Guys, I was set to announce the Ask Me Anything winners today, but then something happened last night that I wanted to write about right away. Winners are going up tomorrow, though; I wrote a whole post about it. (ps: thanks for bearing with my oafish self. You guys are totally boss and I hope you get let out of work early today.)
NTKOG #202: The kind of fussy busybody who takes it upon herself to mediate your relationship woes — or bring in a third party, if necessary.
I am: no Montel. (Though I did stand next to him in an elevator once. Surprisingly bad skin.)
I am not: perfect in my own relationships; why would I hold you to a higher standard?
The Scene: Around midnight in Chez TKOG. I’m just turning out the light to curl up with my latest library find when, out of nowhere, a barrage of atomic F-bombs explodes through my open windows and right into my apartment.
Break-Up Couple.
Break-Up Couple lives in the apartment building across the courtyard from mine, and has been breaking up every week or two ever since I moved in. I’ll admit, at first I found it endearing: she would shriek accusations, his plaintive “baby! baby!”s would gradually bellow into counter-accusations, she’d throw him a few good slaps, then transition into an hour of primal screaming “I hope you get chlamydia!” Back in the good old days, I used to open the windows while they fought and gather every snatch of drama. In fact, I wouldn’t be prepared to swear I didn’t settle in to enjoy the proceedings with a big bowl of popcorn.
Lately, though, the fights have gotten more intense. Two weeks ago, they kept me up until four in the morning while she threw dishes at him and screamed, “You’re a fucking toolshed! Go back to your hoes!” When he’d finally stormed out for the sixth or seventh time, there was blessed silence for a few moments, followed by a series of loud cracks. Confused, I pried open the shades and caught a glimpse of her silhouette in the bathroom. She was hunched over, smashing her head again and again into the wall, as hard as she could. The impact rang out like gunshots.
Warm weather has brought out the worst in Break-Up Couple. Because everyone’s windows are open, their voices detonate right into your living room. Which brings me back to last night, for twenty minutes my apartment echoing with hundred-decibel “fuck you!”s, oozing acid.
Although I try to hide my nosiness, and certainly understand that all relationships are different and should be left to themselves, the lack of sleep has started to get to me. As she slapped him last night, I considered heckling out the window or even threatening to report a noise violation.
Then, a different sound than usual. Her slaps rang out as usual — weak but triumphant — then were stopped all at once with a veritable thunderbolt of flesh on flesh. She gasped. I picked up my phone and dialed.
To their credit, the police weren’t racist this time. The second the (very nice) dispatcher picked up, though, I became immediately ambivalent about calling. On the one hand, there is nothing okay about regular domestic violence; on the other, I can’t be sure of what I hear, and anyway, people’s relationships are whole universes with their own governing laws. But after I explained the whole situation to the dispatcher, leaning heavily on the fact that I could in no way be positive that anyone had laid a hand on anyone else, he warmly explained that they ought to send over an officer anyway, if only to address the noise complaint.
For five minutes after I hung up the phone, Break-Up Couple continued their intricate dance of taunts, shrieks and screams. Then: silence, punctuated only by the barely audible rumble of one of Boston’s Finest, restoring peace to the night.
The Verdict: My conscience is gnawing away at me for involving myself so thoroughly into what is obviously a private affair. After all, they are Break-Up Couple. They must break up; it is in their nature. But I need sleep and some quiet and to know I’m living in a world where domestic disputes don’t escalate, some strange drunken night, into a violent tragedy twenty yards away from my own home.
Ambivalence. Guilt. Silence. I guess this is pretty much my default state.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
you did the right thing. lots of people don’t. i always wished one of my neighbors would when I was living with my abusive boyfriend.
This was pretty much the exact comment I was going to leave. Wish someone had done this for me. You absolutely did the right thing.
You did the right thing. When living in Brighton many, many years ago, my upstairs neighbor and her boyfriend would scream at each other on a daily basis, keeping me awake many a night, but I said nothing. Then one day he punched her in the face and threw her down the stairs. I called the police then, and helped her get a restraining order. But I’ll always regret not having called sooner.
You’re fine. Even if there was no actually abuse going on there, what a couple of asses to argue like that when you live in an apartment. Seriously people, if you’re gonna get that noisy, go live in a single-family home, please.
So at the very least you got them to shut up for a night. At the very best, you may have stopped a potentially abusive situation.
