It was a little after 10:30 PM.
High and/or drunk, she knocked on their doors--again.
Even in her impaired state, she remembers being handed cash, and hearing, "Don't worry about it."
It doesn't matter now if she knocks every other day, or every other week. She knows everyone is hip to her now, after years of being suckers.
One hates to see someone in need and not do what one can.
She, however, is a perfect example of why some people don't give, or lend a hand at all--not to churches, charities, family, friends, panhandlers, or people with neatly printed cardboard signs.
Sincere desperation, actual need, or a warped sense of entitlement, borne out of an abandonment of ambition or hope, convinces them that some sympathetic person will come to their aid.
What they don't tell themselves, is that even nice, religious, or generous people have a limit.
When there is never appreciation, gratitude, or change in behavior, people harden their hearts, close their hands, and their purses.
Her addiction has turned her into a con--and not even a good one--just a bitter, confused, defensive one.
Her own mother apparently didn't answer her screaming or knocking. Regularly, the peace of their homes is disturbed by harsh cries of, "Ma! Ma! Ma!"
Her yelling grows in volume and intensity, and goes on for several minutes. She yanks on the door; the rattling of metal against metal clashing with her screaming, until something breaks.
Everyone says to themselves, "If I can hear her, surely her mother can--as well as the rest of the neighborhood."
Who doesn't answer their own child? She, however, is no crying baby. She is not the daughter her mother once knew.
Her mother cannot handle her anymore, and now she is everyone's problem.
It was chilly outside this night.
She was wearing a thin, dingy white tee shirt and sweat pants.
The shorter hair that didn't make it into her scrunchied ponytail, had formed a spiky black halo around her swollen face.
Even through their peepholes, they could see her eyes were glassy and red.
She wiped her face from the chin up, and her hand continued up to smooth down her hair, as if somewhere deep inside, she remembered wanting to be neat.
She suddenly walked away from their doors and sat on a step, leaning her head against the railings.
After a few minutes, she pulled herself up again, and began knocking again. Exasperated, they all ignored her. They probably all have stories that they've never shared with each other.
Some village, huh? What if something worse was going on? What if this time, it wasn't just a case of a drug addict looking for money? She's cried wolf so many times, she's exhausted her audience--an audience that used to gladly help.
Now the audience doesn't even bother saying, "No."
Fed up, it just doesn't respond at all.
Her knocking turned to banging, as if she was trying to break down the doors. When people want what they want, they don't consider how their behavior impacts others. When they want what they want, in their selfishness, they actually think there's a polite way to bother people. When people stop acknowledging them for whatever reason, they think they can shame them into it generosity, by making their own irresponsibility the fault of someone else.
When she approached each door, she placed her ear to them to listen for movement. If anyone had opened their doors suddenly, she would have landed face-first at their feet. She stared into the peepholes as if she could see through them. The whole thing was unsettling. She was like a wild animal on the scent of money. She wanted what was on the other side of the doors as if it was hers.
They weren't her neighbors, they were potential victims.
Their own hardships never factored into her repeated demands of them.
She went back and sat on the stairs, and scanned each closed door...waiting.
Why did anyone wrestle with the prospect of opening their doors?
No one liked the idea of her just being in the stairwell. They used to open their doors freely to her. She was a young, single mother.
No one minded a few dollars here or there, but it soon became a habit. Every time, before a "Hi" or "Hello", a well rehearsed, syrupy sweet, "Do you have two dollars?", "Can you lend me 10 dollars?", "I need 5 dollars.", "You have any extra quarters?" was heard.
With two other adults in her home, she either didn't, or couldn't ask them for money. The reason is obvious to them, now.
Food, clothing and shelter? Yes. Drug habit? No.
The police came to take her away a few years ago. High on something, she sat in the stairwell striking matches, and set a small fire to the carpet. She laughed as the policeman cuffed her. She appeared evil. Her whole countenance changed as if she were possessed. She laughed all the way out of the door, muttering how no one had ever given her anything. "Don't try to reason with her, Ma'am. She won't hear you", the policeman said.
A neighbor didn't give her the money she asked for, so her aim was to burn down the building.
When she came back home so soon, everyone was shocked, and have been leery about her presence ever since.
When she was taken to church, she loud talked over a group of people as they prayed, cursed them out, told them they couldn't help her, walked out, and left her crying, preteen son sitting on a pew, embarrassed.
Years ago, her baby girl, wearing a urine soaked diaper was found sitting alone on the top step of the first floor landing. She heard her name, and came to the door wearing a sheer gown.
Her eyelids were heavy as if she'd just gotten out of bed. She stank. She was inside with some man, and hadn't noticed that the door was open. Her excuse was that she'd been in the bathroom. Suddenly she was alert and apologetic when asked if her mother was at home. When her mother found out, she was furious, but thankful that no one phoned CPS. She said out loud what everyone thought. "What if the baby had fallen down the stairs?" What if it hadn't been a neighbor who came home for lunch? What if some demented person had taken the baby? No one would have ever known it."
Her mother said she would handle it.
