The Sentinel of ’76: Traps, Shields, and the Weight of Protection
Last week, I told you about the parade. The weight of the American flag. The sting of the pavement when I tripped over the very thing I was supposed to hold high.
If that day belonged to clumsy Bicentennial pride, the night belonged to the Son of Sam.
I was six years old in 1976, and I was convinced the country had gone mad.
I was the kind of kid who spent afternoons buried in dictionaries and science encyclopedias. My brain made a terrifying linguistic leap. Uncle Sam was the face of the country.
The Son of Sam was the monster stalking the borough. To my six-year-old mind, that made him the offspring of the flag I’d just tripped over.
The USA wasn’t just my home.
It was the hunter.
The Tactical Room
My three sisters were my world. They were blonde, and to my six-year-old eyes, they were exactly the demographic the newspapers said were in the crosshairs. While they slept, I began my shift.
I didn’t have a weapon. I had a mind that had been wired for success by science books. I turned our home into a series of low-tech tripwires and early warning systems.
The Shield: a galvanized garbage can lid. I knew the weight of it, the way it could deflect a blow.
The Light: a heavy, chrome-bodied flashlight I held like a baton.
The Traps: fishing line across the hall, stacks of marbles near the door, bells tied to window latches.
I wasn’t playing. I was prowling.
I would sit in the dark, the cold metal of the trash can lid against my shins, listening to the hum of the refrigerator. I knew the difference between a .38 and a .44 caliber before I knew how to ride a two-wheeler. The lid wouldn’t have stopped a bullet. I knew that even then.
But it gave me a role, and the role gave me something to stand on. We do that our whole lives. We pick up shields that can’t stop what’s coming and call it preparation. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes we should look harder at what we’re actually holding.
My sisters never asked me to put it down.
They knew.
They never said a word.
That was the contract.
The Morning After the Shift
It was summer, so there was no school bell to snap me back. The night just slowly became day. I put down the flashlight. I ate cereal and spinach. Popeye logic. If it worked for him it would work for me.
My parents were somewhere in the house, carrying something I didn’t have the language for yet. Their marriage was fracturing. I wouldn’t understand that for years.
So there I was. Holding a perimeter against a .44 caliber monster in the dark. Completely unaware of the quieter damage happening in the next room.
You protect what you can see. That’s the limit of being six.
Super Dog and the Cost of Vigilance
This wasn’t a new role. Even in kindergarten, when we played Cats and Dogs, I was the outlier. The girls were the cats, the boys were the dogs, and the two sides were usually at war.
But I was Super Dog.
The only boy the girls allowed into their circle, because I was their defender. I was the one who kept the other dogs at bay. It mirrored my life at home. One boy among three sisters. The self-appointed guardian of the blonde cats in my world.
But being the Sentinel carries a price. A coldness toward those who won’t help themselves.
Jonas was my best friend. He was being pummeled by a group of boys, crying out for me to save him. I had spent every waking and sleeping hour being the protector. In that moment, I ended our friendship. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t bite back. When you’ve spent your nights preparing for a .44 caliber monster, you lose your patience for those who surrender to the playground.
I have been embarrassed by that for a long time.
Jonas, if you ever read this, it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t weak. You were just built different from me, and I was already hard in places most kids hadn’t been touched yet. I didn’t have the capacity then to understand that. I do now.
If that were today, I would have kicked all of their asses and still been Super Dog. That’s the difference between who I was and who I became.
My mother asked me why I didn’t like Jonas anymore.
I didn’t have an answer for her.
I do now.
Decades later, I designed a card game called APEX 55: The Queen’s Authority. The Jack of Apex is the Sentinel. The second highest card in its suit. The protector has a defined place. Not at the top. Right below it. Close enough to act.
Authority is earned.
I believe to this day that if David Berkowitz had stepped onto our porch, I would have known. The house would have told me. The wires would have tripped. And then I would have dropped the Sentinel on his weak ass. A garbage can lid, a chrome flashlight, and six years of pure defiance. He picked targets he thought couldn’t fight back. He picked wrong streets before. He would have picked the wrong porch.
Fear is a luxury for people who think someone else is coming to save them.
The Son of Sam was caught. The Sentinel never truly went off duty.
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V➤ The Sentinel didn’t harden. He just stopped waiting for people to become what they’re not.