That sounds awful. I’m kind of confused, though–when you looked at her was the sound coming from her pounding her own head into the wall (which is incredibly creepy, BTW) or from her smacking him?
Oh, yeah, fun with verb tenses — I was pretty tired when I wrote that. A few weeks ago, she was bashing her head against the wall. This time, it was dark and I couldn’t see anything, so I can’t be sure what the sounds were, but they sounded like slapping.
Ahh, got it. That sounds really scary in any event. Domestic abuse, man. Sigh.
WOW. you definitely did the right thing. god only knows what might’ve gone down had you not.
I’m a rabid SVU fan and always am like “WHY DIDN’T THAT RANDOM EXTRA CALL THE PO PO?!” And then one time I heard what could have been a sexual assault outside my balcony and completely froze.
In the end, I called security and felt ridiculously guilty for maybe just interrupting some nice fountain sexy time, but still. Three years later I’m glad I did it.
In short, you should be proud of yourself for being better than random extras on Law and Order!!
Don’t be ambivalent. You did good, in the Superman way, not in the grammatically incorrect way.
Oh god, that poor couple, how horrible to be locked in a relationship that makes you so unhappy. You did the right thing, although it is always hard to know when to step in.
I agree with L 100%.
“You’re a toolshed…hoes”, that’s as clever as they can get?
I shamefully admit(O.K. not so shamefully) that I love to watch/listen stranger break up fights. I have a great one to share but it involves a lot of CS er and MF ing. You’re call.
I love break-up stories! Share share share!
You did the right thing this time, but you did a bad thing not answering my question!
tomorrow’s post! i promise!
Ok;)
PS. Right now I’m hearing my neighbor and her teenage daughter argue about tomatoes. It seems that the girl is fed up with them, but her mom insists on giving her tomatoes for breakfast each day…
O.K. maybe it’s not that great: I will keep the back story brief so it makes sense….
A long time ago I was in the same position. Except I was living in an attic apartment and my landlords lived downstairs. I awoke to a similar fight. Then he dragged her down to the basement and made some VERY scary threats. I listened through the vent. I was a scared kid in a small town near the Twin Cities (for my first big job hundreds of miles away from home), had a broken leg and a cast up to my knee, only one way out and no place to go. And my landlord was very good friends with most of the guys on the police force. I didn’t do anything, but I think about it ALL THE TIME. That was 10 years ago. You did the right thing.
I feel like a real party-pooper here. But how come nobody thinks about calling the police when she is hitting him? Violence escalates (as we see here), and assault is still assault (and not okay), even when the assaulter is weaker than the assaulted.
That said, I know that it is very, very difficult to know when you will make things better, and when you will make things worse, by taking action. I’m glad you called the police. I hope I would have, too.
A fair point. Certainly violence isn’t okay on either side. But to my mind, the reasons I never would have called the police before about this particular couple: 1) I was very, very, very loath to get involved in this couple’s affair because they fight all the time and it seems to be a routine for them; 2) she’s a tiny little thing and, like you said, weaker than the man she’s hitting, so her attacks on him didn’t seem likely to put him in enough danger to, in my mind, justify an ignorant third party bringing in a gun-toting fourth party; 3) because it is her apartment, he has more of an option to leave when she’s hitting him; 4) the violence has never escalated to a two-way physical brawl before.
Basically, the biggest reason is the first, that I don’t want to get involved in other people’s nuanced relationships about which I know very little. And I was prompted to action this time both because there was a significant change in the nature of their fighting (which has nothing to do with which partner was attacking which) and because the physically stronger person in the pair was attacking a weaker person (which has a lot to do with it).
Obviously I’m not saying that it’s okay for a woman to assault a man. But it is more likely that, if a stronger person attacks a weaker one, it might require a third party to physically remove the victim from the situation in a Pretty Bad Situation. And I’ll admit, I don’t want to get unnecessarily involved in anyone else’s lives, so Pretty Bad Situation is my first stop on the vigilante bus.
It doesn’t matter who is doing the hitting. Abusive relationships go both way. My favorite blog on this topic is http://shrink4men.blogspot.com. She talks about how society tends to believe that women never abuse men because they’re physically weaker or whatever. Abuse is still abuse. It doesn’t matter how hard you hit a person; what matters is that you hit them in the first place. No one deserves to be hit, no matter what. You could argue that he could defend himself against her weaker assaults, but what if she grabs a weapon? How is he supposed to defend himself without striking her? How does it look when he defends himself and gives her a bruise?
