A rehab program rents the apartment underneath mine. This means that junkies camp out in the hallways and loom by the front door of the building until they are let in.
This also means that there is a lot of random screaming in the middle of the night.
Last night’s drunken screamfest was particularly vicious:
I ran into The Graces this morning.
The Graces are my neighborhood’s shockingly inappropriate trio of women. The Graces are like Matryoshka dolls: one is obese, another is chubby, and one is normal-sized.
I walked by the Graces on this morning’s dog walk. It’s 10am and the Graces are sitting on a retention wall passing a bottle of liquor1 when Chubby Grace spots my dog:
Chubby Grace: “Dog!”
Normal Grace: “Yes. A dog.”
Chubby Grace: “That’s a big dog.”
Obese Grace: “Sure is! Tee hee hee!”
Chubby Grace: “And the dog has an asshole!”
Obese and Normal Grace are occupied with the bottle.
Chubby Grace is transfixed on my dog’s butt.
I am uncomfortable.
Me: “Hm. I don’t know how to respond to that….but …have a great day!”
Harley and I scamper off, leaving the Graces with their bottle.
What the hell neighborhood. What. The. Hell.
1 Yes, at 10am on a Sunday. And this is odd because the bottle was in a brown bag and the liquor stores are closed on Sundays.
It’s a Miami Christmas: there’s the constant sound of singing and gunfire from across the river. (People in Little Havana shoot into the air to celebrate.)
My mother’s cell phone rings. I think she’s at the apartment next door, so I go outside to bring it to her.
I open the door and my mother and two neighbors come running up the stairs.
Mom: “Go inside and lock the door!”
There’s yelling from downstairs.
Me: “Whut what? What’s going on? Do we need the cops?”
Neighbor: “No, not yet…”
Yet. Great. I close the door and then hear a neighbor screaming outside: “Don’t you touch my wife!”
A few minutes later I hear my mother pounding on the back door.
Mom: “Why is the door locked?!”
Me: “Uh, you told me to lock the door…”
Mom: “Oh. Right. I meant the front door.”
Me: “What is this chaos outside?”
Mom: “We were all at Geraldo’s house and Jose was acting stupid… I think it’s because he wasn’t invited or something.”
She grabs a few diet cokes and goes back out the back door.
I return to my novel, and try to ignore the drunken conversation (and occasional screaming) from outside. We’ll see if things pop off…
**** Update
Mom comes back in and says:
Mom: “I’m about to call the police on his ass! Jose told me: ‘punch me in the face, I need to feel pain.’ See a few days ago he met this girl…”
Apparently Jose is running around asking all the neighbors to punch him ‘so he can feel pain’ because this girl he went on a date with ditched him for another man… special.
