Anger Burger

Blah blah blah.  I can’t even cool off enough to write coherently.  Is coherently a word?  Appears so.

Also the problem: the heat is bringing the crazy to the surface.  It’s a long and dramatic story (as these things always are) but last night marked the second time this month that police were called on our upstairs neighbor and her fiery ex-boyfriend.  She’s young and possibly surprisingly inexperienced with these things, but looks like Mama Sunday is gonna have to sit her down and give her the honey, he keeps showing up because you keep talking to him talk.

Last night, however, was an exciting clusterfuck the likes of which can only happen in Los Angeles.  At 3:30am I heard a banging and some garbled blustering and I looked out the back of our building to see Bambi (as we call him – it’s a long story) ineffectually kicking her car and shouting into his cell phone while looking pointedly up to her apartment:

“I’m kicking your car so you’ll let me in and give me a chance to explain myself!”

This poor guy.  I swear.  Needless to say, he heard me laughing.  What I didn’t expect is that he seemed embarrassed, quieted and then scampered off into the night.  And then I saw that he had left a single white rose behind.

Moments later a helicopter flew over, low, a sound I’ve come to ignore.  It circled.  And circled some more.  And then the brightest light I’ve ever experienced blasted through our extra-thick curtains and lit the room like an atomic blast.  Spewing forth profanities the likes of which I desperately wish I could remember today, I ran to a window and peered out.   Indeed — the ghetto bird, as we call in these parts — was circling our building!  My goodness!  What a crime car-kicking must be!  I had no idea.

Sitting back on my bed, I miserably considered how long short it would be before I had to get ready for work (I had an extra-early day; Tuesday is “book day” at work, when we place all the brand-new titles, an effort that requires us to be at work as early as 6am, as in today’s case) when I distinctly heard a man talking right outside my bedroom window.  I pulled back the curtain a little and startled two men standing within inches of my window.  I dropped the curtain.  A light flashed over the window and I reached for my baseball bat (hi dad!).  They quieted, and a few minutes later someone pounded on the locked outer door of our building.  By this time another tenant had emerged, and we all crept forward to see two somewhat bewildered policemen at the door.

For some reason all I could think to say was “Really?”

“Can you tell us what’s happening here?” a cop said.

There was an awkward pause.  “I was hoping you’d be able to answer that,” I said.

I explained to him the comparatively unremarkable events of the evening (Bambi kicked the car and ran off) and they asked which car was hers (the one with a single white rose next to it, fellas), and then rather casually asked, “So, did you hear any gunshots?”

“Gunshots!”

It later was agreed that two entirely coincidental dramas were unfolding in my neighborhood, one of insignificance (Bambi sad) and one of dubious significance (unknown gunshots).  It wasn’t until today yet another neighbor reported that a SWAT team had come silently trotting down the street with large riot guns held to their shoulders (and following them a news crew) that I finally, really, truly understood that I live in Los Angeles.  Hollywood, really.  A finer community of drama queens there simply cannot be.  You see, no one was shot.

So, on four hours of sleep, a full day’s labor and 95 temperatures, I come to the subject of dinner.  And decide: cantaloupe.  Cantaloupe for dinner.  And maybe some cheese.