You did the right thing. My bf and I called the cops after we heard thumps and screaming in our apartment complex. If nothing else, it’s to get you more sleep. You could be interrupting a murder in process. Don’t be Kitty Genovese’s neighbors.
P.S. My cop friend highly encourages anyone to call the cops when they hear something suspicious, even if they aren’t sure. The more calls they get about a suspicious sound, the more likely they are to investigate.
That’s a really, really good point. Of course I agree that no one ever deserves to be hit! But I hadn’t thought about the logistics of escalation quite so clearly. Even if it sounds like a physical struggle is starting small, there’s no way to know how quickly and through what means it will escalate. Even if it’s a 4’10″ woman throwing a Tae Bo punch at a big hulking bear of a man, the situation might only be ten minutes away from tragedy.
You guys, I’m loving everyone’s insightful comments today. I’ve been fortunate enough to rarely have to consider domestic violence in my personal life, but everyone has really great perspectives on the responsibilities of people who are caught in the crossfire, as it were.
Mumsy, that’s something that’s been on my mind lately.
Usually, my reaction to hearing about violence against a woman is immediately emotional–shock, disgust. But then the next thing I think–so an intellectual, rather than emotional response–is why don’t I get the same first response when I hear about about a woman hitting a man. And then I go through the motions: my gut reaction is there’s something unmanly about being hit by a woman; immediately after, I feel guilty for thinking that. I like to think of myself as progressive and as a feminist, yet I know I think about male and female roles in that way. What I do hope is that by actively examining how I think, I can undo this supposedly “natural” way of positioning men as aggressors and women as victims.
In the case of the Breakup Couple, it certainly sounds like a mutually violent relationship, a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Certainly, I hope that I too would have called the police, but what bugs me is this: when would I have called? After the first few times she slapped him? When he may have hit back? Or when it was too late?
Pristine, it might be helpful to check out http://shrink4men.blogspot.com. It’s written by a woman psychologist who helps men get out of abusive relationships with women. It’s definitely an eye-opener and makes you think, “Why didn’t I think that this happened?” It really makes you question your own assumptions and to take a step beyond “women are always the victim” mentality. If a woman is allowed to hit a man but a man isn’t allowed to hit a woman, that’s not equality or women’s rights there. It’s abuse.
I’m so glad someone already commented! I was just about to chime in. Abuse is abuse no matter who perpetrates it.
One time my husband and I followed a man who was yelling and screaming and almost literally dragging his drunk girlfriend down the street. Every few minutes she’d collapse into a heap in the snow. He knew we were following, and kept screaming at her what he would do if she got him in trouble for abuse. I had a majorly broken arm so I couldn’t do much but be there to keep a watchful eye. Then pair of men saw what was happening and along with my husband they confronted the guy and stuck around until the cops showed up. I’m glad we interfered. People tend to act better when they know someone is watching.
The Players:
Leon- 65ish year old man who has not worked since I met him 25 years ago. Out on stress disability from a township position he held in a community the size of Mayberry. Spends his entire days walking up and down the sidewalk.
Bill- Leon’s son- 27ish, bulky, oafish, sloped back of the head. A mouth breather.
Ann- Bill’s GF, about what you would expect he could date.
This is what I first thought of when I read you post:
Bill graduates HS and Leon buys him a brand new Corvette as a present. Apparently, there’s something to that whole skim money from the township and then go out on stress disability. A few days later, the son attends a graduation party, gets hammered, and while driving home gets pulled over by the police. Bill, being a mouth breather, decides to out run the police. A few days later I’m on my porch, look across the street, and see Leon, Bill and Ann get out of Leon’s car; Bill and Ann are screaming at each other; He turns to look at her and I see his face is badly bruised and swollen(I think maybe the police might have caught him that night). “I’m leaving you”, she says.
“Good, I don’t need you”, he replies. So on and so forth until they reach the porch. This is part that I found interesting because to some extent I think we’ve all done it.
She tells hime one last time she’s leaving and he tells her good. Go.
She walks down the sidewalk across the street from my house sniffling and sobbing. Occasionally she would look over her shoulder, clearly expecting him to run after her. She gets to the corner and makes a left down the hill glancing back in his direction in vain. In a few more seconds, the house on the corner has blocked the sightline between her and Bill’s porch. She stops and composes herself. Then she channels the greatest limbo dancer ever, leans backward, and peaks to see if Bill is coming yet. She straightens up, cocks her head perplexed;
“How is he not coming?” A few minutes go by, she leans back, and looks, straightens up, and her head cocks the other way. “I can’t believe I misplayed it” she seems to think. This went on for 10 minutes before she continued walking down the street.
