The Homeless Woman

 When I got laid off from the metal-plastic window factory, I went on unemployment benefits and could calmly wait for a new job. I liked this kind of vacation. I wasn’t worried about work at all; somehow, I just knew it would come. About two months into my break, in the middle of the night, I heard banging and some shouting. A woman’s voice was yelling, “Mark, open the door!!!” The banging was so loud that at first, I thought it was at my door. I checked the time—it was two in the morning. I got out of bed, got dressed, and went to the front door. When I opened it, about two meters to my right, I saw a woman. She was sloppily dressed in slightly dirty clothes, with tangled, greasy hair, and her face was covered in snot and drool. She was heavyset and pounding on my neighbor’s door with her big fists. When I stepped out, she gave me a quick glance and continued her tantrum. I asked her what was wrong and why she wouldn’t stop—half the floor was already awake, but my neighbor still wasn’t opening the door. She said her boyfriend lived there, and she was sure he was inside, just maybe in some kind of drug-induced coma. Not wanting to know what they were taking, I decided to help her get through to this Mark so this nonsense would end faster. So there we were, both banging on his door and shouting his name for the whole floor to hear. After a few minutes, I got fed up and went back to bed. She kept trying to get him to open for another 15 minutes or so, then everything went quiet. I fell asleep.

As it turned out, this was just the beginning. For the next month, at least once a week, this desperate woman woke me up in the middle of the night with her screams. At first, I went to the building’s security to get them to handle the situation, but security couldn’t do much except ask her to leave and call the police, which meant waiting another 20 minutes in that noise and the anger I felt toward this couple. Then I tried to block her, standing in front of Mark’s door and telling her she didn’t live here, so she should go wherever she wanted but stop keeping me awake. But it was clear that the pain in her heart was much stronger than my logical arguments, so I couldn’t stop her. One time, when the police showed up, they asked her what she was doing here. She said her boyfriend lived there, they’d been dating for ten months, and she just wanted to get her jacket and backpack, but he wouldn’t open the door. For some reason, she always asked him for this, as if he invited her over and then, after a while, kicked her out, keeping some of her stuff. To my surprise, when the officer knocked lightly and quietly on my neighbor’s door, saying it was the police, the lock clicked, and the door opened right away. Turns out, he heard everything all along but didn’t want to open. The officer asked him if this woman was his girlfriend, and he said no. I felt sorry for her, but I was still furious at these two idiots who kept disrupting my sleep every week. When the police and the woman left, I calmly knocked on my neighbor’s door and asked him to open it. He did. In appearance, he wasn’t much different from the homeless woman (I don’t actually know if she had a home or not; she just looked like a typical Canadian homeless person), except he was skinny and resembled a stereotypical junkie with a clear mix of stupidity and cunning on his face. I asked him why he didn’t open the door when I was knocking. He said it was because the woman was crazy. Realizing I didn’t want to talk to him, I asked him to open the door for me if this happened again and went back to bed.

The next time I was woken up by that painfully familiar voice, I decided to stop fighting the situation. I figured all I could do was wait for the police to show up again and for it to quiet down. I couldn’t sleep through it, and watching a show calmly wasn’t an option either—it was too noisy. So, the only entertainment I saw for myself was to just watch the homeless woman. I got out of bed, got dressed, grabbed an apple on the way, and opened the door. Seeing me, she snapped angrily, “You again!” and started saying she wasn’t leaving. But I stopped her, assuring her I wasn’t going to get in her way this time and she could do whatever she wanted. She was surprised and went back to her business. I just stood in my doorway, watching her while munching on my apple. I could tell she was glancing at me, and with every minute, it was getting harder for her to keep banging and shouting because I was just observing her. At some point, she stopped and started coughing. She coughed a lot, but this time it was like she couldn’t stop at all. Snot, tears, and drool were streaming from her as if life itself was leaking out of this long-suffering body. I asked if I should call an ambulance, but she refused, saying everything was fine. I went back into my apartment, grabbed a half-liter bottle of water, an apple, and a banana, came back, and gave them to her. She drank some water and felt better. Leaning against the wall, the homeless woman inched closer to my apartment, and at some point, she sat right across from my door. She said she couldn’t call Mark because her phone was dead. I offered to charge it at my place if she wanted. As she handed me her phone, she asked if she could come inside. I firmly said no, and she said in that case, I didn’t need to charge her phone. Then she started telling me about her problems with Mark, but I immediately said I wasn’t interested, and seeing that nothing was happening anymore, I said “bye” and closed my door. As I headed to bed, I heard the crunch of a plastic bottle and a splash of water. A few minutes later, she started trying to get Mark to open again. I went back to the front door, and when I opened it, I saw a puddle spreading into my entryway, and my door was all wet on the outside. Thinking that since my entryway often gets dirty from shoes, this was a great chance to clean it, I went to get a mop. When I came back with the mop, I looked at her, but there was no anger or resentment in my eyes. She noticed this, and I could tell she felt ashamed, though she didn’t show it and kept banging on my neighbor’s door. I mopped the floor and went to get a rag to wipe the door. When I came back, she was gone. I wiped the door and went to bed.

The next day, in the afternoon, I heard noise in the hallway. When I went out to see what was going on, I saw a crowd of people across from Mark’s apartment, including the homeless woman. Seeing me, she aggressively told me not to interfere. I said I wasn’t even planning to, and she went back to trying to break down his door. There were about eight people there. A few guys came up to me and said they just wanted to get her stuff. I told them I didn’t care what they did; I just came out to look. I really didn’t care what happened to Mark—he brought this on himself, so I wasn’t going to get involved. At some point, Mark started talking to her through the closed door. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, and honestly, I didn’t try—probably he agreed to give her stuff back and unlocked the door. As soon as he did, without waiting for the door to open, the homeless woman deftly and with all her strength pushed against it. Mark tried to hold the door, but she was clearly stronger, and within seconds, the whole crowd rushed into my neighbor’s apartment. I wasn’t interested in what they did there, so I closed my door and went back to my business.
The next day, I was heading to the store, and when I opened my door, right across from it, on the wall, was a heart sticker. Each of us was involved in this situation and had to learn our own lesson. What’s interesting is that when I realized I shouldn’t fight something that takes more effort than it’s worth and started treating it like a show I could munch on while watching, the situation stopped. The homeless woman must have realized something too, because I never saw her again—she didn’t come back to him. I like to think that the heart across from my door was a “like” from the universe.