ANXIETY HELL

Last night my life partner, whom we’ll call Raul, and I wound up taking bit parts in an untelevised episode of Cops. I would just call my love muffins (AKA the 3.5 people who read this blog) right now to discuss the details, but instead I have decided to type it out, because I’m lazy and only want to explain it once – or perhaps because I’ve contracted Brother from Another Planet Disease.

So, I sat upstairs in my unemployment office typing some e-mails to Cherd early this morning when I heard a man, who sounded possessed by either PCP or the devil, screaming and throwing things outside on the street. His comments included, but were not limited to, “AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I’m gonna f*ing kill you! I’m gonna kill you!!!!” ad nauseum.

I’m used to hearing this sort of thing, what with our street serving as a long exit way from the local bar and liquor stores (and crack dealing alley?) across the street. But this man sounded more out of control than anything I’ve ever heard. And then the car alarms did. And then the patio furniture did.

Soon he attacked the front door and wall of the house directly across from ours with so much force and verbal rage that I thought he was assaulting our walls. Raul shot out of bed and peered through our blinds. That’s when he saw a man trying to kick in the front door while still threatening to kill someone.

A woman screamed she was going to call the police and a second later Raul witnessed the door open. He saw the man push the woman so hard she flew backwards across the room and landed on the tile floor hitting her head. The man turned and slowly walked to shut the door behind him in a manner Raul later described as “f*ing creepy as hell.” That happened within about one second because as soon as he threw her down and started attacking her, Raul ran and got dressed and took off across the street as I called the cops and/or Steven Seagal. By then it was 12:54 a.m.

At this point the woman shrieked bloody womanslaughter, “Somebody help me! Oh my God! Please help me!” over and over. The sounds of furniture and various objects hitting walls and breaking as she cried and screamed echoed through our street. I’ve never heard a person sound so terrified in my life and it made my blood turn cliche to listen to her. Clad in my insomni clothes, I shivered in the middle of  the street whilst hollering at Raul to get back over to our house. He hadn’t even brought his machete with him.

R beat on their door three times, trying to distract the guy and get him to stop beating her. On the third punch to the front door, it swung open. The guy turned around and slowly strolled toward mi amore Raul. Just then the cops skidded up and surrounded the house. My life mate sprinted back across the street and the five o tackled the other guy to the ground on the patio.

The woman was  hysterical, sobbing and screaming, saying to arrest him and that he tried to kill her. They handcuffed the guy and after questioning him on the patio for a while, tossed him in a police SUV, but the guy saw Raul and me and clearly knew we’d dropped the dime. Through the front door that stayed open during the ensuing hour-plus long investigation, you could see broken furniture everywhere. A table top lay on the floor with its stand turned upside-down beside it. The place was a disaster.

The cops snapped pictures of the scene and questioned her for nearly two hours. They kept coming over to get statements from us, but we were so shaken up we forgot to double-check that it would be anonymous — not that it matters since the lunatic has already seen us and obviously knows where we live.

At 2:30 a.m. another cop came upstairs and when I told him how scared I felt about the guy coming after us, he said my fears were unfounded. These are new neighbors that just moved in. I haven’t gotten a monocle-worthy gander at them, but the guy appeared either Persian or Hispanic (I can’t guess weights, either) and wore baggy clothes. So being the nervous dumbass I am, I assumed he was possibly a gangster who might get out of prison angrier and more probed than he’d have enjoyed and would now be ready to bust a cap in my ass. You know, a butt for a butt or some kind of street justice.

Maybe he’d bring the Crypts along, maybe the Bloods, I just didn’t know. Okay, not really. He wore neither red nor blue but gray, I think. Not sure what gang that is. When I told this to my dad he explained, “Regarding gang affiliations, I think gray is the Confederacy. They lost their turf 150 years ago and can still get a bit pissy, but as long as neither you nor Raul go out in your Daisy Dukes you’ll both be fine.” So, of course, that made me feel better because with the weather being the way it is this week, we won’t be sporting anything shorter than culottes.

The cop told me the guy is in law school and doesn’t have a criminal record and just blacked out (we think drugs not booze due to how freaky he acted when R went down there). They wanted to know if Raul had “busted in the front door vigilante style,” but the door pummeling came compliments of Mr. Meth ‘n Death. They seemed to act like the dude was semi-harmless, saying “He’s just a punk,” and that the woman would not take him back and that we’d be fine. This annoyed me because his dialogue, fists, and choking fingers seemed to belie that sentiment.

They said he didn’t live there and the woman was not “your typical abused type who’d take him back in two days and that she was clearly shaken up. She freaked out when she saw his Blackberry and didn’t even want to see his phone.” I’m not sure what kind of evidence that last tidbit counts for, but hopefully the dude will stay away. They also said there were two victims, not just the woman.

Sure enough, as I continued to pull a McGruff through the blinds whilst struggling with my breath condensation, I saw a second dude pop up out of nowhere and start drinking a beer and smoking while giving his statement to the police and inspecting the broken front door. I don’t know if the guy was knocked out cold to that point or where he was before. They finally took Sir Psycho off to jail but I’m sure he’ll get out on bail soon. (Hopefully he’s an illiterate law school student or at least one without internet access.)

Anyway, that was my morning and I’m slightly scared about how involved we got. I’m hoping the woman is okay and I was kind of mad they didn’t take her to the ER for some kind of exam or tests. The thing that I find most upsetting is this guy is only getting charged with a domestic disturbance. I don’t know if he would have ended up killing her if the cops hadn’t arrived so quickly, but it’s my opinion that their intervention shouldn’t negate an attempted murder charge. I wish more people took all violence seriously, as there are few things in the world that are more horrific. I hate euphemistic modifiers like “domestic” violence or “date” rape. Violence is violence and rape is rape; I don’t care if the asshole let you pick anything you wanted off the dollar value menu before he attacked you — it’s irrelevant. I hope this guy rots in prison.