Oh man. I’ve been dealing with a really similar situation, except I’ve had my windows closed lately so I don’t hear the arguments as much. I HATE that wondering if they’re just having a fight or if there’s violence involved. Once I was about to call the police, but I was hesitating, and then they calmed down a little. But I have a feeling I’ll have to call at some point this summer.
I also hate when you hear a short episode of screaming and can’t tell where it’s coming from, and whether it’s drunk students (I live in a college town) or someone in actual distress.
Bottom line: I feel you. I think you made the right choice.
Part two:
Bill loses his license for Five years and Leon stores his car for the duration. Bill moves out and tries to make it on his own. I don’t see him for ten years.
I was replacing a water line at my newly purchased house the first time I met Leon. I’m sweating my ass off when he walks up to see what I’m doing. Leon’s wlking style is unique. He leans way back, his feet splayed out at near 90 degree angles and always has a cigerette in his hand. Leon also walks in slow motion. A few slowwww steps, stop, take a puff, and ponder the universe as he looks at his shoes. A few more steps, stop, take a puff, and decipher the cloud formations. In one minute he’s moved 15 feet. He finally gets to where I’m working, looks at me, and says,” Money! Lots of money in this town!” and walks away.
Two hours later he’s back from walking to the corner and says, “Beer!
Beer’d be good now! Go down like cream!” Walks away.
Fast forward to a few years ago. 6:30 on a July Sunday morning, windows and doors open, hoping for a hint of a breeze. Leon’s son as been living at home off and on for the past few months.
I’m sitting on the porch having coffee and I hear, “Get up you Cocksucker!” I look over towards Leon’s house and see him slam the screen door shut and begin to pace his porch. Wife beater on, cigerette in hand. He paces a few minutes, opens the screen door, and screams, “Get your ass up you lazy Mother fucker!” This gets repeated every few minutes. Pace, smoke, door, and scream, “Fuckin Cocksucker get up!” This goes on for twenty minutes. Finally two police cruisers pull up. One officer takes him to the sidewalk, the other goes into the house; A few minutes later the officer comes out of the house, walks over to Leon, and says, “Your wife doesn’t feel good right now, maybe you could just leave her be today.”
I was absolutely shocked to find out he shouting at his wife that way. She ended up moving in with her sister a few months later.
You totally did the right thing. Feel no guilt. At the very least it will be a sign to those two people that the relationship they are in is not good for either of them, him or her.
Just make sure they don’t see you, at least based on this Boston Police report:
Passerby Attacked after Overhearing Domestic Argument
…The victim stated that he heard the voice of a female state, “look you got people looking up here.” The victim reported that he next saw a male at the window who exclaimed, “What! You want some of this?!”
The victim reported that before he realized it, the suspect had come outside to confront him brandishing a knife and charged at him.
I totally would have called. I have the police non-emergency line saved in my phone, and I call 911 whenever I think someone is in danger. I’m not really embarrassed to say that I call several times a year. Someone walking drunkenly down the shoulder of the freeway? Non-emergency number. Someone broke into my brother’s house? Non-emergency. Biker just fell into the street and cars are swerving? 911. You said people’s relationships are their own business, but if it was, you wouldn’t even have known they were fighting.
Very, very good point. And keeping the non-emergency number is a great idea! This also reminded me of the one situation in which I never hesitate to call the cops: when I see drivers getting into their cars with open beers or other beverages. I memorize the license plate and car description and call them in ASAP.
Although, as I learned the summer I lived in Seattle, the cops like you to call 911 instead of the non-emergency line. I got an (polite) earful about that once.
Hmm… my experience is the exact opposite in Portland. They don’t want you using the resources of 911 in a non-emergency.
I just called the non-emergency number Friday after I read this actually. There were hundreds of bikers on some non-official bike ride cruising through a neighborhood and holding up traffic and making lots of noise. They said they’d already gotten lots of calls about it. I think its important to speak up. The cops appreciate it, anyway.
