It's been a while... but here we go...

Kneeling down, I pulled several pieces of grass from her fingers, as everything goes right into her mouth these last few weeks.

“Up Mommy, up!?” I say to her as she raises her little arms up and I nearly kill myself bending over to pick her up.

I squeeze Graye into her car seat… “Car car ride?? You wana go for a car car ride?” She giggles and then pulls her “Chris Farley face” which involves snorting with a big gummy smile. Toooo cute for words.

I hop into the drivers seat, pop in my iPod and where off! From our side Avenue we pull onto Main Street and cruise along, singing to the music. I slow down to a stop as we pull up to a red light… I turn my head slightly to the right and beside me at a bus stop stands a young man I know all too well.

Today he wears the same outfit I’ve seen him in for the last year. I’ve never officially met him in the time that we have been living in our new house, but I see him all of the time. He’s around 18 years old. His large frame fills out his baby blue Adias tracksuit in an uncomfortable way. On his feet, a pair of cheap running shoes two sizes too big for him. From his ears fall the tale tell white chords of IPod earphones. His shoulders are slumped with insecurity.

As I wait for the light to change I look him in the eyes and then wave hello. He stares right through me. The light changes, and I lurch past him, onto my destination. It’s been a while since I’ve thought of him, but when I do, I only feel sad.

Track back two months ago. The yellow house across the street from mine is where this young man spends his days. He lives with his father, mother and two sisters. It is not a happy home, and of this I am certain; it is most likely a horrible place to live. Last summer, many a day and night the street rang loud with the screams of a tyranny of a man, accompanied by loud Bollywood music for hours on end, drifting out all five of their open windows. The father lashed out in a language that is foreign to me, which made it all the more abrasive to listen to. Many times the neighbours have called the police about the abuse and nothing has even been done to fix the problem…

My baby was only four months old and was still sharing our bed with us. I was in the throws of getting her use to her own crib one night… a testy subject with a child that is use to having her mother and father at her side when night time falls. After hours of fussing she had finally settled. Any little sound might disturb her much needed sleep… AND ours.

I sat up in bed, my eyes cloudy and stinging as I tried to open them up. The baby was crying in her room. I waited a second to see if she would settle down on her own. Waiting, waiting… waiting…. Then I heard something else… or maybe it was the same thing that had woken me up? A mans voice broke the silence of our Tuesday night. His wails were racked with drunken agony and loneliness as he wandered the street out front of our home. It was all in a language I could not understand.

Most evenings when these sort of shenanigans happened I could let them go, but due to the fact that my child was truly in need of her sleep I was beyond angry when a full 20 minutes had passed and he was still writhing out front of his house across the street.

“THAT’S IT! I’m calling the police!” Zol roused from his slumber, telling me to not bother as I pushed off the duvet and fumbled for my slippers. I stumbled down the stairs and into the front room. Opening the window, the intoxicated yelps doubled in volume, and holding up my cell phone I dialed the non-emergency police number.

“Vancouver Police. What is the problem?” I explained the situation. She kept me on the line for five minutes till 2 police cars pulled up in front of our house. I watched as they dragged the man up the long staircase to his front door, his timid wife standing to the side with her head bowed. The police drove away, and the woman on the other end of the phone let me go. I trudged up the stairs and crawled back into bed, amazed that my baby hadn’t woken up yet from all of the turmoil… 2:45am… 2:55am… I sat straight up in bed again. What the??? Seriously??? He was outside again, but screaming this time.

“Fuck YOU my neighbour!! FUCK YOU!!!” over and over again he repeated the same sentence. “Fuck YOU my neighbour!! FUCK YOU!!! FUCK YOU!!!”

I rose from bed again and down into the living room where I peered out the open window, cell phone in hand. He was writhing on the front lawn of his house… and a woman stood beside him, pleading in her Indo language for him to stop. A cold wind picked up and blew the sari away from her body in loud gusts. She knelt beside him, softly touching his face and he violently pushed her away…

“Vancouver Police. What is the problem?”
“Ummm, ya I just called you guys about 30 minutes ago? Same house same problem…” I gave them the info and address…
“Mam, we’ve already removed the man that was causing the problem. He’s has been taken away to the drunk tank already.”
“Seriously? Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m sure. He’s been taken away.”
“OKaaaay…. Well then there’s ANOTHER guy doing the exact same thing at the exact same house.”

Five minutes later the police showed up again and took the second man away, painfully dragging him into the back of their car. They spoke to the woman briefly and then pulled away leaving her standing alone in the cold night.

The wind rushed up again and the streetlight threw an uneven glow over her body as her sari flapped abstractly behind her in the wind. I secretly watched her from my window for the full three minutes that she stood there alone. The wind rushed again, floating behind her as she turned and slowly went up the stairs to her now quiet home. I can’t imagine what the next day would entail for her… picking up not one, but TWO ugly, ugly men from the drunk tank…

The next morning I stood in my living room holding and bouncing my baby Graye while watching “The View”. Across the street the ‘house of horrors’ was in plain view as I listened to Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck argue about woman’s’ rights… The front door opened across the street and the young man mentioned earlier stood in its wake. He adjusted his IPod earphones and pulled up the zipper of his baby blue tracksuit. He lumbered down the stairs and out of the front gate of his house, where he paused on the sidewalk. Pulling the IPod from his pocket, he changed the tune… waited until the new track started – and then began his daily walk. I would kill to know what song he chose to listen to that morning. What song could truly make the night before OK?

Track forward two months...
The light turns green, I put the van into 2nd gear… the bus stop and his vacant eyes are far behind me. There are only 30 feet between our lives on 55th Avenue, yet they are so amazingly far apart. I don’t know how I can help him change his horrible life - and sadly, I don’t know that I ever will try… *d