South Philly Drunk

I woke up Sunday night to the sounds of a drunken madman and a barking dog. It was 3am and I had to get up for work in a couple of hours. The dude was completely bombed, slurring as he yelled. "Yahhh! Hooatyah!" I still have no idea what he was saying. Just spontaneous random syllables.

I put a pillow over my head to block the noise and tried to go back to sleep. Of course that failed. Feathers and cotton are no match for a South Philly drunk.

My wife and I live in a rowhome on a small residential street. From our second story window, we can see the entire block. It's great for those Rear Window moments where the neighbors are fighting and you're just waiting for them to literally kill one another. But I digress...

I crawled out of bed, headed over to the window, and looked down toward the street trying to identify the stumbling buffoon. There he was, right below my bedroom window sitting on the bumper of my neighbor's car. He was talking to the dog. I mean - he was yelling. But he wasn't yelling at the dog. It's more like he was yelling to the dog. It looked like a conversation. No anger in his voice at all. He was just loud and rambling.

The guy was in his 40's or 50's. A black dude talking to a pitbull without a leash. Even while sitting on the car bumper, his was doing the drunken head bobbing thing that people do when they've had way too many drinks. It's like when you're driving late at night and you're exhausted. Your head starts to dip as your eyelids slowly close. But before your neck bends to the point where your chin meets your chest you are suddenly startled awake by some internal safety system. He looked like that - as if he might fall down onto the pavement at any second - constantly catching himself in time.

A quick aside... As I mentioned, I have no idea what the guy was saying. He was yelling as loud as he possibly could - a string of jibberish. But was I the only one who couldn't understand? I'm a white guy, and in my neighborhood I'm definitely in the minority. There are a lot of times that I can't understand what my sober neighbors are saying. Even after living in downtown Tampa and center city Philly, surrounded by people of various races and backgrounds, the black urban dialect still escapes me. It's fast while mumbling, foreign sounding, and riddled with slang terms I don't recognize. So while I claim this dude was screaming jibberish, it's certainly possible that my neighbors understood every word of it.

After watching for a few minutes, I got sick of the 3am show. Dude was boring. The same shit over and over. I crawled back into bed and tried to get some sleep.

What am I, an idiot? It was completely impossible. I had already tried blocking out the noise with a pillow and failed. I should mention that my beautiful wife slept through the whole thing. I am a very light sleeper.

I thought of a handful of solutions. I could open the window and tell the guy to shut the fuck up. I could tell him to go away. I could lie and tell him my wife is trying to sleep. What good would that do? Guy was crazy drunk. And he didn't speak my same language. He was clearly American and I assume he was speaking English - just not in a way I understood. For all I know he was yelling in slang "I'M GONNA SHOOT THE FIRST WHITE PERSON I SEE!" or "IF ANYONE TELLS ME TO SHUT UP, I'LL THROW A ROCK THROUGH THEIR WINDOW!" I really couldn't be sure.

Then there were the passive solutions. I could go downstairs and start my day early. Send a few work related emails at 3:30am. My bosses would be happy knowing I put in a couple extra hours. Or maybe I'd put on some music or watch TV. That might drown out the noise and lull me to sleep.

As all of these ideas raced through my head, I just laid there staring at the ceiling. The clock kept ticking and I was still awake and doing nothing.

Then about an hour after it began, I heard my next door neighbor yelling at the dude. She's a strong and persuasive black woman. A woman who works with her hands, drives a pickup truck, and has biceps as big as my thighs. I didn't completely understand what she was yelling either, but I got the message. "Go away. Get away from my house. We don't want you here."

I raced to the window to watch the aftermath. I imagined maybe he'd get belligerent and start breaking things. Maybe she'd have to rush outside and beat him down.

When I got to the window he was still sitting on the bumper. The yelling from both sides had stopped. Dude was silent, staring down at the pavement. His head was in his hands. His elbows rested on his knees. His knees spread wide. As if he was making sure he had enough room between his feet for... Yeah... Vomit.

Dude spewed what appeared to be shredded chicken in a brown sauce. Maybe chicken wings. Maybe chicken stew. Quart after quart. Maybe a gallon or more.

And yeah - you might have seen this coming.... The fucking dog started licking it up. Regurgitated chicken wings are pure ambrosia to a pitbull. Slurp slurp slurp. It was hard to tell from a distance, but I think the dog was smiling.

That was enough to ruin my night. The drama was over and I had these horrible images in my brain. I tried to go back to sleep now that the noise was gone. No luck. I was too freaked out. And I had to get up for work in an hour. Fucking South Philly drunk.