Solomon Jones: Was it a crime of passion? How'll-wee-know?

I'M SAD to report that the crime wave sweeping our region has finally hit our home. No one was hurt, thank God. Not physically, at least. But when it happened, we felt violated. We felt helpless. We felt dirty.

We never thought it would happen to us. We live quiet lives. We mind our own business. We don't bother anyone. But these criminals, they don't care about that. In fact, they don't care about anything. They just go through life taking. And when they took from us, they took more than just property. They took our sleep.

For the past two days, LaVeta and I have put on happy faces for the children. We didn't want to traumatize them. But at night, when Little Solomon and Eve went to bed, we closed our door and held each other tight, trying to convince ourselves that we could stay in a place where things like this go on.

Like most victims, we went through a range of emotions after the crime. First we felt shock, then fear, then anger, and finally, resignation. But something else came after that - an intense desire for revenge.

After all, these heartless thugs took our peace of mind. They took our sense of security. They took our pumpkin.

That's right. On Thursday morning, when LaVeta took the kids to school, where she leads a parental prayer group, some creep tiptoed up our front steps and did the dirty deed.

"While I was praying at the school, somebody was here preying on our pumpkin!" LaVeta later exclaimed. "It made me feel angry and violated," she continued, the anger still fresh in her tone, even days after it happened.

I knew what she meant, but I wasn't angry. I was simply confused. I couldn't understand why someone would steal a pumpkin that had been sitting on our steps for a week; a pumpkin that had sat through rainstorms, through wind and through sunlight.

The pumpkin was no longer edible. It couldn't be sold. It had no discernible value to anyone. A family friend theorized that the person who stole it was someone who really needed something to eat, but I don't buy that. I think it was a man with some freaky attraction to pumpkins.

I imagined him stealing our pumpkin and giggling at his good fortune. Then I thought of him, all fat and sweaty, sitting in the dark committing unthinkable acts with our pumpkin. I shuddered as I envisioned him whispering sweet nothings in our pumpkin's stem. I cringed while picturing him emerging from that room after defiling our orange friend. His grin was fiendish, and his breath smelled of week-old pumpkin.

When I floated my theory to another friend, he agreed that the pumpkin thief could indeed be a freaky dude. But the friend didn't think he was romantically interested in our pumpkin. He thought the guy had pumpkin envy, because let's face it: At this time of the year, size matters, especially when it comes to pumpkins.

Our pumpkin was beautiful. It was round. I dare say it was alluring. In hindsight, we should have known some pumpkin freak would have his dirty eyes on it. We should have been prepared. But how could we have prepared ourselves for a criminal who would stoop so low, for a man who would commit an offense so heinous, for a man who would be so utterly heartless as to steal our pumpkin.

I don't know if we can remain in Philadelphia after this. The memories of our pumpkin are still too fresh, too painful, too raw. We've been damaged by the dastardly deeds of the pumpkin thief, and I just don't know if we'll ever completely heal.

The only thing worse than what we're feeling right now is the terrible task we face. Someday, we'll have to tell the children, and that will be the worst part of all.

Solomon Jones' column appears every Saturday. He can be reached at

sj@solomonjones.com