2002-09-27 - 11:28 p.m.

Domestic Disturbance

Usually Friday is a day where I get a lot of work done. That wasn't the case today, because I was stupefied by lack of sleep. It wasn't that I had insomnia, oh no. What happened is that a camera crew from Cops ran into another camera crew from The Jerry Springer Show right outside my door.

Well, not quite but almost.

After chatting with Lily on the phone, I went to bed, and just after 2 a.m. I was drifting off to sleep when I was pulled out of dreamland by the sound of voices outside.

Drunken idiots, walking down the street. From the direction they were coming I guessed they'd been at one of the bars farther up the street, and had been ejected at closing time, 2 a.m.

I got up to see what all the noise was about. It sounded like three women, with one of them doing most of the talking, although I should say shouting. She seemed angry and bellergent, and seemed to be challenging the other two. They rounded the corner and started going down the side street next to my house. I should have known - they were some of the losers that live across the street from me.

They were basically having this second grade discussion at the top of their voices at two a.m. The two women went into the third house across the street, while the third kept yelling at them. They told her to go away, and she replied with "You going to MAKE me?"

Eventually they quieted down, so I went back in the bedroom to try to get back to sleep. However I hadn't been lying down more than a minute or two before I heard more shouting. Now male voices were involved. I looked out my window to try to see what was going on, but the other side of the street is poorly lit. I could hear voices and I could see people moving around, but I couldn't see how many there were.

The shouting seemed to be escalating. I said to myself: "To hell with this," and I went to hunt for the phone. I dialed the police non-emergency number, and told the operator that my across-the-street neighbors seemed to be having a loud argument, and it was 2 a.m. The operator tried to get more information from me, but I told her that I couldn't really see what was going on. She told me someone would be by in a few minutes.

However, practically as soon as I hung up the phone I was sorry I hadn't called the emergency number. I heard the sound of someone being struck repeatedly, and the shouts turned to screams. I heard a lot of voices and people running around.

Just a couple minutes later, the police showed up, and their lights showed about a dozen people milling around on the sidewalk across the street. They must have immediately called for backup, because very shortly thereafter a second police car arrived, then a third.

I wondered what all the screaming was about until I saw a policeman shine his flashlight on the face of the woman who was screaming. Her head was a mess of bright red blood.

For the next hour or so I sat on the stairs outside my apartment, watching everything through my porch door. The police were trying to get some information out of the bloody woman, but she was blubbering and not making much sense. At first she was saying "I can't believe they hit me with a baseball bat!" and then "I deserved it! It's all my fault!"

If I can recognize voices, the victim was the woman who was taunting the two women who seemed to live in the third house. She was sitting on the steps of the first house, and it seemed as if she lived there.

While the police were talking to her, a fire engine pulled up, and then a few minutes later, an ambulance. At first the woman screamed that she didn't want to go to the hospital, but eventually she was persuaded to lie down on s stretcher and it was rolled into the back of the ambulance.

All of this was taking place at the end of my driveway, no more than fifty feet from my front door.

When all the hubbub finally died down, it was almost 4 a.m. I went back to bed, but I had a hard time sleeping.

Hopefully tonight the street will be quieter - one of the noisy denizens will be in the hospital, and hopefully another will be in jail.

Unbelievably, we saw the police later in the day, although technically it wasn't the police, it was the county sheriff. They were evicting some people from the huge two story barn-like building on the corner across the street.

Recently, things have been just a neverending parade of splendor around here. I'm not sure how much of this I can write off as just "life in the city" and how much of it is the neighborhood being overrun by scum, and going down the toilet. Am I right to be worried, or am I just a sheltered suburban boy who doesn't really know what people are like when they're all packed together?

Any ideas out there?