Down the Rabbit Hole

Am I the only one who sees that the bunny is boiling?

14th Street & 1st Avenue, East Village, New York City. Photo credit: John B Arnold

A few days ago, as I sat working in our tiny-but-tranquil Vivaldi-filled apartment, the couple across the street were tearing into each other again. That’s the thing about living in New York City: your neighbors’ business is your business, whether you like it or not.

It was hard to make out individual words, but their emotional impact was unmistakable: You are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, I hate your filthy guts, and I hope you die.

When I previously overheard them dismembering each other, I found myself reflecting on the nature of relationships, how speaking disrespectfully is the single most accurate predictor of a breakup. In some cultures (Italy, for instance), this level of venom and vitriol is practically foreplay. I braced myself for the defenestration of stray pieces of furniture and the sound of glass shattering.

Instead, that shattering came a few nights later and from someone else.

It’s an awful sound, if you’ve ever heard it. You are painfully reminded that the thinnest of membranes—glass—protects us from those who would do us harm. This protection is an illusion, of course. Glass offers us no protection, although we like to think it does. Once shattered, it can never be put back together again.

There’s a dreadful finality to the sound of all those pieces flying apart, and for those of us whose imaginations are on a perpetual hamster-wheel, also the possibility of someone getting scarred, sliced, severed, or bloodied.

It was 1:30AM and John and I went rushing to our window to see what was going on.

For the last few nights, a man had been wandering the streets, banging on random doors and screaming “F*ck!” in way that sets your hair on end. I still don’t know whether this is the same guy. But someone with fair, disheveled hair and a dark blue- or black- backpack shattered the window of a ground-floor apartment across the street. He raged. He shouted expletives. And when he walked away, a stout Puerto Rican man tore out of the building and attacked him.

Even from the third floor, we could hear the sickening smack of fists on flesh, the muffled grunts, the groans of pain. And despite the promise I made to myself to not get involved, I yelled, “Stop it! Stop it right now! Walk away!”

It worked. It always works. With the right forcefulness, you can get through to these idiots, which I find rather astonishing. Last year, fisticuffs broke out in front of a Houston coffee shop I was at. The owner (Italian, by the way) was pounding on a customer who mouthed off to him. I was out of my seat before I could stop myself.

These were big guys. Any sensible person would have stayed out of it. What worries me is that I seem incapable of staying out of it. I did break it up, and the dear friend I was having coffee with fearlessly involved herself, too. But her heroism is more noble than mine. She made the decision to do it, whereas I simply reacted. And that’s what I did with the two men rolling on the sidewalk across the street.

The guy with the backpack got to his feet. I’d saved him from getting his face smashed, but he snarled up at me, “F*ck you! That guy’s a child molester!”

What I would have liked to say was this: “I have no idea if that’s true, but who are you helping by vandalizing property? Not the potential victim. Either come back and break his kneecaps like a man, or call the police and let them handle it.” But that was too nuanced a conversation for the moment, so John yelled at him for yelling at me, and then the police arrived.

The cop taking our report had an enviable set of salon nails. When I commented on them, she laughed and said, “I’ve never lost a fight with them yet.” Wednesday morning is trash pickup, so John and I were forced to talk to her over a reeking barricade of garbage bags. We gave our report and then went back inside.

I told her I’d used my “Mom voice” to end the fight, but that’s not true. I’ve never yelled at my kids like that. I have no idea where this voice comes from, except that it’s loud, and I have no control over it.

Oddly, it works in all languages. Back in our Italy days, there was an altercation in the parking lot beneath our window. A Romanian man ran a dog grooming service on the weekends, and he was never gentle with those poor creatures. An Italian woman had the temerity to complain to him, which he didn’t like, so he got in her face.

“Walk away from her this minute!” I shouted at him in English. “Right now! Don’t even look at her!”

And he obeyed.

One of these days, I’m going to get my ass kicked. Why? Because in such moments, I’m not in charge of myself. Worse, I suspect this rage comes straight from my wholly involuntary empathy and compassion. I hate bullies and can’t bear to watch human suffering. The next thing I know, I’m punching people myself, and I mean that literally.

It was in the parking lot of a Houston-area HEB that I first laid hands on someone. I was about to go grocery shopping and was texting my kids. The couple in the car next to me were fighting, and the next thing I knew, he gave her a closed-fist punch to the mouth.

I saw her head snap back, the look of slack horror as her face hit the window. For a second, I was paralyzed. Then he got out to lift the hatch on the back of his car, and the next thing I knew, I’d flung myself out of my car and punched him in the stomach.

Then I ran.

After reporting him to the store manager, I lurked in the frozen foods section for an hour, waiting for the guy to find me. He never came. When I returned to my car, expecting to find it in flames, it wasn’t. And yet, before we “congratulate” me on my courage, let me ask you: Who was I helping by punching that man in the stomach? How did that solve anything for the woman he’d assaulted?

In that instance, I was no better than the Puerto Rican guy across the street who came out swinging. No better than Hamas killing and raping innocent Israelis. No better than Netanyahu dropping bombs on Gaza. Why? Because violence solves nothing.

All human beings, including myself, especially myself, are panicked monkeys. Deeper down, we are a lizard. What triggers my fight-or-flight response may, at first blush, seem virtuous, but it isn’t.

It helps no one.

I am not a hero.

My rage, however “righteous,” doesn’t solve any problems; indeed, it may create them. And I am deeply troubled by it.

What I am trying to do is adopt a practice of Radical Acceptance that’s almost Buddhist in scope. I can tell you right now that despite my earnest desire to do better, I will fail.

Beneath my rage is terrible wrenching grief. There’s a part of me that can’t accept and will likely never accept the idea that “this is the way things are.” Or this is the way we are.

We are born into a world of unimaginable violence. We may not have created it, but we perpetuate it, and in this city where we all live like ants on a mound that somebody pours boiling water over, we get an unobstructed front-row seat to that big R Reality every single day.

It is my own resistance to the “isness” of what I see that is breaking my heart. If I could find a way of simply accepting human suffering as a fact of life … But even as I write those words, I know they are ridiculous.

The couple across the street has started their daily dismemberment. If he hits her, God only knows what I’ll do. I’m living proof that people—all people, not just me—should never be given rocket launchers.

There is no such thing as “defensive weapons.” You cannot end a war by waging one. Every time we build another nuclear submarine, we in serious denial—not only about will eventually happen, but about our own human natures.

I am not in denial. I know what I am capable of, what we are all capable of. But the truth is a bit more complicated, isn’t it? If we disarm and no one else does, we will be annihilated. We try fixing the situation by forcing disarmament treaties on other countries, but we never take the trouble to fix ourselves.

We are very much what we were thousands of years ago when we traveled in small packs of hunter-gatherers. We are hardwired for violence. Our own survival forces us to.

I just wish I could come to terms with that.

Copyright © 2024 Stacey Eskelin