I got up at about 11:00 today, and quite soon after that received a phone call from Joe.
We agreed to meet at Brigs in Cary for breakfast, which we did at 12:30. There was a little bit of a line, but we only waited about 10 minutes.
I had the Triple Cheese Omelette, and he had the French Toast Combo. We both had coffee and orange juice.
The cutest little black girl sat at the table next to us, making the most outlandish faces with her mouth full of scrambled eggs. She was a real looker, and people at the tables all around her were giving her the attention she was eating up more than her eggs.
I came home and did two loads of laundry over the course of the afternoon.
At one point, I heard this huge racket going on in the front of my townhouse.
At the window, I saw a mad-as-a-hornet woman in a Suburban, or some other big-ass SUV, parked in the middle of our parking area, standing at the end of the sidewalk to my neighbor’s townhouse, yelling all kinds of jive-talk and profanities at the front door.
“You reforming crackhead. Your dead-mother’s a crackwhore. I ain’t afraid of you.”
From, presumably, in her doorway – I can’t see the front of their townhouse from my window, as my unit sticks out further than the ones on either side of me – my neighbor screams back, “Get outta here. I live in a nice neighborhood. Don’t be bringing your trash around here.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til the cops get here. You good-for-nothing-fucker.”
“I’m gonna get you for trespassing,” my neighbor flew back.
This went on and on and on until no less than three Raleigh police cars pulled up. Two white, male officers came out of the first two cars, and a black, female officer came out of the third.
At one point, I cracked my bedroom window, real slowly, and lightly, so as not to draw attention, so that I could hear better what was going on.
I’m not so sure why I wanted to be so careful, though. A quick glance across the street, saw at least one blind slat ajar in at least one window of each townhouse.
And at the house directly across from me, they had their blind unabashedly pulled up halfway, with their face right in the middle of the window.
I guess the combatants were the one making this a public spectacle, so why should we feel bad about witnessing it?
This drama went on for about an hour, during which I gleaned the following bits and pieces:
A lot of that time was spent trying to locate a restraining order that Suburban Lady had presumably filed — against whom I’m not sure. If I had to guess, I’d say it was against my neighbor’s son to keep him away from her son.
Calls were being made by the cops to various police or sheriff’s offices, or somewhere, in an attempt to verify it.
The Suburban Lady had her, I’ll guess 15- or 16-year old daughter, who was with her and sitting in the passenger front seat of the Suburban, look in the glove compartment for the restraining order.
I’m thinking, “Now, if you went through the trouble of getting a restraining order, wouldn’t you kind of have an idea where it would be?” How about, in the filing cabinet, in the Legal folder?
My neighbor on the other side, who is a lawyer (and arachnid-annihilator extraordinaire), as well as the neighborhood-named “section leader,” was calling me intermittently for updates, as she didn’t open her window earlier enough not to be conspicuous, and wanted to know what was going on.
When I told her about the restraining order, she said, “Tell them to call the Wake County Sheriff’s office; that’s where they’re filed,” or something to that effect, which cracked me up.
As if I’d stick my head through my screen and say, “Uh, excuse me, officer? Not that I’m eavesdropping, but the restraining orders are kept…”
Suburban Lady said to the cops that she had knocked on my neighbor’s door, and my neighbor had come out, followed by her son, and in the course of arguing the son started swinging at her. That’s why she called the cops.
Later, Suburban Lady walked by talking under her breath after my neighbor had presumably told the cops her side of it, “Came banging into and charging through your door, my ass. All I did was knock on the fucking door.”
There was an accusation by Suburban Lady that my neighbor’s son is selling drugs — I think.
There was a reference to somebody just having gotten out of jail a couple of weeks ago.
My other neighbor called back, and said, “A little boy just popped up in the back of the Suburban. He looks like he’s about 5, and it looks like he has a plate with his dinner on it back there.” All I know, he was in there a long time without ever making himself seen.
Things started winding down, and we (me and my pal Gladys Kravitz next door), decided that they were all waiting for someone to arrive with either an arrest warrant (presumably for the “assault” that took place at the door), or a search warrant (presumably to search for evidence of the alleged “drug dealing”).
I heard the lady cop ask the other two, “Do you need me any more?” They both said no.
As she got into her police car, she said to the one that was presumably staying to wait for the warrant, “Don’t get involved in anything else now. You stay on this one.” All three of them laughed at this, evidently, inside joke.
One of the male officers left in the second car, leaving the hot one to handle the situation.
Imagine how nonplussed Gladys and I were when as soon as the other two had left, he got right in his cruiser and left.
I met Joe for dinner at Los Tres Magueyes.
Afterwards, we went for coffee across the street at Caribou Coffee. It was so crowded there that people were sitting at tables outside, even though it was quite cold. There was even one table at which a group were playing cards outside.
The staff is so much nicer there than Helios. They actually seemed pleased that we were there. I wonder what, if anything, transpired at Helios with regards to my letter.
For the last four days, I’ve had
for no apparent reason. I don’t want to, but I can’t stop thinking about my friend Kurt.