The setting: Our apartment, Saturday night around 9:30ish
The characters: NGS, Dr. BB, and Brandon the upstairs neighbor guy who can't control his fish tank water
The story: As the scene begins, our protagonists, the lovely NGS and brilliant Dr. BB are spending a quiet evening at home reading (for the record, NGS is reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Dr. BB is reading Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, Volume I). You may call them nerds, but there's no need for name calling. Crazy MeowFace is curled up, sleeping, on the floor right between the couch and the recliner, so as to not play favorites with her humans.
From above, there is a wailing. Now, Brandon, the upstairs neighbor guy who can't control his fish tank water, is kind of a wailer. He wails during football games (who doesn't?), during sex (who doesn't?), and during random Saturday nights. Frequently his wailing is brief, but intense. It involves lots of shouting of random syllables, including "yes," "no," and "god." The difference on this Saturday night is that the wailing is extended.
There is lots of screaming "god no," and this goes on for well over half an hour, approaching forty-five minutes.
The dilemma: If it had been a woman who was wailing like that for so long, I would have, at the very least, knocked on the door to make sure everything was okay. If there had been no answer at the door, I would have called the police. Almost a week later, I'm still feeling a little bit guilty over this situation and the double standard that I invoked here.
The questions: What would you have done in this situation, knowing that Brandon the upstairs neighbor guy who can't control his fish tank water is a bit of a wailer in general? Should I feel badly for the actions I took here?
This is actually something I wonder about frequently. I've even started planning a short story collection where the first half are stories where the main character is a man (whether he is a victim or a perp or whatever), and then in the second half recreate the stories word-for-word but with a woman as the main character. I do think the stories will be completely different, and evoke different emotions, because society thinks of men and women as having different motivations in most situations.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Brandon the upstairs neighbor guy who can't control his fish tank water since the incident? Maybe you could just casually ask him how he's been doing the next time you do see him? How was he screaming, "Oh god, no"? Was it like, sarcastic, or blood-curdling or mournful? I bet the tone of his voice helped you make the decision you made.
I don't think you made the wrong decision based on past behavior but it may behoove you to let him know that you can hear his wailing quite clearly and that you were a bit alarmed.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite possible Brandon who can't control his fish tank water also has...er...certain...proclivities that are most enjoyable for him even though the sounds he makes are disconcerting. He probably has no idea he's so loud.
I recommend being very direct with him and realize that, as embarrassed as he might be to be confronted by his noise after the fact, he'd be a whole lot more embarrassed to have the police come barreling through his front door while he's rigged up in a compromising position. :)
In Stephen King's memoir about his writing life, he has an exercise where there is a stalker in the house and the victim runs from the house, but then he tells you to flip the expected gender and figure out a scenario that works and write it out.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I agree with the other two comments that it might be good to be ready to say something when you see him. I might have gone up to knock, but it would have depended on what other sound effects I could hear as I approached the door!