Kate and Dave
Today, I would like to talk about my neighbours. I should probably call them slightly better names than just “shit cunt A” and “shit cunt B”, the names that Bear and I have given them. What shall I call them? Let’s call them Kate and Dave.
Kate and Dave are a young couple, no older than 22 I’m guessing. She’s pregnant and has just 20 days until she’s due to give birth, and he’s a crack dealer. How do I know this? Because they argue on the stairs of our apartment block all the time. And I mean REALLY argue. So loud that I can hear them above the TV in my bedroom when I’m sat right next to it, and with both the bedroom door and our flat door shut. I can even hear them with headphones on.
Over the last three months or so, I’ve learned that Dave likes to sleep with “crack whores and hookers”. (I’m using her words.) He likes to go out until the early hours of the morning and then bring a string of random crack-taking men back to her flat. And it is her flat, too.
“The rent is fucking late because of you. This is MY flat. It’s in MY name. Get the fuck out!”
The fishwife-style screaming is usually accompanied by door-slamming so violent it causes my walls to shake. It’s sometimes joined by hysterical crying right outside our front door. How she’s not given birth yet is beyond me.
I’ve learned that he sells crack and that there’s crack in the flat. She thinks very little of his mother, his father is a “woman-beating piece of shit”, and his nephews hate her. Very few of his friends like her, too, despite spending quite a lot of time in HER flat. (Probably doing crack.) She told them all to get out mid-fight once and his laddish friends headed out of the building amidst a very loud chorus of:
“Who the fuck does she think she is? I’m gonna fucking get her.”
Dave lets his friends talk about his girlfriend/baby momma like that, and, again, the thuggish shouting is almost always accompanied by slamming doors, punching of walls, and kicking of various items down the stairs.
Angry little fucktards.
It’s been fucking hellish listening to it all, but we’re kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. It’s a pretty confusing story, but the short version of this: we lived in House A. House A is being renovated, so we moved into Flat B. House A had a bunch of problems surrounding planning, etc. so we’ve stayed in Flat B for a lot longer than anticipated and it’s costing us a fair bit of money because it’s not very convenient. Any ‘plan B’ we might have had — moving into potential Property C — has been wiped out because savings are dwindling FAST. So, we’re stuck in Flat B for now, living among what might be the actual dregs of society. Call me a judgmental bitch but these people are fucking scum.
Anyway, today we were privy to another epic argument, but this one was SO loud it was beyond a joke. Kate and Dave were SCREAMING at each other, all sorts of obscenities, and not only did it disrupt me, in the bedroom, with HEADPHONES in, it also disrupted Bear’s 17-year-old son, also with headphones in. That’s how loud it was. Even Bear heard it in the living room and he had music on as he went about painting the walls white. (Because we might live in the fucking slums but that doesn’t mean our actual surroundings need to be shite, too.)
I came out of the bedroom into the hallway at the same time that Bear’s Son came out of his, and Bear joined us just seconds later.
“What the fuck is all that noise?”
We stood with our ears to the front door for a while, like something out of a comedy sketch, and it soon became apparent that something was definitely very wrong up there. It was much bigger than a regular Kate n’ Dave fight. There was loud crying, so much screaming, and what sounded like actual skin-on-skin contact. Someone was being slapped. Or punched. Slapped, I think.
I lost it. Because this is the second time we’ve heard a fight of 10/10 epic proportions from these wankers.
The first time, Bear and I were rudely awoken at 7 am on a Sunday morning by banging, shouting, and general throwing-around noises. I don’t think anyone quite appreciates the state of me in the morning, or my mood, but it is bad. You just don’t wake me up. It’s not worth it. I am an angry, unreasonable, inconsiderate, violent little thug.
The angry, unreasonable, inconsiderate, violent little thug in me came out in full force on that particular Sunday morning, and I threw back my front door, stomped up the stairs, and hammered on their front door so loud I was honestly surprised at the racket I was making.
“Who is it?”
I heard Dave, the fucking shit cunt, shout from inside.
“Answer the FUCKING door.”
I was in no mood to talk through a door.
“What?”
He peeked his head around, barely opening the door a crack, clearly expecting someone other than my dinky 5 ft 3 self in front of him.
“STOP BEATING UP YOUR FUCKING GIRLFRIEND, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING TOSSER.”
I didn’t wait for a response as I turned on my heels and stomped off back down the stairs. I did hear him say, “I don’t beat my girlfriend,” in the meekest little voice, though.
“Shut the fuck up.”
I shouted behind me, slamming my own front door. Fuck that shit. 7 am on a Sunday morning? The ONLY morning Bear and I would get a lie-in? Fuck all of that. I’ve been listening to their poxy arguments for months.
