I got home around six. Not thirty minutes later the stomping screaming thumping pounding pachyderms who live above me came home.
The girl was screaming, literally, shrieking “GET OUT!!!! GET OUT!!!!” and “DO NOT COME IN MY HOUSE!” at the guy. The same guy who left his U-Haul blocking two garages and two parking spots, including a handicapped spot, until noon the next day. The same guy who didn’t apologize to me for noisily hanging drapes with hammers and electric screwdrivers at midnight when I knocked on his door to shut him up.
Stomping up the stairs with a THUD STOMP CLANG THUD up three floors to the apartment above me, they’re squabbling outside the door. I can hear them. Loudly. I wonder if the other neighbors are concerned.
“DO NOT COME IN HERE!!! GET OUT!!!” She screams.
He speaks much more softly, “Let me come in for ten minutes. Ten minutes! Please let me… please, just ten minutes!” All of this between her crying hyena wails.
I think I hear her daughter (a cutie little McBlonde angel who said an adorable “Hi” to me last week) say, “Don’t come in! Go away!” But it might have been the woman.
Over and over, she screams. I step outside to make sure he’s not wielding a baseball bat or fist at her and I’m watching their reflection in the stairwell window. Now she’s inside and I can’t see her anymore. I see him slouching outside the door. She doesn’t slam the door in his face, so in he goes.
Sometimes giving up is the strong thing
Sometimes to run is the brave thing
Sometimes walking out is the one thing
That will find you the right thing
And you know in your soul
It’s time to goTaylor Swift
I decide nobody’s brains are ending up on the floor, so I step inside and lock my door.
THUMP! SLAM! Stomp, stomp, stomp! THUMP! Upstairs, the elephants. Stomping and crashing and thumping and in between I hear her muffled screams. Carpet’s cool like that. At muffling screams. I hear them go outside on the patio so I crack my window to listen.
I hear a lot of words that sound like another language but aren’t. I hear her say, “You had nothing when I met you! NOTHING!” to which he mumbles something I can’t hear. They seem to go inside. More stomping, then a giant THUD!
I get nervous. I pace, trying to decide if I should intervene. I’m in my sock feet and somehow feel I’d have more strength — be more intimidating — if I put on something with a hard sole. I slip into some Teva sandals. Intimidating stuff, waterproof sandals.
I look about for a weapon and decide the phone is my best option. I grab it, quiet my barking dog, and walk upstairs.
They’re inside the door, which is open. Her hair is a shambles and her face is red. His face is soaking wet, from sobbing.
“Do you need help?” I look at the girl.
“Yes. Please. Yes!” I vaguely remember those words from when the bed was squeaking above my head last Sunday.
“I think you need to go.” I’m looking at the guy.
“Please!” He says, looking at the girl.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here but clearly she doesn’t want you in her apartment. It’s time for you to leave.”
“I’ll tell you what happened!” I hear his voice raise for the first time, but his words are muffled by the snot pouring down his throat and the tears in his eyes. “She broke my heart, that’s what happened. She—”
I cut him off. “I really don’t need to know what happened. That’s your affair. She’s asking you to leave. Please go.”
“Yes,” says the girl, “Leave.” Then to me, “Thank you.” Her eyes look sincere.
“But I only want—” He starts again.
“You can talk about it another day. Go.” I gesture to him, as if I’m going to put my arm gently around his back but I don’t. I escort him out as a man might for his date.
“Please talk to me!” He stares at her with his arms spread in a position of desperation.
“Okay, I’m calling 9-1-1.” I dial it on the phone, using the speakerphone.
“But—”
“She’s calling the cops. Get out.” Says the girl. She looks at me thankfully and with some measure of relief. I’m a little worried that he might spit on my face or knock my head off, but he’s too discombobulated.
The phone is ringing.
He turns to leave. She shuts the door, saying “thank you” once more. I click the phone off.
He starts wailing. Remember how I wailed when Eric and I broke up? It sounds like that, only deeper.
“I know it sucks right now,” I say, “but now’s not the time to try and talk. Sleep on it and call tomorrow if you want to. But you need to go now.”
He wails some more so I roll my eyes. I’m certain he can’t see my face through his salty tears. He’s very wobbly. Shakily, like he’s about to topple over, he wobbles to the third floor landing. I see him put his feet on the first step, then he bends to sit down. Hard. Crying and wailing. Coughing. Wailing. Hands to his face in sobs.
I’m tempted to comfort him. To put my arm around him and say it’s all going to be okay. Instead, I say, “Sleep on it. Call tomorrow. Now is not the time.”
When I lock my doors, I notice I’m trembling.