![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raybearWhile 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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
they say they don't interfere with domestic affairs.
Date: 2003-03-04 08:00 am (UTC)the irony of all this being, of course, that on the backside of my block was the mosque where al qaeda had established its first north american cell, though many years before. so post-9/11, there were uniformed cops posted every ten feet for a two-block radius for weeks, to make sure there were no acts of violence against the mosque or its members.
but i'm not really awake yet -- what i meant to say here is that i really don't understand people's inclination to call the cops before they've attemped some kind of neighborly intervention. now, if i truly felt that my safety was being threatened by something someone in my building did, and that by merely asking them to turn the music down/chill the flow of crack-buying traffic/stop throwing their wife against the wall i would endanger myself or someone else in the apartment, i might think about calling the cops. but i'd still consider it a last option.
shit. i quit coffee while i was sick. this seems to be an argument in favor of my starting again. xoxox.
thanks for saving another potential client
Date: 2003-03-04 02:15 pm (UTC)it never ceases to amaze me how much the police contribute to a greater sense of unrest than peace. granted i see more than my fair share of police misconduct cases, but i still even see this in my neighborhood. my neighbors will call the police the minute they feel their "peace" threatened in any way (including stray cats causing a neighbor's dog to bark -- i'm not kidding...20-30 cats were killed in my neighborhood because some rich white lady new to the neighborhood, who also happened to work for the city, couldn't handle the dogs barking, but i digress...).
as my neighborhood is getting more gentrified, there's been a greater police presence, and an increased report of crime in the neighborhood. i don't think crime has gone up at all. but you have to arrest the kids with something when you stop them for walking on the sidewalk while brown....i don't think a 300% increase in disorderly conduct charges is exactly an accurate indication of the crime level in my neighborhood....and oh...do i feel my anti-police soap box coming out...as i'm getting way off topic....so i better stop writing.
look me up when you get to pilsen,
lowenstein