Last night the police never came. But for what seemed like a couple hours, a large man across the hall struggled to tear the doorknob off the door with a pair of butter knives. The man seemed nice. I offered to call the landlord for him; I offered to call the maintenance man. "No, no. It's the middle of the night!" the man said. (I'm aware of that, I thought.) At one point I told the man he was bleeding. I motioned towards the floor. "Your foot might be bleeding. You're stepping in blood," I said. "Oh, is it me?" he said. He went to the bathroom to wash off the blood. I turned up the music a little bit. And we both went on with our Stephen King-like nights.
