Journal Entry

12/24/00

This is my third Christmas Eve in San Francisco. The first I spent in the youth hostel where I was working and living, the second working a food line at a homeless shelter in Haight Ashbury, but this one I am spending with friends. I have been in this city nearly three years now and my relationships have some depth. Most of my friends have left town to be with their families; Ben is in Maryland, Jeremy is in Tuscaloosa Alabama, Abby is in Maine and Scott is in Pennsylvania. But Jon, Julie and Jeremiah are all here. Sean is here as well.

I made everyone Christmas cards photocopying pictures of us and gluing them to the back of Chris Daly posters. Chris Daly ran a successful campaign for District Supervisor. I volunteered on that campaign and still have some posters left. Chris Daly ran on a tenants rights platform and was endorsed by the San Francisco Tenants Union as well as the Fireman’s Union. He works to stop the greedy developers from putting the homeless out on the streets and keeping single resident occupancy hotels safe. I live next door to a single ressident occupancy hotel.

This morning I walked down to the mall to buy everyone presents. I thought I could just give everybody cards but when I heard there was a stack of gifts waiting for me under Jon’s Christmas tree I had to do some last minute catching up. I got Ben a poster for the upcoming movie, Traffic. Traffic was directed by Steven Soderberg, Ben’s favorite director. At the Old Navy I grabbed sweaters for Jeremiah and Julie. I got Jon books because I want him to read. I bought Sean a wine stopper that is supposed to vacuum seal the wine bottle. I broke my pledge not to shop in Safeway and bought all of the ingredients for the soup I am going to make tonight and the chocolate chip cookies. I don’t like to shop in Safeway because they broke the union. I won’t cross a picket line but today there was no picket line. All of the protesters were home with their families for Christmas Eve.

Back home I wrapped all of the gifts in newspaper. Then I heard a man screaming. I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to screaming in my apartment. The SRO next door to is less than a car length away. The courtyard between the two buildings creates a natural amplification chamber. Every time someone is hitting their girlfriend, having sex, playing music or smoking crack I can hear it. It sounds as if they are actually in my apartment but you get used to it the same way you get used to it when you live next to a train station. People scream where I live all the time.

I went into the kitchen to get something to eat and I saw the man who was screaming, perched on his windowsill, one leg outside, back against the frame, the nearest window to mine. His eyes were frightened and as large as moons. There was a moment of recognition. I had never met eyes with someone in that apartment before. The residents tend to change every few days. Then he said to me in a very loud, scared voice, "Call the police! Call 911! They’re coming in to get me!"

"OK," I said. "Take it easy. I’ll call the cops." I guess he didn’t have a phone. I went into my living room and I called the police. I said there was a man in the SRO next to me hanging out of his window yelling and I thought he might jump, but I could be wrong. They asked what floor I lived on and I told them I live on the third floor. They said they would send somebody right over. I went back into my kitchen and I lifted my window and stuck my head out and told the man the police were on their way. We were probably close enough to touch fingers. He brought his leg in when I said that and sat in the window waiting for the police to get there.

The police arrived quickly, eight cars. I brought a man and a woman officer up into my apartment and they spoke to the man through my kitchen window while the other officers came up through the hotel to the man’s room. I went back to wrapping my gifts while the police took care of it. The male cop went back downstairs and then the female cop took down my information. She said I had done the right thing calling the cops and I told her it’s always noisy here. No big deal. "I hope I didn’t make it sound worse than it was," I said in reference to the eight police cars.

The cops left and I lowered the kitchen window and I locked it and I lowered the blinds so nobody could see in my kitchen window. I called Jon and I told him what had happened. Then my neighbor, Steve, came by and asked me if I wanted to go hiking. I said no, I was going to make cookies and soup and stuff. Steve goes for three hour long walks. Today he was going to go to Point Reyes. When Steve left the screaming started again. "Mister! Call the police! They’re back! They’re trying to hurt me! Ahh! Ahhhhh! Call the police!" I got back on the phone and dialed 911 but I didn’t get through right away this time; I had to wait. When the operator got on the phone I told her I had just called about a man sitting in his windowsill and screaming and now he was screaming again and wanted me to call the police which is what I was doing. The operator told me the police are already on the scene. Then I heard something fly through my kitchen window breaking all of the glass. "He just threw something through my window," I said.

"Now you’ll call the cops!" I heard him yell.

"I can hear him yelling," the operator told me.

"Yeah, well."

I went downstairs and the lady cop was still there sitting in her car about a half a block down. I walked down to her and told her the man was screaming again that people were coming to get him and he threw something through my window and my kitchen window was totally smashed to hell. She told me she’d be right up so I went back to my apartment and when I got there the man had jumped already, three stories, and was lying face down on the concrete. Now there was a lot of screaming; people in all of the apartments and hotel rooms were screaming; there was a lot of swearing and one person in a very reasonable voice saying, "Don’t move. The police are going to be here. You’ll be OK. Don’t try to move." The man himself was letting out a steady groan that might not have been so loud, but because he was in the middle of the echo chamber, was startlingly clear.

A speaker was sitting in my sink. Glass was everywhere, in my sink, on my floor, in my dishes and cups and on my kitchen shelves. I could see clearly into the man’s apartment. His door was barricaded from the inside with a dresser, a mattress, and a bicycle. The sirens were coming. I went downstairs to talk to the cops. I told them what I knew. They asked me to wait for the sergeant. The sergeant was a thick Italian with dark, wavy brown hair. I told him the same story. A couple of cops asked me if I saw him jump and I said no I didn’t see him jump but nobody could have pushed him because his door was barricaded from the inside but they didn’t seem to believe me and they asked if I heard anyone in the hall and I told them that we were in separate buildings. A cop told me the man was going to be OK, but he definitely broke his leg. I wondered who he was so afraid of and how he thought whatever they were going to do to him was going to be worse then falling three stories onto concrete.

The cops thanked me for my help and I went back to my apartment. My other neighbor, Dr. O, came by and helped me clean some of the glass out of my kitchen. I left a message for the landlord but I haven’t heard back from him yet. I started to feel guilty for having closed my blind and locked my kitchen window. Jon and Julie and Jeremiah came by and invited me to the store to shop for groceries. Tonight we’re making Christmas Eve dinner. I told them I should probably clean up first but Julie insisted I come with. She said I wasn’t looking good. That’s the thing about having friends. They are wonderful. I went with them to the store and told them what had happened and we made some jokes about it. What else can you do? Then I started to feel sick and I told them to drop me back off at my house and I would be over at Jon’s after I had done some cleaning. And that’s where I am going to go when I am finished writing this.