DO NOT ENGAGE

View of the neighbour's beat-up sedan with green warning sticker.

‘Shut up you old ass bitch!’, he yelled from the parking lot.

I was fuming after having yelled down to the guy to stop threatening my son.

Last night, my son and I were getting ready to have dinner on our balcony, three flights up in our new apartment. In the same complex where we have been living for close to ten years, but another building. As my son carried out our plates with food, he noticed the little guy staring hard at him. So, he stared back, but didn’t say anything.

My son was curious and wondered what the guy and his girlfriend were doing to the car next to theirs. We were unaware that the car, which had been parked in the same spot for over a month, was theirs.

When I walked out to join my son at our glass table, the guy was still staring.

‘What are you staring at?’, my son asked.

‘Why don’t you come down and I’ll show you!’, the guy yelled back, waving his arms as if he was someone to demand respect.

Honestly, he looked quite silly. All this to hide the fact that he was no larger than my son, maybe even smaller, and was trying to impress his girlfriend. But his mannerisms and gait, along with his tattoos, suggested he desired to be affiliated with a gang. His Instagram profile claims he is a ‘boxer, mechanic, and a tattoo artist’. The only reason I know his Instagram profile is because he has a sticker on his window advertising that fact. Why anyone would want to do that, and then keep the account private, is beyond my comprehension.

‘I’m 16!’, my son yelled back. ‘You’re threatening a 16-year old?!’

This exchange kept going on for a bit, with the girl saying that my son started it.

‘This doesn’t concern you’, my son shot back. I then yelled for everyone to stop. And that’s when the guy told me to shut up. I could sense this was not going to end well as the guy and his girlfriend returned to their apartment on the ground floor across the parking lot with the guy pointing his phone to record us eating dinner on our balcony, whilst laughing and mocking us. Though I told him to stop, he did not.

In the meantime, I called and texted the apartment complex. Since it was past closing hours, the lady at the answering service instructed me to call 911. So, I did.

Of course, it took ages for an officer to arrive. He stopped to talk to the guy first. And of course, the other guy gave a completely different story. With all of our past experiences dealing with another narcissistic and mentally unstable person, and having the police and CPS do nothing about it, we knew that this would be no different. And we were right. Nothing happened. As there was no proof.

The guy and his girlfriend returned outside to the parking lot to work on their cars. Now it seems they have three cars. The very loud Infinity, the black Jeep, and the really beat-up sedan. They had a car lifting jack and were taking off tires from the beat-up sedan and placing them on his car. All this while, we could hear the guy mocking us. ‘Stop it!’ and ‘I’m 16…’. It was so childish and rude and typical middle school behaviour. And this coming from someone who looks to be barely in his early 20s.

Hours later in the evening, we could still hear him mocking us, in addition to loud fake crying inside his apartment.

Paranoid and feeling unsafe, I finally got to sleep around midnight. But the peaceful sleep did not last long as the sounds of the guy and girl working on their cars again awoke me at 02,41 this morning.

I looked outside to see the girl carrying away the jack they used to lift the Jeep and replace a tire on her car. Five minutes later, they drove off. Presumably to test their work. About nine minutes after they drove off, they returned and went into their apartment. I went back to sleep for a few more hours.

I started my work day and let my son sleep a bit longer before we sat outside for breakfast. Around 09,30h, I received a text from the apartment complex that they are aware of the situation and are working on it. Since we still needed to get the parking sticker for the covered parking they gave us – free of charge due to the guy and the girl constantly hogging the spot under the tree – we stopped by the office to pick it up and to talk with management about last night’s incident. As we walked to our car, we noticed a green violation ticket stuck on the beat-up car.

The two ladies have known us for years, so they understood we were not complaining simply for the sake of complaining. They informed us that they know the family of the guy, though they could not divulge any information. However, we did find out that he his mother co-signed his lease. They also stated that it is not a simple matter to evict someone, as there were several steps to take beforehand. But they assured us that the guy’s ‘bark is larger than his bite’ and that they will send the courtesy officer over to talk to the guy.

As the day went on, we waited for the sound of the car. In the early afternoon, he took off somewhere, with the sound of his lowered car scraping along the concrete getting less audible as he drove off. When he returned after a few minutes, he purposefully revved the car’s engine. Loudly. I looked outside and noticed that he looked up. It was clear he was trying to get our attention.

Later in the evening, when we sat outside eating pea soup and fresh bread, we heard the distinct sound of his car returning once again. An obnoxiously loud sound that can be heard a great distance away. He and his girlfriend were on their way back from somewhere. I was not about to have a repeat of last night.

‘Whatever you do, do not engage’, I told my son. ‘Do not look at him. Do not say anything.’

We then went inside and managed to avoid the guy’s unwarranted nastiness. At least for now.