Piss-pots, Plywood and Prenatal Pills

Rolling over and up, I peered over the duvet to get a glimpse of the clock. 5:45am.
There are many unpleasurable ways of being awaken in the morning, but having to listen to someone retching their guts out in the street below your bedroom window I’d have to place right up there at the top with the worst of them. Throwing the covers back, I slid my eight-month pregnant body off the bed and squeaked my way down the stairs to kitchen for a better look. A door slammed below and something thrown into the carport crashed against the wall, vibrating the floor beneath me. The girl was back – and in full force!

Before this particular early morning wakeup call, it had been a relatively quiet 3 weeks here at the new house. The eviction process was in full swing (whatever THAT means). In Vancouver it takes months to actually get somebody evicted from your property. The landlord basically has no rights to his home. It’s an annoyingly long and draw out process, and the downstairs tenants were fully aware of how much time they had before they would be forcibly removed – over two months of free rent was working in their favor.
For a month we had repeatedly suggested that our landlord simply board up the storage room in the carport, leaving its ‘tenant’ with no choice but to hopefully LEAVE the property. One balmy afternoon my ear caught the sound of hammering in the carport below. Half an hour later I heard the glorious sound of woodscrews being driven deep into a doorframe. Finally! No more doors for the white girl to slam shut at all hours of the day and night. Our things were now safely entombed behind fifty 4-inch wood screws and a massive piece of plywood. Several days before we had inspected the room to once again find more disturbing evidence. After much nagging on my part I had finally convinced my husband that we needed to get our vintage chopper bikes out of the storage room before somebody else did it for us and we never saw them again. It was much the same unsightly set-up as it had been before, a grungy blanket on the floor… soiled clothing, crack pipes and cigarette butts. We lifted some important things out of the room and then started to move the bikes out. Upon untangling the bikes from each other we heard a ‘clink!’ and then the unmistakable sound of liquid splashing and flowing. My husband let out a sound of annoyance as his lower leg, sock and then shoe became soaked with liquid. Yellow liquid… yellow liquid from a grape juice bottle... We looked at each other, both knowing what it was but not wanting to say it out loud. With the bikes rolled out and up onto the lawn, Zol continued to remove anything that may be ‘sellable’ as I sprayed the bikes down with the garden hose and then wheeled them into the safety of our house. Upon further inspection of the bikes we noticed disturbing clues that further confirmed our fears of the house going up in flames at some point. The girl had wedged a candle into the chain guard of one of the bikes – fully burnt down with the wax melted into the greasy chain!

The evening after the wood was drilled in place was a tumultuous one to say the least. At around 4am Eddie and the white girl came home from an evening of bike theft and crack smoke. There was no need to listen too hard to get the jist of the girl’s panic, as there was no concrete floor to lay her head on that night. She disappeared a few days after the board up, and for the three weeks I mentioned above things had been relatively quiet.

Two days ago there was the unmistakable banging on the basement door… looking out the upstairs window I stood, arms crossed staring at the girl as she stormed aimlessly around the street below. Her wild eyes caught mine. She let out a scathing scream and then yelled into the carport, “Tell your father he’s a FUCKING DEAD MAN!!!”. Breaking her lock with my eyes she disappeared into the carport. A massive crash echoed into the street. Glass smashed and wood splintered as she tore down a huge shelf that held useless bike parts, jars of nails and broken appliances. She then staggered up the street and out of my view. Hmmm… I thought, looks like she’s back! And sure enough at 5:45am this morning she was there again, outside my bedroom window… retching her guts out in a ditch. Food poisoning? Too much smack? Upset stomach? No to all of the above… morning sickness - she was pregnant, by at least 2 months now. The sounds I’d heard this morning sadly confirmed what a neighbour had told us, as had the words from the girls own mouth in a fight she’d had with Eddie a month ago. I guess I just hadn’t wanted to believe that any of it was true.

I stood in my pj’s at the kitchen window, the cool early morning air blowing on my face. She sat crouched on the sidewalk below, dry heaving as Eddie stood beside her yelling something unledgible. He walked away and she paused her sickness, standing and looking to see where he’d gone. Her angry voice yelled for him to hurry up – particularly loud in the quiet of the hour. She paused, turned and looked up at me in the window. I didn’t look away or hide, I just calmly stared back. Uncomfortable, she looked away. Crouching back down again she waited until she heard the basement door slam shut, resuming her sickness; only this time I knew the heaving was fake. Eddie grabbed her by the sleeve and they stumbled off and up the street in a cloud of mad yelling. I sat down at my kitchen table to eat my cereal and fresh yogurt. I swallowed my prenatal pills but they stuck in my throat like a lump. A hand to my belly as a foot kicked my ribs… how lucky I am… how very very lucky I am. *d