It takes a lot to get me to that point — to a point where I will actually open the front door and deal with something on the other side. I’ve been too afraid to even get mail from our postbox lately, after a particularly violent incident involving a random scumbag on my front door. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time but the physical altercation really did a number on me. Already afraid of the big, bad world ‘out there’, I turned into an actual hermit. I just couldn’t find the courage to step foot outside the door.
But that angry, unreasonable, inconsiderate, violent little thug in me came out again today.
2:30 pm, Thursday afternoon.
I. Lost. It.
I opened my front door, stood in the hallway, and listened to what was going on. I heard those skin-on-skin slap-like noises again, and the adrenaline rushed through me like nothing I’ve felt in a really, really long time. Bear followed me out, desperately trying to usher me back in the flat, but I was having none of it.
“No. I’m SICK of listening to this shit. I’M SICK OF IT.”
And with that, I started shouting up the stairs. Because I’m a crazy bitch who needs to be muzzled.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT UP. SHUUUUUUT UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.”
Dave, the little turd, came halfway down the stairs, screaming right back at me.
“Who da fuk do you fink you are, you cunt?”
He talks like he never went to school a day in his life. He probably didn’t. His life choices are certainly questionable.
Bear, now aware that Dave was coming down the stairs in the direction of my voice, pushed me behind him.
“Listen, mate, shut up or we’re going to call the police. We’ve had enough of listening to this.”
The little turd went mental. Actually mental. The screaming was so frantic, so uneducated, we couldn’t make out full sentences. Just words thrown out in random, small-man-syndrome ways.
“Snitchizzzzzzzz” was one of them, which I’m assuming means “snitches”. I’m pretty sure he said he’d “fukkkkkk uuuuuup” our home at one point. He definitely told us that there would be “re’ercuzzions” for threatening to call the cops on him. I’m assuming there’s a ‘p’ in there and the actual word was “repercussions”. Not once did he come down the stairs, though. I think he saw Bear and thought better of it, although I don’t blame him. The angry, bearded bald man was stood in shorts and no t-shirt, Doc Martin boots on, covered in tattoos, looking pretty thuggish himself. (And hot. So damn hot. Dreamy.) We’ve also got a crowbar just inside the front door. You know, just in case some other delightful little scrotum decides to try and smash my face in again.
Bear ordered me back inside the flat, following me in and locking the door behind us. We heard Dave shout at his girlfriend a little more before running out the building, shouting obscenities in the direction of our front door — more repercussions blah-blah — as he did so. Job done. At least he wasn’t screaming at his girlfriend anymore. And we didn’t need to call the cops in the end. (I’m not really sure I fancy the idea of repercussions, feeling brave or not.)
He sat in one of his two [untaxed – I checked] cars in the parking lot for about ten minutes, before driving off with squealing tyres and a badass, small-man attitude. I decided to be a responsible adult and check on the 8-month pregnant chick living upstairs … just in case.
I knocked. No answer. Bear kept watch to make sure Dave the shit cunt didn’t come back and I knocked again. No answer.
“Hey, it’s the girl from downstairs. I’m just making sure you’re okay. No fight. I know you’re pregnant.”
I could hear her crying and sniffling the other side of the door but she still didn’t answer. She didn’t respond at all. I knocked one final time and then gave up.
“It’s cool. You know where I am if you need anything.”
I figured I might try and knock for her again, later on. I might be a cunt but I’m not so much of a cunt that I would just leave some young, pregnant girl like that. I don’t know what happens between them — whether she’s hitting him or he’s hitting her — but I know something like that is going on. I can hear it. The sound of skin-on-skin contact is undeniable, especially when you’ve been on the receiving end of it more than a few times.
And that’s the problem here: it affects me so much because I’ve been there. Not pregnant, of course, I was never that unlucky. But I’ve been with a man like that. A man who would always back down like a wimp when a bigger, more responsible adult came along but had no problems scaring the shit out of his girlfriend at every available opportunity. Just like Dave didn’t dare step out from behind his front door when I confronted him the first time, and he didn’t dare step forward when he saw both Bear and me stood at the foot of the stairs. And he promptly ran away when we got involved and threatened to call the cops. The guy is a pussy. A bully and a pussy. Her hitting him is NOT acceptable (if that’s happening), but the way he talks to her — he SCREAMS at her — is definitely not. She’s fucking pregnant. Like, about to give birth pregnant.
The fuck is wrong with you, Dave? You don’t fight a pregnant and hormonal girl. You walk the fuck away. You certainly don’t scream at her so loudly that people walking the other side of the road stop, stare and point at your windows … which are shut.
And then there’s that other reason why this affects me quite as much as it does.
She’s pregnant.
And we’ll just leave that where it is. I wouldn’t know how to explain it, anyway.
Note: This post was sitting in my drafts for a while. Kate and Dave moved and we never heard anything more about them. I hope she’s doing okay. I also hope she’s left the shit cunt.
holy sh…t! that Dave is real bastard! hope tha Kate is ok