Razor wire? Yes, razor wire. In late spring, I strung coils of the nasty stuff along my back fence, and now summer feels lousy. I had fantasies of my sun-phobic family’s unused yard being a country club for neighborhood kids; instead it looks like a very grim place.
Putting up an I-mean-business emblem like razor wire is the only solution to a dilemma that has confounded me every one of the seven summers I’ve lived in this house. From the first warm day in April until the last warm day in October, neighborhood kids have cajoled or trespassed their way into my pool, the only one in the area. I’ve considered a variety of options: running kids off, inviting them in, ignoring their incursion, putting the pool out of operation. But with the unpalatable exception of draining or filling in the pool, none of those plans can work. Why? Because the specter of liability looms too large. Under the law, a pool is an attractive nuisance, so it’s my fault if its presence lures in a stranger who then breaks his neck. That “stranger” knows his rights: TV ads are full of personal-injury attorneys.
The first few summers I tried ferocity. Kids would scale the eight-foot fence, and I’d hear splashing and delighted squealing under my office window. My predecessors in the house had worked nine to five; the yard was free for a takeover. They’d been lucky; nothing bad had happened in their absence.
Fearing lawsuits, I wanted the word to get out that I was a vigilant, no-nonsense person. Actually, I’m an empathetic sap who’s happy seeing kids cooling off in the torrid summer sun. At first, my fiercest voice squeaked: “Hey, you don’t have permission to be in my pool; you have to the count of 10.” They scampered away. The next day they came back. I used stronger language; they left and threw rocks in the pool. And still came back. The neighborhood police patrol passed by and caught some. Others came in their place. I hated to leave the house, fearing I’d come home to a tragedy.
By last summer, I was tired of being a villain and keenly aware that I was a pushover. All the summers of fussing and shooing had created a strange affection between the kids and me. I reasoned that it was better to control pool access than to forbid it. I came to the door instead of ignoring the bell when it rang, and if I was feeling saintly I’d say, “All right, but I have to watch you, and I’ll only give you an hour, OK?” But just as fast as the kids telegraphed the news of my hospitality among themselves, that’s how quickly the calls came from the police patrol and a neighbor or two. “Do you know there are strange kids in your pool?” “I’m watching them,” I’d say. “Oh, do you have lifesaving training?” they’d say. “Those kids will own that pool after their mothers sue you for your house.”
Some of the kids could not swim. “Stay in the shallow end” was all the protection I could offer, and I knew it wasn’t enough. Especially when my attorney sister and others reminded me regularly of what living in a litigious society means. Everyone had a cautionary tale for me. About the family who sued the city when a child drowned in a public pool. Or the teenager who dived into a poorly designed private pool and was paralyzed because the floor of the deep end sloped up too much. But never mind tragic drownings or spinal-cord injuries: I even could be responsible for sprained ankles or bacterial infections. Whether the children were on my property with permission or without it.
So when my doorbell rang one late spring day with this year’s first requests to swim, I said, “Maybe later this summer I’ll hire a lifeguard and we’ll have a party, OK?” The boys walked away dejected, and I thought I’d bought time to think up a new tack. But the next morning, I left the house for half an hour, and when I drove up I saw about a dozen kids come catapulting over my back fence at the sound of my car. I felt let down and annoyed: I thought the kids liked me too well to sneak behind my back. Besides, my son had just broken his collarbone skateboarding: I knew how easily young bones break. I’d had enough. I put in the order for razor wire.
Looking at it makes me feel curmudgeonly. But I work at home. I’m tired of spending five months of the year listening for rattles of my fence or splashes in my pool. I don’t want to face a moral dilemma every day. And most of all, I don’t want to have to deliver the same speech over and over again: “I’m sorry, but if anything happened to you, your mama might sue me.”
, a New Orleans novelist, is the author of “Eleanor Rushing.”
