At five o’clock, sitting in the cab of my truck, I wrote to Naomi. I read the message aloud three times before I sent it.
Naomi. I have told you twice that you do not have my permission to hold any event at my property. I am withdrawing any consent that anyone believes was given, including by Dad. No one is authorized to enter my property this weekend. If people arrive, I will contact the police. Please cancel the gathering and tell the family. —Gideon
She didn’t answer.
Then I called the Rockford Police non-emergency line. A dispatcher with a warm, tired voice took my name, my address, and a summary, then put me through to a sergeant named Abernathy, who listened with the patience of a man who’d heard every kind of family dispute.
“You’re the legal owner?”
“Yes, sir. Deed recorded with the county last June.”
“And you’ve given no one permission.”
“None.”
“And you’ve told them in writing.”
“Twice now.”
“Any reason to believe it’ll turn violent?”
“No. I believe it’ll turn loud.”
A dry chuckle. “I’ve worked a few of those.” I heard keys tapping. “Mr. Voss, I’m putting a note in the system. If you’d like, I can come by Sunday myself. Just to be visible. Would that help?”
I thought about my father standing in my yard with his chest out.
“Yes,” I said. “It would.”
On Friday, I came home early. I turned onto Alder Court at 4:30 with my windows down and the radio low.
There was a sixteen-foot rental truck in my driveway, orange and white, with the ramp down. A pile of folded white canvas lay on my lawn.
My side gate stood wide open.
I parked at the curb and got out slowly. From the backyard came voices, the thud of a mallet, and the metallic ring of a pole being set.
I walked through the gate.
Three people were putting up an enormous white event tent on my back lawn, forty feet by forty, with a peaked center pole and clear vinyl sidewalls. Two men in work gloves were hauling a crossbar. A woman I didn’t know, thin, in sunglasses, holding a clipboard, was directing them from my patio.
My eyes went straight to the northwest corner.
The stake was gone.
A small rectangle of bare dirt showed where it had been. I scanned the fence line, my heart doing something strange. There, tossed against the chain-link in a pile of bark mulch and a coil of electrical cord, lay my survey stake. The orange tape was muddy and trailing in the dirt.
Someone had pulled it out and thrown it aside to make room for a tent stake.
For a moment, I couldn’t hear anything. That little piece of wood, a foot and a half long with a nail head on top, meant nothing to those people. It was trash in the way.
To me, it was the first thing I’d put in the ground that was mine.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.