Having been in an emotionally abusive relationship, and having grown up in a decade of constant fighting between my own parents, I have a lot of experience both in observing and participating in loud fights. I really wish, both in the case of my parents and in my own past relationship, that someone had called the police. It’s not private anymore when it’s the middle of the night and screams echo up and down the otherwise silent street. The pattern is escalation – yelling louder and louder ’til you can’t yell any louder or say anything more hurtful, then turning to more extreme behavior to be taken seriously/heard. When people are so clearly out of control, they need outside help, whether they think so or not. Thank you for having the courage to do the right thing.
You totally did the right thing. Who knows what could have happened. Violence usually escalates into something worse. One day break up dude may get tired of being slapped and snap.
Found you through The Bloggess… now following you. In a totally non stalker kind of way.
Do not feel guilty. I don’t believe that she should be hitting him during fights either (may take on it is that if I want to be treated like an equal, I can’t do something that someone else isn’t allowed to do) when you think that someone is in danger, you should do what you can to help without endangering yourself.
My boyfriend and I were very entertained by a couple who was yelling at each other on the street in front of his second story apartment a few months ago and thought nothing of it. Until the noise had stopped because the guy seemed to walk away, and a few minutes later we heard the same girl and some other guy, sounding like the second guy was going to go after the first one. When we heard both guys’ voices sounding even more angry we called the cops immediately.
There was never a doubt in my mind that we did the right thing. If anything, maybe we should have called sooner.
You did a great thing. Years ago, I heard a woman scream and then sob somewhere outside in the evening. I was only 10 or so, so I was freaked out but had no idea what to do. The scary part of the story is that three years after that, police came to my house and asked if we (my parents and I) remembered anything from three years before hand – they’d found the body of a girl who lived in the area. Not to freak you out – because of course the two events may have been entirely unrelated – but you and everyone else who’s commented saying they too called the police have done something really worthy and may have stopped a much more serious problem.
I really appreciated this post and reading the comments. I’ve been fortunate and have never really had to consider domestic abuse, either in my own relationships or in the relationships of friends and family. I wonder sometimes, though, what I would do if that changed. I’m living in a townhouse sort of complex right now with its own screaming Break Up Couple. Usually they’re a source of entertainment, though it makes me a little bit sick to admit that now. It’s always Her yelling at Him, about his fucking shortcomings, et cetera. To me it’s seemed as innocent as those sort of fights can be, but maybe I just hold that same woman-is-always-the-victim double standard and I would be more worried if it was Him doing the yelling. In any case, I’ve never given much thought to the possibility of those arguments escalating, but I will now. How horrible if something were to happen that simply looking out for my neighbors could have prevented.
I had the exact same experience with my neighbours… only add tons of crack and Tuesday night dance parties.
I called the police on them ALL THE TIME.
I know that she was hitting him more than he was hitting her but that doesn’t make it more right. I just knew I couldn’t live with myself if it ever escalated anymore.
So if you feel bad, just remember that there are people like me around…. waaaaaay douchier.
Wow, I definitely think you did the right thing. And really, she shouldn’t be hitting him either. I think it’s a good thing to get the police involved when things are just escalating every time. Who knows what would have happened next time if you didn’t call?
Don’t feel guilty. I had a pseudo Break-Up Couple above me, two apartments ago. She’d yell and shriek and accuse him of cheating and I could only hear a low murmur from him, but one day (night) it was 2 am and they were STILL going at it and I’m like “Screw. This.” and I called the police and was all, “I don’t know if this qualifies as a domestic disturbance and I don’t think they’re hitting each other, but it sounds like it could escalate and also it’s 2 am and I have to get up in the morning.” (paraphrased). Anyway I think a bit later I heard a knock on their door and then it was quiet.
This is the same genius couple who let their toilet overflow one morning and it went through my apartment into the first floor apartment. I loved getting a call at work from the landlord saying there’d been flooding. NOT FUN. They didn’t even notice, and when the maintenance dude came to fix it, they let him in and went back to bed. Because they’re helpful like that.
mm. neighbors. I’m glad I have good ones now. I think the one who smoked pot and let it wafte into my apartment is gone… so it’s just the couple downstairs now who I’m friends with.
Anyway moral of the story – don’t feel guilty. You may have prevented something b-a-d from happening.
Also? Bystander effect, Kitty Genovese, all that shiz. Someone has to make a call. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, PSYCH CLASSES.
Haha I referenced Kitty Genovese too. Sociology classes and the bystander effect aka “someone else will do something about it”, leave me alone!
It’s scary and it feels like you’re intruding, but in the end, if you don’t do it, who will? You could be saving a life.