the voices in the hall

Long after midnight, there are doors slamming in the hallway. It could be the new neighbors, the renters half drunk coming home. But no, it is a man and a woman and he is shouting. The words are lost, but the tone is pure and ugly - that all too familiar high-pitched soup of hurt and regret, of control and anger, of desperation. Her voice rises too, and it is hard to know if they are arguing or just angry, or if it is something more.

Then there are footsteps, and more doors slamming. I immediately hope and wonder that she is ok, that she is not being harmed. But the noises from the hallway cannot be unraveled, they just evaporate into nothing but a hushed silence, and then abruptly return ten minutes later.

Staring into the peephole in the door I can see nothing but the dark hallway.

How far will this go? What can I do? At what point do you think about calling the police? It is not an easy answer. I cannot tell if she is in danger, or they are just letting off steam, and maybe both of them want this to be private. No one wants an eavesdropper categorizing their worst moments.

I think she leaves, going all the way downstairs and out in the parking lot behind our building. Maybe it is just my imagination.

A few lifetimes ago, across the ocean, drowning in a catastrophic marriage I had fights something like this and often stood outside of myself, mortified by what the neighbors were hearing. It cuts both ways. We all have our cockroaches.

Around the corner, a car slumps into a hole that has appeared in the middle of the street. The woman at the wheel is in hysterics, her big black Mercedes resting on the buckled asphalt, not on the tire that is lost somewhere down in that chasm that opened up. I was just going to buy milk, and the cashiers from the little store are glued to the door glass, rubbernecking in silence. I do not push past them.

Men are arriving from all directions, sharp and coordinated - just guys from the neighborhood. The car is pulled back, wheeled out of the hole as the driver puts her phone down mid-call and lets out a deep breath. The men laugh and gesture, hands on hips, and then go back to whatever they were doing.

Help comes from all directions, in the bright light of day in the middle of Barnovi Street on a hazy Saturday morning. It is capricious, and unpredictable, but at least sometimes it finds air.