The apartment directly beneath mine, which I’ve written about before, somehow houses a single mother with four children, two cats, maybe two dogs, and revolving-door boyfriends. Right now I believe there are three guys living down there with the family. Anyways, Beth (a roommate), the boyfriend and I were sitting around minding our own business last night, around midnight or so, when someone pounded at our door. Thinking it was Beth’s boyfriend, we answered the door to encounter the woman from downstairs, wearing a rumpled t-shirt, pajama shorts and a scowl on her face. Yelling over her shoulder “motherfucker, just wait a minute” at someone behind her, she then turned to us. “Did one of you call the cops and tell them that I beat my kids?” Stupefied, but completely unsurprised, the boyfriend and I denied that we had done such a thing. Sucking in her breath, she declared, “I think I know who did it,” and stormed off.

I mention that I was unsurprised. Occasionally, when the neighbors aren’t straining their subwoofers and our eardrums with the melodic strains of 50 cent, I can hear her screaming obscenities that shock even yours truly, at her small children. The youngest, I think, is five - a little too young, in my opinion, to be called “a dirty little motherfucker” (I think that is her favorite vocab word). Well, she is a single mother with four kids, living in a shitty apartment with approximately five-hundred other people. That’s enough to cause someone to flip out, even though that doesn’t excuse her behavior.

Anyways, as soon as the door shut, Beth turns to me and whispers, “I’m the one that called.” ! She told me that around 11:00 she heard the woman beating her kid several times and cursing at him. She deliberated awhile before making the call. Initially I was a little upset that she didn’t consult with us first (what the christ, wow), but then in retrospect it’s probably best that she didn’t. I don’t know if I could lie sufficiently well enough to trick a person as seething mad as that mother was. Beth and I told Kristen, who was dubious about the whole thing - how could she tell if it was abuse, anyway, without seeing it?

Fast-forward to 7:30 this morning, when I was awakened by someone repeatedly banging on the door - the next-door neighbor’s door (phew). It was the woman, yelling again - all I could catch were “fuck,” “cops,” “you assholes.” The boyfriend freaked out, told me not to get out of bed and hid the cats - I’m not sure why. I think he got a little paranoid at this point and thought she’d try to beat our cats or something. She pounded on the door for fifteen minutes straight, sounding like she was arguing with someone. Gah. Luckily, she eventually went to work; otherwise I might have skipped out on class and locked myself in the apartment for awhile.

I’m not sure if this woman is a child abuser or not, but she’s definitely a psycho on a rampage. I hope she doesn’t come after Beth (or me or Kristen, for that matter), but that would mean that she comes after one of our neighbors, who had nothing to do with it. I’m not sure what she would do, but it would probably involve a fistfight and hair-pulling, and I can’t imagine poor gentle Beth coming out on the better end of a scene like that. But it isn’t really fair to stand by and let her harass the neighbors either. I don’t know what to do if that happens.

I’m also not sure I agree with Kristen. Yeah, it’s true that you shouldn’t be nosy and interfering when you’re not sure what’s going on, but then I think of Kitty Genovese, or “A Child Called It.” Beth babysits a lot and has a strong mothering instinct. Plus I hate to be selfish and worrying about getting my own ass kicked when these kids might be getting abused daily.

One thing I am sure of, though, and that is that the cops were worse than useless in this situation. The cop even told the woman that the call came from above her apartment. Gee thanks, asshole cop. Let’s see - there’s only three units that could be from, and one of them belongs to her pothead friend. That leaves us, and the guys next to us whose door she was pounding on this morning. Now it’s only a matter of time before her horde of boyfriends come knocking on our door at night…