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?