I know my neighbors have to hear the son screaming but no one on our block talks about it. The son, as my husband and I call him, lives in the house south of us. He screams at all times of day.
I hear him in the middle of the night; I swim out of a dream into his scream. I hear him in the morning when I am sitting on my back steps with a cup of coffee. I hear him in the afternoon when I am trying to teach kids math.
I don’t remember when he started screaming which is weird because I know it hasn’t always been this way. But his screaming feels infinite, which of course is not just screaming but also all kinds of noise, everything from screaming to whistling to groaning to these really specific whoops. He has good days and bad days. Bad days he’s outside screaming multiple times. Good days it’s just once or twice.
I talk to my husband about it and he offers to say something. The son is troubled, though, and the woman we assume to be his mother has long mumbled to herself anytime she is outside. She tries to be quiet but words pour out of her, long convoluted conversations with herself; her car is close enough to our bedroom that I can hear most of what she is saying if I am laying on our bed.
It’s not that I’m spying on my neighbors it’s more that I usually have a half hour break at the exact same time she typically goes out to her car. On my break I like to lay on my bed with my heating pad and pet my cats which also means I am also bearing witness to her wordwaves washing into my window. Some days I hear her more clearly than others. Some days she’s so quiet that it’s like listening to a radio turned way down as you are driving out of range.
But her son is not quiet. There’s also no consistency to his screaming except it hasn’t stopped. Sometimes he starts whooping and I’m not expecting it and I feel a surge of adrenaline, that run-like-hell-some-dude-is-coming-for-you feeling.
Such a specific vibe, that feeling.
It’s not that I think he’ll hurt me it’s just that I’m trying to chill in my house without men yelling, I tell my husband.
I hear you, he says. I hear you.
I think about what to say. I think about if he can control it or if it’s just his own unique pain inheritance, like a really itchy sweater he can’t return. Mostly I think about how I am forever trying to solve problems that are not my problem, or more specifically problems that have no solution. I suppose this is a human tendency, to want to help, to solve, to fix. The problem is that more often than not you are dealing with a system of nonlinear equations that have no solution. There are no specific points easily arrived at. There is only an infinity of pain.
It started raining ice on a Thursday. It was sometimes snow but mostly ice, unapologetically thick ice, ice that forced the trees and flowers to bow their heads or break.
When the ice came the son stopped screaming. It was like the storm transformed his voice into the howl of wind and the crackle of freezing rain. The storm came in waves, lashing around the house, blowing snow under the back door. I watched my office window ice over as I ran math class in my Zoom room. During the last hour of class I watched the ice further encase our power cables. I felt grateful for my classmate who I had made co-host as a precaution. I knew my internet was on borrowed time.
We lost power the night before the ice started screaming. That morning I stood on my porch and watched the thaw, thinking about how the house was cold and getting colder while I was outside.
I thought about how my job is on the internet right now and the internet needs power but I didn’t have power or heat or internet or a job except to bear witness to the ice screaming and cracking and groaning and crashing. When I got too cold I went inside and used my phone to look up the etymology of “ice” and the etymology of “scream.” I only had 27% left but like etymology matters and I had time on my hands.
Both <ice> and <scream> are Germanic and ultimately of uncertain origin. Sometimes the etymology doesn’t reveal ground shaking universal truth but don’t you dare take that as an excuse not to still look it up, because sometimes the etymology changes your entire life.
I remember the first time I looked up the etymology of “variable” and it completely blew my mind. Kids are always so freaked out by algebra but as my teacher says it’s arguably the easiest of all math to both teach and learn but only if you get your picture first. If you understand that <variable> is ultimately derived from a Latin verb that has the sense of “change, alter, make different” it’s pretty easy to see why x can be -7 or one half or 8 or one million two thousand seven hundred twenty three. The value of a variable changes because that’s its truth.
What is your truth?
The truth of the son was something we learned a couple weeks after the ice stopped screaming. The truth of him is that he has a drug issue and one day it got really bad. It was a cold day and he was so high. He was outside half naked with bare feet. We had gone for a hike and came home to a police officer pleading with the son to stop screaming and go inside. “You’re really scaring people,” said the police officer. “Will you accept help from me,” said the police officer. “I think you should go inside and put on a shirt and pull up your pants,” said the police officer.
The police officer kept offering to help but the son did not want to accept help. An ambulance came but he did not want to get in. Another two police officers came but he didn’t want their help either. He went back inside for awhile. When he came back out the screaming was the worst it has ever been.
“I guess I see now what you mean about the neighbor,” said my husband. “Uh-huh,” I said. I wanted to roll my eyes but I didn’t because we were both trying our best.
Then another neighbor introduced a new variable called yelling back. Nick and I went out on our porch. The son had temporarily stopped screaming and was listening to our neighbor. “Hey just chill out man,” said our neighbor. “Yeah,” said my husband, stepping down off our porch.
“I’m sorry,” said the son, as if realizing for the first time that screaming outside half naked could be considered disruptive. “You’re scaring my wife and child,” said our neighbor. “You need to go inside right now,” said my husband. “Aren’t you cold?,” I said.
“I’m sorry I don’t know you!” said the son. “You’re my neighbors, I should know you! I don’t even know your name!” said the son, close to tears. My husband walked over. He told the son his name and that he needed to go back inside his house and not come out again until he was sober.
Since that night the son has mostly been singing when he needs to make noise. These days it sounds like he is practicing scales; sometimes he just holds a note until he runs out of breath. His singing has become a kind of regular incantation, his own personal charm against getting so high he starts screaming too loud and freaks out his neighbors.
There’s a kind of magic in the way he sings. An incentive to transmute his pain into something else so he can let go of it.
An enchantment against the icy screaming darkness that lives in all of us.