fences make good neighbors

"Give me my coat! I am not staying here!" She was screaming, pleading.
There were loud stomping footsteps. My ceiling fan shook, the chain pulls clinky-clinky-clinking against the glass light fixture. Scraaaape, crash, stomp, stomp.
"Just give me my coat so I can leave!" Shuffle shuffle stomp stomp crash thud.
"Just give it to me! I don't want to stay here!" She was crying. Not so tough now, huh Jersey City?
The clock says 10:23. On a Sunday night. Dwayne worked at a restaurant. They were closed on Mondays. Sunday night was his Saturday night. Party as a verb, Dwayne!

Trying to establish a sleep pattern is difficult when one has a history of insomnia and seasonal phases of depression and mania. My brain chemistry is difficult enough to negotiate. I don't need Impromptu Hillbilly Theatre to help me stay awake. There is something about this kind of intrusion that enrages me. It must have something to do with how my parents fought.
Have you ever seen Mary J. Blige perform? Have you ever seen the film 'Boogie Nights'? The scene where Mark Wahlberg is fighting with his mother and he's crying and screaming and spit is coming out of his mouth? How about the scene where Heather Graham is stomping the dog shit out of the guy at the end? You know how they just lost their fucking minds in the midst of those scenes? You know how Mary J. starts jumping up and down and tugging at her clothes and making those anguished faces and just singing/screaming out from her depths, from her fucking toenails? She's lost her mind. That's how my parents fought.
I remember the last fight I witnessed. It was September 1981. My mother had become consumed with the DIY ceramics wave of the late seventies. Our kitchen was yellow and green and decorated with frogs. We had every kind of ceramic frog accessory imaginable; canisters, napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers, cream and sugar dispensers, a clock, a bud vase, a frog to hold our sponge by the sink, a spoonrest, just everything ceramic and frogs. The fight had probably started in the living room. It ended in the garden. Every ceramic frog accessory was smashed in the floor of the kitchen. Every last one of them. She had even walked around our kitchen table and stood on tip toes to get the clock. It looked like a ceramic shop had been blown up. The grayish-whitish dust covered the counters and hung in the sunlight and bits and pieces of benevolent frog faces were all over the floor, mostly lining the counters with a path to the sliding glass door that led out back to our garden where Dad and I planted cucumbers, tomatoes and hot peppers.
My mother stood in the garden with her arms raised, struggling to free them from the grip of my father who was covered in scratches from her long nails. She was screaming in his face, "I hope you have other women here! I hope you bring them in to MY house! AND I HOPE YOU EAT THEIR PUSSIES! I HOPE YOU EAT THEIR PUSSIES ON MY NEW COUCH THAT I WORKED AND PAID FOR, YOU SORRY SON OF A BITCH!"
I remember looking over to the neighbor's yard. The old busy body lady was next door. She was standing in her back yard, watching my parents struggle in the garden. She was not peeking from behind the shed or from her screened in little gazebo dwelling. She was standing in the middle of her yard, hands on hips, blatantly staring at the scene, like a NASCAR spectator.
My father finally got my mother into a hold that looked like a very tight uncomfortable hug and carried/dragged her back through the house, to the front door, where he shoved her out and slammed the door. Some of the nail marks on his bare torso were bleeding. Some of them were imbedded with my mother's broken nail tips. I then had to get into a car with this screaming violent mess of a woman. I regarded it all with a numbed detached feeling. That must be a child's survival mechanism.
Often during my years of psychotherapy, in the hospital or out, I have been asked about my mood. "How is your mood?" And I honestly have no idea. I don't really know what I am feeling in the present moment. It takes months to finally articulate what I think I may have been feeling during a certain point in my life, and then it's just speculation; based on what one should feel during a certain event. I am sure that's a factor in my many diagnoses, and why I seem to make little progress in managing my illness.

"GET OFF OF ME! I DON"T LIKE YOU! GET OFF OF ME!" Jersey City was bawling now. This was seriously fucked up. If they thought I was going to listen to this wacked shit for another minute...I dialed the Palookaville Police. The police showed up as the couple had decided to leave. Dwayne stopped on his way down the stairs and knocked on my door. I thought he was the police so I opened it without asking, "Who is it?" The doors in my building are antique and have no peepholes. Dwayne weaved and bobbed in my doorway. "I am sorry she's so problem...problematic. I am so sorry."
I looked at him incredulously.
"Dude!" was all I could manage before he stumbled down the stairs. Sorry she's so problematic? You're drunk, holding her against her will, trying to rape her and she's the problem? Interesting.
I followed Dwayne down the stairs to see if the police had questions. When a short round little black officer saw him, he exclaimed, "Dwayne Lemmings! You've been missing for a little while now. Where ya been hidin'?"
"I been livin' in New York."
"Well, you know I'm gonna have to run ya, right?" The little butterscotch-hued officer asked. Butterscotch Head talked into his radio. Some squawking noises came back in reply. Dwayne had prior warrants. He was arrested. I went upstairs and crawled into bed. 11:42.
12:13. "You're a dead bitch!" I heard Jersey City say as she descended the stairs. Outside I heard her yell, "I'm gonna kill that bitch on the second floah! Her ass is mine!"
I awoke every half hour or so to the Jersey City tranny-thing yelling threats outside my door. I was getting more and more angry every time.
01:48. Knock at my door. That's it. I flew out of bed and opened it. "Do not knock on my door. Stay the fuck away from my door." It's dust colored hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. It looked 60, at least.
"I want to know why you called the police." It said. "I think you called the police cuz you won't fight me." It set it's Budweiser glass bottle down by the stairs. Noted. Stupid.
"You are ridiculous." It was ridiculous. This mannish thing wearing little girl jeans. What kind of person would say such a thing? What kind of person would live in this way? "Get the fuck away from my door." I went to close the door and the tranny lodged her foot in the jam.
Everything went from real time to some kind of fast motion. I came at her. Her eyes widened in surprise. I connected with her face and upper torso several times. She grabbed a hunk of my hair. I kept punching her. She didn't let go of my hair. I grabbed her face with my left hand, her neck with my right. My left ring finger was in her eyeball. She weighed nothing. As she careened down the stairs, my hair ripped out of my head. It sounded like velcro. The whole time I yelled, "Get out of my apartment! Get out of my apartment!" Henry howled and barked and pushed at his crate until it was crooked.
She landed with her ass on the floor of the landing and her legs going up the stairs. She was saying something I couldn't hear from the roaring noise in my ears. I slammed my door and called the police.
"My neighbor just came into my apartment and tried to assault me."