The banging started again at 3:30 a.m. It shook the wall. Earlier that morning, I’d emailed the manager about the 9:30 p.m. banging. I had thought seriously about calling the police. All I could think of now was the sleep I wasn’t going to get. My dog started barking at the door.
Who was here at 4:00 in the morning? I threw on a robe and looked through the peephole. A beanie and part of a face were all I could see. I thought of a man I’d seen once in the garage, about the same size. Could the person doing the banging be at my door?
Then I heard two women talking. I called, “Who is it?”
“Police,” a woman said. “Your neighbor called about the banging she’s hearing.”
She? I’d imagined the person on the other side of my bedroom wall as a man. Aggressive enough to hit that hard. Maybe dangerous.
With red eyes and crooked hair, I opened the door to two female police officers. It was -5 outside, and they wore identical black wool beanies. Their eyes were calm. Their voices were gentle. I invited them in.
“Wait, I’m confused,” I said. “I was the one who almost called about her.”
“She’s a single woman living alone,” one officer said. “She doesn’t even have a TV.”
“I’m a single woman living alone, too,” I said. I suddenly felt ridiculous about my TVs, plural.
“You’re not doing the banging?” they asked.
“No!”
“Can we look in your bathroom and closet?”I said yes and showed them, suddenly wondering how clean my bathroom was.
They looked around and decided it wasn’t me. They suggested a building system culprit, perhaps an untied pipe banging back and forth like a metronome. They thanked me and went next door.
So two quiet women living side by side each believed the other was shaking the wall at night.
I’d turned a building noise into a story about disrespect. Danger.
I’d been certain about who lived on the other side of my wall.What else am I this sure and wrong about?
Quote: Life is entirely momentary, that there is neither permanence nor security, and that there is no “I” which can be protected. Alan Watts