father’s life-long friend. After five decades of friendship and lasting memories, the incident had eradicated Larry from my dad’s heart and mind. Having recently turned 50 years old myself, I cannot imagine the weight of that loss.
Just like the Lone Ranger and his silver bullets my father had to weigh the price of the possible decision that he had to make. Does he simply do nothing and never speak to Larry again? Does he report his supposition about Larry being the perp to the police? Does he confront Larry? Or could there be another option? There was, and my dad had one silver bullet left in the chamber.
As I have already relayed, the criminal stole some gold jewelry and the family VCR. In his haste, our OCD-ridden criminal forgot something. He left the remote control for the VCR on the couch.
My dad’s plan was brilliant. He wrote a very simple letter to Larry and put the remote control in an envelope and mailed it to him.. All the note said was:
“Larry,
You forgot this.
John”
I asked my dad why that was his ultimate choice to end this dilemma. He said, “If Larry didn’t do it, he’ll be confused, and give me a call to find out what the package and the note are all about. But, if he did do it, I’ll never hear from him again, and he’ll have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. Seanie, I’ll never hear from Larry again.”
—--------
Once the package was mailed I can only imagine that my dad had a sense of relief with the weight and guilt of the entire situation being transferred directly from him to the perpetrator. The house had been repaired, and items had been replaced. With the installation of the whole house alarm system our apprehensions of an interloper invading our home again had been quelled, and most of all, with one simple correspondence, like something out of a Dickens novel or Hitchcock screenplay, my father had shackled Larry with a lonely lifetime of guilt and regret. When the package arrived what did Larry do? Did his wife see it? Surely she would have seen my father’s return address. Did she see what was in the package? Did she start asking questions? That will remain a mystery. But what isn’t a mystery is that my dad did indeed, ‘get him.’
And as predicted, my father never heard from Larry again, and today I can only imagine and hope that somewhere, somehow, dad is wearing a white Stetson, a black mask, denim pants and denim shirt, galloping at top speed on beautiful white stallion towards the horizon as a narrator intones:
"A fiery horse with a speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo, Silver!’
…The Lone Ranger!”