24 Carat Star Time

The new lease has been signed, and now we are getting things organized/coordinated for the move.

The upheaval next door hasn’t been solved. There was an incidence of domestic violence at the end of last week that added to the confusion, though it also helped clear up some of the details. ChessMan came back from an evening walk with the pups to find the neighbor outside, shaking in her proverbial boots and crying. Seems she and her young boyfriend had had a slap-up, and she had fled onto the street through the bedroom window. ChessMan brought both of them – he quickly appeared outside once ChessMan began talking with her – into our house  while I called the ambulance. We were afraid her hand was broken. Fortunately, her thumb was only dislocated.

While they were here we were told:

• he is only 20 years old (she is 37…!)
• he is the father of the child (who is 3…!)
• he is also the father of the baby she is now expecting (she is 2 months pregnant)

So, while her new (now ex-) boyfriend was busy banging and hammering away late into the night to renovate the house and clear out the garden, she and her young boy were busy ‘banging’ away, too.

It’s all more than sad. I feel for all of them, simply because they seem caught up in their own private cage of booze, bad choices and primal urges. I can’t get over the pathos of her saying to me while waiting for the ambulance how “quiet” we are…she never hears us. ChessMan and I are no quieter than most other folks. I sometimes talk loud, call to and joke with the dogs, or laugh uncontrollably while watching  Judge Judy on youtube.com on the balcony. But we don’t make a habit of arguing and shouting out loud at one another (though there are times – like now – when I would like to tie ChessMan to a chair and force him – Clockwork Orange-style – to watch “Terms of Endearment” in an endless loop).

She whispered to ChessMan that, though she wants the young guy to go, she can’t make him leave. He has an outstanding warrant, so you’d think all she’d have to do is report him to the cops. But I guess that decision – like so many in all our lives – isn’t as easy as it appears to be on the surface.

In any case, they continue to argue and yell. Our bathrooms are back to back, and ChessMan’s usual morning ritual of taking a long, hot bath in order to ease his back pain is no longer the relaxing event it used to be. Now that the last few days have been both cooler and rainier, I haven’t been working outside, so I haven’t been as exposed as I used to be.