The girl down the hall – part 2 (2-5-17)

Almost 2 weeks ago I told the story of the girl down the hall from me. The mid-20 something year old girl who has a 5 year old who doesn’t live with her and who I’ve never seen or heard in the building despite her facebook page listing her as a “stay at home mommy”. Since my apartment is the first one after the door and stairway, everyone who comes in and out passes by me. I hear conversations I don’t want to hear. I get subjected to all kinds of disturbances and annoyances that I would rather do without. In the first story, I talked about how she’s 3 months or so pregnant and how her boyfriend, who I think is the father, is a complete psychopath with no regard for anyone or anybody. I told you about his arrest for trying to fight and rob people in front of the building on Hertel Avenue. What I’ve learned since then is that his “job” appears to be trying to sell phones, jewelry and electronics to people. Kind of a travelling salesman of the shady kind because who knows where he gets these things. He pulled a guy off the street, brought him into the hallway and sold him a “brand new” iphone right outside my door. He’s very violent, belligerent and he’s so incredibly loud. I hear him screaming all the time, whether he’s happy or upset. He’s unbalanced and lives every moment like it’s his last… but in a bad way.

Now as for me I’ve been trying really hard to not get involved, AT ALL. I’m not talking to anybody, I don’t want to see anybody and I’m not going to go out in the hallway to politely ask a guy who was bragging on the phone about his arrest to a friend, how he spit on all the police officers and told them repeatedly to suck his dick. I’m not asking a guy who was so proud that he had to be restrained in a special chair at the police station, to please be considerate of other people in the building. After listening to this guy for a few weeks, I have a pretty good idea of how that conversation would go. He’d be defiant, insulting and probably try to fight me, because how dare I step up to him like that, and then in a face to face, disrespectful situation like that I’m afraid of what I might do. I don’t want anyone to die, not me, not someone else. I just want to be a tenant in a building occupied by rational, respectful ADULTS, not a target, or someone who has to buy a gun so I can leave my apartment. I’m not going there. I have enough darkness in my life.

So I’ve been compiling every incident in a journal with dates and times. When I paid my rent earlier this week I thought about handing it in to the management but something told me it wasn’t quite time yet. Frankly, part of me was concerned that they’d knew it was me who blew them in and you know the code of the streets, snitches get stitches. Again, I don’t want to be a target. I’ve been having these internal arguments where I want to report on all of it, the owners should know what’s going on in their building and I shouldn’t have to deal this shit but at the same time, I’m waiting for the right time to do it, you now, trying to pick my spot.

Yesterday I visited a friend of mine and when she asked me about the building situation I told her I’m trying to stay out of it and be patient because these people are too volatile, the situation is too crazy to last long term. You’ve got essentially a very stupid girl renting the apartment who doesn’t have a job and whose child doesn’t live with her. Then you have another female staying there, and their 2 boyfriends who appear to know each other. The psycho guy comes and goes. I heard him talking in the hallway on the phone to one of his “bitches” so I think he has other girls to party with and other places to stay but the other guy, who dates apartment girl’s friend, well he’s been living here, pretty much since the disturbances started 3 weeks ago. He’s the asshole who smokes in the hallway and is the reason I sealed my doors so that the smoke couldn’t get in my place.

Last night, that guy might have taken himself out of the equation. Around 10:30 last night, the girl who’s been staying in apartment 9 the last few weeks ran out into the hallway. She was basically right outside my door and she screamed; “That’s it! You put your hands on me and now I’m calling the cops!” the guy followed out into the hallway and this started basically a literally half hour screaming match up and down the stairs and out in front of the building where the guy was basically telling her to “suck his dick”, calling her a “crazy bitch” and making sure she understood that “I’m not fucking with you anymore anyway”. She kept screaming about how she was going to call the police and how he was going to pay for putting his hands on her. So yes, for half an hour they just went back and forth, up and down the steps and not only was I not going to get involved but I had a smirk on my face. I couldn’t wait for the police to arrive. Yes, I had some compassion for the female, but these people have been making my life a hell for weeks, waking me up constantly, partying every night, making it hard for me to get to sleep, making me feel unsafe in my own place, so my satisfaction that this drama was unfolding was a guiltless satisfaction. It’s hard for me to feel sympathy for people who treat me with disrespect and who continue to make terrible choices. I’d help anyone in a normal situation but this wasn’t a normal situation. These people need help beyond the means of which I can provide… and they were about to get it.

When 2 vehicles pulled up to the house I was surprised. It wasn’t the police but the parents/relatives of the girl who was assaulted. By this time, the argument had moved back inside of apartment 9. Two people, who didn’t actually “live” in apartment 9 were trying to tell the other to move out and leave. I thought, well this is going to get interesting. Within a minute I heard a man screaming that he was going to knock the attacker out, but the abuser was defiant. He wouldn’t let go of the girl’s arm. From what I can tell there was some pushing and shoving, many threats back and forth and I heard a little bit of wrestling or contact in the hall. Then I heard the father say something about the abuser having a gun. Oh boy. Yes, that’s when I decided it would be a good idea to grab my phone and lay flat on the floor. I’m not trying to get shot over some other’s people’s crazy shit. Before I could call the police, someone in the hall did. The father decided at this point not to try to throw the guy out but to instead get his daughter out of Dodge. They made it down to the downstairs door and the street and were trying to leave to wait for the police but the abuser would not release the girl’s arm. A tug of war was underway.

