One mistake's all it takes, and your life can come undone

While lying around in only my pajama bottoms this morning and trying to motivate myself to get dressed and take out the barking Sophie, someone knocked on the door. I looked through the peephole and saw my upstairs neighbor, the Part-Time Lincoln Park Trixie. I went back and put a sweater on, then opened the door.

She and her roommate were standing on the stairs, looking trapped. I asked what was up and they pointed down to the front door -- I peered over the railing and saw a body surrounded by large bottles in brown paper bags, lying in the vestibule.

"Um, we can't get out."

I agreed with their assesment -- we don't have a lobby, we have four steps and three feet of a landing that's not even enough room to occupy when the door is opening. I went back inside to get my shoes and keys. I heard her call out to me "we already called the cops!"

Fuck. I moved quickly, putting on an undershirt, slipping on shoes, considered grabbing an empty root beer bottle as a possible emergency weapon should the situation somewho defy the statistics that this street person was just drunk and sleepy and harmless. Instead I grabbed Sophie by the collar and took her down the stairs with me. Anyone who knows my dog knows she wouldn't hurt anyone, but I figure he didn't know that.

I beat on the door then opened it slowly until it pushed into his back. "Wake up, playboy. Up and at 'em. You need to get the hell out of here before the cops come." He starts to barely move. I repeat variations of these statements until he makes eye contact with me and recognizes I"m serious. The door next to me opens and my neighbor pokes his head out. "I called the cops too." Fuck fuck. What's wrong with people?

I run back upstairs and say I'm calling the landlord, because I am really annoyed that our front door isn't locking again -- a major bone of contention since we were burglarized last May. I come back downstairs and stand at the door, encouraging him to get up faster and move it along, because the cops were definitely coming. I wasn't trying to be his friend and I was definitely using my mean machismo voice, but I sure as hell didn't want him in the hands of the cops.

He finally exited but the upstairs neighbor had to stick around since she made the phone call. I went back inside. A few mintues later Lincoln Park Trixie called through the door "thank you!" and then a few mintues after that the buzzer went off. I went down, assuming it was the cops. There was the local dyke cop talking to my Hippie Neighbor so I came down just find out what's up. The cop knew the guy and said he's harmless ("he's a veteran!") and has only been arrested once but that's when he got belligerent. Hippie Neighbor said he didn't want to press charges and she asked us if he gave us trouble. I said, no, none at all, he left quietly, it's not a problem.

She left and Hippie Neighbor and I had this weird faux male bonding moment. It started when he said "I didn't want to call the cops, but....." Then why did you, I thought. I said something about feeling bad for my neighbors who felt trapped and unsafe and he was like "yeah, I mean I don't care about it, but we have girls in our apartment who get up early and leave the house before we do...."

Don't get me wrong -- I'm sure my actions this morning appeared to be a display of masculine bravado and chivalry, but come on, how tough is it to yell at a drunk street person who's posing no threat? And really the only thing motivating me was not wanting the cops to come arrest him. It wouldn't even occur to me to call the cops until I'd ask him to leave. I'm sure I would say I called the cops, as a motivational force, but I wouldn't actually do it until he did something more illegal than sleeping on the ground. I'm sure my male privilege plays into this some, though frankly I've been in similar situations before I had a beard and I acted the exact same way.

I am mad at the building management though. I wish they would just spend the money and replace the entire door with something that works. Hell, they replaced every gddamn window in the building a few months back and they seemed to be working fine. Especially since Hippie Neighbor said his roomate got mugged in the vestibule two months ago.

I tell you what, I lived a year in Uptown and people were scared to come to my apartment after dark. But I never had a damn thing happen to me except people asking for cigarettes or the city towing my guests' cars. Then when I move to the gentrified yuppie hip part of town, fucked up shit happens all the damn time.

I'm moving to Pilsen.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

Someone offered us a ride to Teatro Luna in east Pilsen last night for the Lysistrata Project, since the theater wasn't terribly convenient to public transportation. While tempted, I declined. "No thank you, but freakysparks and I are going to have an adventure." And we did.

Though compared to the narrative events of my morning, last night is harder to write about in detail. We tried not to kill ourselves when walking through closed roads and we had to stop to light our cigarettes because it was snowy and neither one of use could walk and talk and flick the lighter at the same time. I told Sparky I felt like we were in a recreation of the Gus Van Sant's movie Gerry, though I didn't go as far to determine which one of us would be Matt Damon. The streets were wide open and empty and the snow was soft and crunchy and smooth and the blocks seemed to get further apart the longer we walked. We ended up eating dinner at a gast station convenience store because there were no restaurants, only churches and small corner buildings that had Pabst Blue Ribbon neon signs glowing in the one window facing the street. I'm sure these bars didn't serve food.

The play itself was fun and I enjoyed doing the reading. The cast member were excellent performers and the words I had just read the night before took on new meaning and humor and insight because of their ability to create the character. It forced me to step my rap game up, even if I was only Male Chorus 1 and had maybe a dozen lines total. (Miss Swan:See, I project.)

After the show we considered loitering and making a friend to procure a ride, but we were approached by several others asking us the same thing. I turned to Sparky and said, "look. I can get us home. I can get us to the Red line, or another train to take us to the red line, but you have to be okay with walking. But I know where I am and how to get there, it will just be a long walk." She agreed. I'm not sure if it was reluctantly, but she never gave me indication that she didn't trust me!

So about fourteen blocks later, we arrived at the train station. In between were cigarettes and conversations about 80's music and relationships and anti-war relatives and work and livejournal.

I'm glad Sparky let me kidnap her to traipse through the streets of the near South side on a snowy Monday night.

( today's horoscope, for future reference )

Best phone conversation of the day.

Extremely slow helpdesk caller: I got fired and I'm gay.
Me: (Direct her to call back tomorrow or Thurdsay during help desk hours, tell her what the hours are.)
Caller: You just gave me a lot of information.
Me: (in my chipper phone operator voice) No problem, would you like me to repeat any of those times so you can write them down?
Caller: No. No. Just. Give me the number to call again.
Me: (Resisting the urge to say, "it's the one you just dialed.") Okay, here you go, 312. (pause) 66...
Caller: Whoa-whoa-whoa! Slow down. Start over.
Me: 3. (pause) 1. (pause) 2. (continues on in this manner, taking a slow breath between each number).
Caller: Okay, I'm going to repeat this back to you so I know I have it.
Me: Alrighty.
Caller: (repeats number back quickly and correctly) I just needed to write it down because I have a lot of numbers to call and keep together.
Me: I understand. It's no problem.
Caller: There IS a problem. I'm gay. (beat) Are you?
Me: (swallows, says nothing)
Caller: Of COURSE you are!
Me: Okay, great, well just call back tomorrow between 2 and 4 and ask for the help desk.
Caller: (hesitating) Okay....
Me: Thanks...(clicks phone down.)....fucker.