About once a week, a woman of about twenty years of age cries loudly in the middle of my block.
Allow me to recount the tale:
Several months ago, I was on my way to the local food purveyor in want of sliced turkey and an avocado. I was delighted at my own culinary desire, and it was a beautiful summer day. As I reached the corner of my block, I happened upon two police cars with their lights flashing. As a normal nosy resident, I slowed down my pace and pretended to not look, surveying the scene. Across the street, a woman screamed at the top of her lungs:
"Keep that bitch away from my house and my son! She can't come to my house and act like that!" she instructed the police officers.
There was a police officer with her, alongside a young man of about 18-21 years. On my side of the street loudly cried a young woman of about the same age, and she also had instructions for the police officers:
"He's a liar! Arrest him! He's a liar!!"
The officers looked at the young man, and, noticing that there was no witness stand around him, dutifully asked the young lady to go home and leave the scene. Her younger brother soon arrived, and they both walked back towards my apartment, where she cried in front of my window for a half an hour.
Within a matter of days, she and her boyfriend were making out in the same spot.
Over the next few weeks, I gathered that this young woman lives on the block to my right with her family. Her boyfriend lives on the block to my left with his mother. Since her family probably disapproves of this relationship as much as his mother does, they decide to meet in the very middle of their residences - across the street from my living quarters.
Of course, I led this piece by acknowledging this woman cries every week, and she does. In between make-out sessions, she screams at her boyfriend so loudly that she starts to sound like a monster. She usually leads with a few impossible to understand taunts, and then she cries softly, followed by a "Hrrrrrrrrrrooooooooo-aahhhhh!" Admittedly, she cries for about a minute before her little brother leads her back, possibly even hearing her from where they live.
Sadly, on my latest trip back from the grocery store, I again ran into our Romeo & Juliet. However, this time, since I had to walk between them, I was able to hear what she was screaming:
"What do you mean you lost the money?! What do you mean you lost the money?!"
Apparently, he lost some money. I felt bad for her, until she followed it up with:
"I don't do shit! I don't work! I don't go to school! How we gonna get that apartment without your money?!?"
It's easy to feel for a woman when the man who manages their finances loses their savings, but it's not easy to feel sympathy when she A. is bat-shit insane, B. doesn't add to that account, and C. wants to lock herself in a room with someone she's been screaming at for the past few months.
I nearly laughed as I walked past, as the young man only kept throwing up his hands and silently saying, "I just don't got it anymore." He seemed almost content that he had gotten out of their prior arrangement.
As I walked away, I heard the young woman scream, "That's it! That's it! You ain't gonna hear nothing from me anymore! It's over! You ain't gonna hear nothing from me!!!"
I know she was talking to her man, but I'd like to think that, somehow, she was also talking to me.
And strangely, I'm going to miss her a little more than he does.