Around 1:30 in the morning the sound of scuffling and yelling filtered through my consciousness. I raised my head from the pillow in the darkness, confused -- was that the kids? No -- the neighbors? -- didn't sound like them -- ugh. Again.
It's hard to get the muscles moving when you're wrenched out of sleep. I wriggled out from between my sleeping husband and sleeping daughter and groped my way to the bedroom window that overlooks the street. Peeping through the curtains, I couldn't see much, but the yelling was so loud -- obscenities, get your hands off me you %@#$, and thumping noises -- that at first I thought the fight was on our own front porch.
I moved quickly to the bathroom to see through the other window, then back, and then finally as the last fog of sleepy confusion lifted, I saw the two people, a man and a woman, at each other's throats and screaming at each other, in the open door on the far side of an unfamiliar pickup truck parked directly across the street. The woman's words were easy to make out, the man's just a low-register snarl. A third person sat in the driver's seat with his door closed and his window open; all I saw of him was a tiny orange glow that went up and down, perhaps the tip of a lit cigarette, perhaps a cell phone display.
The screaming continued, first the man's voice, then the woman's, and they were hitting each other.
"What is it?" said Mark, already reaching for his phone.
"Pickup truck... three people... one's a woman I think... okay, assault is definitely happening now," I said, still moving back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom as Mark dialed 911.
Again.
Hmm, how many times have we called 911 since we moved onto our street in south Minneapolis? More than I can accurately estimate. Two dozen times? More? Maybe. We've been here six years or so.
We do not call for loud parties -- hey, I am always pleased when the sound of loud voices outside is made by people who are celebrating, not angry. We do not call for car alarms; they stop on their own eventually. We call when people are fighting, or unconscious, or rolling in the street wailing that they've been raped, or throwing up on our lawn. Or yelling angry words and running down the street with a handgun drawn, which, despite my unreserved support for a liberal interpretation of the Second Amendment, I personally classify as "suspicious behavior."
Mark described the goings-on in a brief call to the 911 dispatcher as the fighting grew louder, the woman's voice higher-pitched, the sounds of impact against the truck more frequent. Mark went into the bathroom, where it is darker and he would not be back-lit, to watch. "Do you have to stand there? The cops are coming, there's no reason to stand there," I told him.
"If something happens, I'll be a witness. Look, I know there's a risk."
I scooped sleeping Mary Jane from our bed and carried her away from the windows, away from the front wall, into the hallway, something I've done before.
Tyesha Edwards is never far from my mind at times like this. She wrapped her arms around my neck, turned her face into my neck away from the light, and went back to sleep. It seemed longer than usual before the bright blue lights moved slowly across the ceiling and the yelling stopped.
The woman's voice we could hear, friendly, instantly cheerful and calm where before it had been all obscenities and full-throated hoarse screaming. It is absolutely amazing, the change in their tone of voice when the police show up. We have seen this happen before. "No, nothing's wrong officer. No, I'm fine."
If there had just been two of them, the one woman and the one man, I might guess we were looking at a so-called domestic dispute, even though it was taking place on my street in a vehicle I'd never seen before. What's more likely, given the presence of a third man? Drugs? Some kind of prostitution thing gone awry? (The police liaison told our block club that in our area, prostitution is more significant than drugs or other gang activity. Used condoms show up from time to time by my garage door. Our neighbor in the back told us he was offered "services" last year, from a woman walking down the alley as he crossed the yard from his house to his garage.)
The cop ran the license, I guess nothing serious came up, because they all drove away. We went back to bed.
It takes me a long time to get to sleep after this kind of thing. You'd think I'd be more used to it by now.
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