Knife in the Door

I slipped the knife deftly into the door jamb. Actually, two knives. Growing up, it had only been one. Now I had graduated to two.

One was no longer enough.

Butter knives are amazing things. They make cutting food at the table easy without the risk of cutting yourself. They spread delicious goodness on bread. And they double as a lock when placed in a door jamb. At least, I have always thought so. It was how I was raised.

In the hovel of a house we called home back then, there was no lock on our front door. In fact, there was not even a door knob. There had been. Once upon a time. In the foggiest memories of my toddler years, I think I remember a doorknob. For most of my growing up years, however, where the doorknob had been there was a round hole that had been covered by gray duct tape. The remnants of the old fashion lock were still attached to the door. But the mechanism had long ceased to function.

Enter the lowly butter knife. My mother would always button up the house at night by ensuring there was a knife fit snugly into the jamb. A deterrent to would-be intruders. A form of resistance they would meet if they pushed. Specious resistance, perhaps. For, if one was intent on breaking in and pushed hard enough, the knife would surely give way and bend. But perhaps the noise of that effort or the sound of the knife clattering to the floor would be enough to awaken us.

I guess that was the thought behind it.

And so, as harmless as butter knives are, to us they provided a sense of security that we desperately needed in that hovel of a house. Sturdy in an existence that felt shaky and insecure.

Your are supposed to feel safe at home. Inviolable. Able to shut the harmful things of this world out, keeping them in the dark where they belong. Able to sleep without fear of surprise or molestation. Doors represent this sense of safety, this necessary feeling of control.

And yet, there we were, living with a door without knob or lock. The aged thing wouldn’t even stay closed unless we folded up newspapers and wedged them between the door and the jamb. We felt no safety. We felt vulnerable and exposed. At least I did.

There was the time one dark evening when the door was suddenly thrown open. We were all in our living room watching TV. I was snuggled up in a chair with my mother. Startled, we looked in disbelief and saw a brown blur race from the doorway toward the stairs. Who on earth would barge in on us like they knew our place and head straight up the stairway? Surely, we reasoned, it had to be a family friend. But why hadn’t they knocked?

As we were at a loss as to who it could be, one of my sisters thought it could be her best friend, who knew our house. Bravely, she went to the stairwell and called up into the darkness above. “Lisa?” she asked uncertainly. There was a pause and then a chilling response from a female voice, “Lisa’s not here.”

At that moment the police showed up at the still open doorway, promptly went up the stairs after asking us what we had seen, cuffed a young woman, and brought her downstairs. She had been running from them, and they followed her to our house. We didn’t know who she was and had never seen her before. But there she stood in our house wearing her brown coat, hands cuffed tightly behind her back, mocking our very notions of safety and security.

The knife had failed us, because it had not been placed in the door. We weren’t ready for bed, and mom had not yet buttoned up the house.

When they were gone, I resumed my position on my mother’s lap. Somehow we went back to watching TV. But I dare not let my feet hang down over the chair. There was a space between the floor and bottom of it, you know, and who knew what was hiding there?

Then there were the times when my older brothers and sisters were hanging out with friends late on the weekends. I would lay in my bed upstairs afraid of every noise I heard. I knew the door below was “unlocked”. No knife was in the jamb, so my siblings could get in when they came home.

On one such night, I was sure of the sound of footfall on the stairway leading up to us. I called out for my mother. She descended the stairs and found the door wide open. Had someone actually been in the house? Were they coming up the stairs? Or was it the wind that night that had pushed on the door and blown it open, causing the stairs to creak (it was an ancient house, after all) as it entered?

Childhoods filled with insecurity lend themselves to behaviors as in adulthood. I haven’t always put knives in door jambs. We moved from that old house when I was in seventh grade. I have never lived in one since that did not have a properly functioning door or lock. But if I feel the lock on a door is inadequate, I am not below still resorting to the knife-in-the-jamb trick.

They say old habits die hard. But some sure do help you sleep better at night.

And sleep is a priceless gift.