Suddenly a police car came flying up, stopped in the middle of the street and the abuser released her arm and ran up the driveway beside my building. The police gave chase. Perhaps if he had taken out the trash at all in the last 3 or so weeks he might have known that the driveway leads to a little parking lot behind the restaurant next door but there’s no way out, There were 5 foot concrete walls, with tall fences on top of them. A minute or so later the police emerged with him, shackled him up and threw him in the car; all the while he was screaming and freaking out, not unlike the other crazy guy who was arrested almost 2 weeks ago. Other police cars arrived on the scene and although there weren’t as many as there were last week (6), there were quite a few and once again, another crazy guy was being taken to jail. I couldn’t help but feel joy over this. I thought, wow not only did they get all their drama finished this time before midnight; also now it’s going to be sooo quiet tonight. Maybe I’ll even be able to enjoy the Super Bowl in peace this weekend. I went to bed relaxed and peaceful. Perhaps this situation is working itself out after all. But I also think it may be time to turn in my incident journal to management on Monday.

p.s. As I was getting ready to post this, the girl who was attacked last night showed up alone and collected all of her clothes and belongings, like 5 garbage bags full. I guess she’s moving out. This is a positive sign. Because if she’s moving out there a lot less chance that the attacker from last night will be moving back in when he gets out of jail. 

"Sex Dreams" (this blog is rated PG-13) 2-2-17

I don’t remember much from my dreams. Sometimes I go for weeks without remembering a single one. The only time I tend to really retain anything from them is when my sleep is choppy or if I oversleep and with my apartment building being an annoying and noisy place lately, going to sleep has been tough and getting 7-8 uninterrupted hours of sleep has been virtually impossible. The result is I’ve been getting to sleep late, oversleeping, shutting off my alarm and then waking up 1-2 hours later. It’s frustrating but if there was one silver lining, yes I always try to find one, it’s that I’ve been remembering my dreams during these oversleep and intermittent sleep sessions and now I have some questions. 

First understand, my dreams aren’t too far out and it's probably a direct result of who I am. There’s far more substance in my dreams, more conversations than flash. There are no plaid unicorns, flying cars or far-away worlds. My dreams are like independent films, sometimes even sit-coms, but generally they just seem like an extension of real life. They feature people I know, people I want to know and sometimes people I don’t want to know but have seen somewhere. They are probably pretty boring to anyone other than myself. Actually my daydreams are far more abstract, vivid and exciting but of course I have a little more conscious control over those.

In last night’s dream I was talking with a local performer who I’d never really had a conversation with but admired from afar. We met at an Allentown bar, hit it off immediately (gotta love dreams) and we had a lot in common. We talked politics, music, film, pop culture, philosophy… a wide range of topics. We talked for hours but it seemed like 20 minutes which is always a good sign. We became very flirty and playful. I noticed that something I said made her ever so gently lick her lips. There was a look in her eye and it was unmistakable. I can only imagine the vibe I was giving off. Sparks were in the air. I went in and we kissed, passionately, for a significant period of time like two long lost lovers who were recently reunited after an eternity apart. It was powerful. When we finally loosened our lips we both agreed that we wanted to continue our conversation elsewhere, somewhere more private.

We went back to my place and she started going through my things, my book, movie and poetry collections, all while being so devilishly sexy. Just when I thought I couldn’t be into her any more, she’d say insightful things about a film in my collection that raised the ceiling. She was amazing! Eventually we sat together on the bed and proceeded to make out again except this time, our hands began exploring. If the windows in my cozy place weren’t fogged up, I would have been surprised. In a very sultry manner she began to remove her shirt and before I knew it… we were both lying next to each other, a little sweaty, both pleased at what transpired. It was getting very late but we couldn’t even think about tomorrow because we were too busy living in that moment, in that room, in that bed. The passion was still palpable despite the fact that the explosions were over and the tide had settled down. It was like we had finished in one sense but at the same time, we were just beginning. As if a sudden itch struck me, I had the strangest feeling that something was missing…

This is what happens in every one of my “sex dreams”. There’s a pretty big lack of sex in them. I’ve never remembered a single dream where I’ve ever engaged in sex or experienced an orgasm. I find it hard to remember a dream where there was even any nudity. Even this last one, when we cut from making out to lying on the bed beside each other, the perspective was from the neck up but there was a first. For the first time in the dream itself, I wondered why I couldn't remember having sex. Maybe that's why I thought the same thing when I woke up. Is this normal? Sex without the sex? I’m wondering why this is. I dream about interactions with females constantly, or at least constantly in the dreams I can recall. We talk and talk and talk and if things progress to a romantic level the dream basically fades to black at the onset of skintimacy and then comes back from the commercial break edit with the aftermath. And when it comes to the aftermath, cue the intimate conversation. This begs the question; is my dream sex-life a made for TV movie? Why the lack of sex? I’m not religious. Do I think about sex enough during my waking hours that I filled my quota? Does this occur because I value the emotional or intellectual connection more than the physical one? I have a very high sex drive but an even higher standard of emotional connection. Does this play a role?

I’ve never thought about it until this morning. I woke up feeling like I spent the most incredible evening with this woman but I don’t remember a “lick” of it. When it dawned on me that I couldn’t remember the sex parts it strangely made sense... I NEVER remember the sex parts, the naked time, the sweaty Eddie and sexy lady time. Why is this? Is it me? I guess it has to be, right? But I want to know, does this happen to other people too or am I some subconsciously repressed weirdo? I’m looking at this now more from curiosity than fulfilling my lusty desires. Besides, it’s not like I’m actually getting sex out of this either way. But why does it seem like my conscious mind has a greater imagination than my subconscious one? Perhaps the really crazy, the really creative dreams are those ones I can never remember. So I pose this question to those of you who have a similar thing going on or those of you who have a better understanding of dreams than I do… why are my sex dreams PG-13?