It's Over Now

There is screaming outside. Possibly playing, but suddenly too adult-voiced to be playing. A dog is barking. I ignore the screaming. This is Brooklyn: screaming happens.

I look out the window. There is a woman in a parka writhing on the ground. She is the one that is screaming. A brown dog in a blue jacket is barking and circling her. An older woman is circling the woman on the ground and the dog. The woman on the ground makes gestures to stand, quiets down, then screams again. The barking is ongoing. It’s mesmerizing, this scene, which has been going on quite a long time now, if only because the older woman does nothing. She does nothing to help the woman on the ground, who is clearly mentally challenged.

“Get the dog away from her, retard!” someone shouts from what I assume is my building, because I think I recognize the nasally voice as belonging to my downstairs’ neighbor, the one who screams at her kids a lot. Hm, it’s true, I realize. Getting the dog under control would be a positive first step.

Only later do I secretly enjoy the fact that my neighbor called the caretaker, the non-retarded one, “retard.”