I’ve been up since 2:30 a.m., wakened by two very drunk people outside my bedroom window, slur-yelling at each other (lots of “f*ck you,” “no, f*ck YOU, b*tch!” “f*ck YOU, where’s my PHONE, b*tch—I can’t find my PHONE! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT” “No, f*ck YOU, where’s my other SHOE, b*tch!” flying around down there). A lover’s quarrel, I presume, as I lay in the dark, trying to decipher the garbled arguing. I’d love nothing more than to fall back asleep, but feel compelled to continue listening, should it escalate further.

Before long, I hear the sound of heavy objects being dragged across concrete—good lord, are they using my downstairs neighbor’s trash and recycling bins as battering rams? Time to get up and assess the situation. I stand in my dark kitchen, peering through sheer curtains, down to the sidewalk a story below. My sleepy eyes adjust to the layered shadows cast by street light until two figures materialize: a tall, gangly body in a short dress, white glowing legs, one foot tennis shoed, the other bare, a thin scraggly pony tail hangs off the back of their head faces off with an even taller body, shortest of shorts squeezing hips tight, wig-ish brunette bob rimmed in short cropped bangs. Both are barely able to stand, they’re so soused, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to duke it out right there. Weaving and bobbing in the cool, shadowy spotlight, as though their bodies are void of bones, reminding me of those inflated wavy noodle-guys car dealers are so fond of, or punch-drunk boxers desperately holding out for the bell. Stagger-stop-weave, stagger-stop-wave…I’m getting a little sea-sick just watching. Unless they become a real danger to selves or others, I highly suspect they won’t, I will not call the police, as Mpls cops have a notorious history of violence.

My downstairs neighbors are moving out and had put a number of items on the curbside, free for the taking, as folks are wont to do around here. Neither figure below appears capable enough to drag anything onto the street, yet somehow, that’s where all the items have wound up, scattered along the bus lane like a mini-tornado had just blown through. Maybe they wanted more room to rumble? One stumbles forward, swing-slapping at the other, catching only air. Both teeter momentarily, then fall over, flailing arms throwing their drunk-asses off balance. Repeat several times.

At some point, both fall onto the grass between the sidewalk and the street; why not take advantage of the fall and start making out right there on the boulevard under the street light? We’re lovers, not fighters...the fervor at which they go at each other causes me to look away, then back again. I mean, c’mon. Even at 3 a.m. this is a pretty busy intersection; annoying as they are, they’re also quite vulnerable. Jerry Falwell Jr. would have been in heaven to bear witness to, hell, probably join right in, the glorious rapturous scene below my kitchen window. A short minute or two passes, clothes remain on, bodies separate, red glow of a cigarette tip streaks through the night air like a laser pointer. Even sitting, the bodies still weave and waver dangerously unsteadily. Real-life evidence that drunk sex is never as good as it looks in the movies. 

A half hour that feels more like six days later (we’re still in pandemic time), the wee-hour revelers eventually stagger on. I can’t go back to sleep, so I get up, throw on a pot of coffee, start clicking away on the old laptop. It’s now 7 a.m., as I walk to the kitchen to refill my cup, I hear the familiar sound of heavy objects dragging across concrete. I look out the window to see a sweat-pant and t-shirted body topped with headphones dragging the desk that was lying in the street up onto the boulevard, eyeballing the dimensions. He pulls out a phone, soon, an SUV pulls up, they’re trying to stuff the desk, a dry erase board and end table into the back end. If that furniture could talk, oh the stories they’d tell.

I’m really too old and unhip to be an uptown girl, also extremely grateful to not be waking up with the hangover that will haunt the bodies of the nighttime neighborhood revelers, and for the stories outside my window that keep me company in a pandemic. xo