Today, many honestly wish the call to CPS had been made years ago. Maybe her life and her children's lives would have been different. Maybe she would have learned a little about accountability, responsibility, motherhood with the help of a purposely intrusive government agency. Maybe it would have taken her circumstance in a different direction. Nothing seems to have been handled except that the baby has grown into a teen and is now, fortunately, living somewhere else.
Her mother is exhausted. Her often drunken uncle hasn't exactly been a role model in the home. Every now and then he breaks out old records and sings and yells out at the top of his lungs. Everyone smokes like chimneys, and it's a wonder there's a healthy lung in the house.
Her mother has carried the weight of her daughter, grandchildren, brother and other family members. What has her mother's own life become? She can't even enjoy her retirement. Embarrassed and disgusted, her mother doesn't defend her anymore, and doesn't expect others to defend or support her either. As if she's referring to someone else, she says, "If you give her your money, you're a fool."
She started banging on doors again.
Were people fearful and angry with themselves for allowing someone on the other side of a locked door to have that much control? What were their conversations with themselves?
"You're a Christian! Open the door!"
"Don't be stupid. This woman cannot be trusted, and you already know what she wants."
"Stop staring at her and open the door!"
"What if this fool has a gun or knife? Don't you dare open this door. Just watch her."
"Call her mother. Wait. Do you even have her phone number?"
"What if you had to go out right this minute? I know you are not letting a drunk person turn you into a prisoner in your own home."
"Get the phone. Call 911!"
Were they fearful for themselves if they opened their doors, and more fearful for her if they didn't? She lives in the building, so she has a right to be in it. She doesn't have the right to be a nuisance. She doesn't have the right to endanger everyone in the building by welcoming people involved in illegal activities.
If anyone DID call 911, what would they say?
There's a drunk/high woman in the hall banging on doors?
How many times have they dialed 911 to report people breaking into cars, fights, escalating arguments, domestic violence, car accidents, peace disturbances, people passed out on the sidewalk, robberies or loiterers? How many times did they get the feeling that the 911 dispatchers and the police were sick and tired of answering their kind of call? How many have concluded that the police feel less and less compassion for those who spend their days slowly killing themselves, and their nights being neighborhood terrorists? How many feel that a plan is in place to just let the criminals kill each other off one gunshot or drug at a time, then all will be well?
She banged on their doors again. She wanted money and they knew it. They don't know how much money they've given her over the years. The thought they used to have, "At least she knows there's someone she can go to", has faded.
They were not opening their doors.
The kind of help she really needs, whether she believes it or not, is not in their wallets.
They decided there's no reasoning with an impaired person. Had rehab failed her again, or did she refuse to comply with the recommendations, and accept the help she was given?
They decided to just watch her for a while, just in case they DID need to call 911. Part of them argued, "She just wants money. She ALWAYS wants money, and has no problem asking for it. She feels she is entitled to it, and she knows just who to ask, and how. She has reasoned that if she only asks for a small amount, she should get it. It shouldn't be a hardship. She never considers that she has been asking for money for years".
Part of them just felt so sorry for her.
She's never too drunk or high to have a lie to explain what she needs the money for. About a month ago, she must have thought that if she told them the truth, that her honesty would be rewarded. "My mother gave me money, but I used it for cigarettes. I just need 5 dollars."
She actually thought that was convincing.
Her son briefly adopted her MO. He needed a haircut, needed to get to school, needed to get to his group session after school, needed something to eat.
That went on for a while, until her mother told them that he has adopted his mother's ways of lying and conning people to get money. "Don't let him play on your sympathy. See, you just too nice. Why didn't you tell me? He HAS money. I give him what he needs every day. He just doesn't do what he's supposed to do with it--and that haircut he got with all them lines in his head? I can't stand it."
Since his grandmother confronted him, he hasn't knocked on their doors since. When they see him now, he lowers his head.
Her dealer waits in the dark like a predator, or she calls him from a cell phone. HE has access because she consistently breaks the door or the gate so that SHE can have access.
Now, no bother will be made to fix EITHER anymore.
Waste of money, they say. Now, no one is secure in a once advertised "secure" condo community.
She stumbles out in her nightgown to get her drugs with the money she's suckered out of unsuspecting strangers. She wanders from the park across the street in the wee hours of the morning looking haggard and dirty. She gathers with others whose lives have come to be found in a bottle, needle, plant, or pill. She walks aimlessly, preying on the kindness of strangers. She lurks like a wild animal. She is someone's mother; someone's daughter.
She got tired of knocking, finally, and left in a huff. They watch her walk down the sidewalk, open the gate and cross the street. They watched until she was out of sight, then wondered if they should have opened their doors after all.
Is there no hope? Does Christian duty give way to common sense, sometimes? When does helping stop?
When do you forget about the prospect of getting someone into more trouble, and just turn them over to authorities?
When do you admit there's nothing you can do except pray for someone- and remain sincerely confident that prayer works?
When does compassion give way to just being pissed off and fed up?
When do you give up hope for a person? Do you ever?
