I had actually sold my drum set to the older brother to make some money for my move to this feminist paradise college town beach community mountain resort. He's since bought electronic drums i think, so whither my old drum set I cannot say. They had an apartment near downtown in a building with 2 or 3 other apartments. On one side were the fighting heterosexuals. This apartment seemed to be like a crash pad for older hippy like dudes. An older lady also lived there. She seemed to be an alcoholic maybe. And the thirtyish hippy dude 70's type dudes stayed there. Who knows who they were, but they'd fight. To get an idea what they were like I'd compare them to David Crosby in the seventies and eighties. Fat old hippy dudes that'd drink or do drugs. This town was not just a feminist paradise but also a hippy paradise and new age paradise or whatever else paradise was available.
There was a nightclub nearby and these sorts hung out there all the time. We called it a negative energy vortex and were frightened every time we walked by it although ostensibly it was a hippy love place. Neal Young would play there to try out his new stuff (the International Harvesters, remember them). Woody's boy'd play there. It shoulda been a good vibes place one would think but it seemed ugly and nasty to me. Weird sexual revolution vibes and violence vibes. Once when passing by I saw this big woman screaming at someone, then she came roaring out of the vestibule full speed ahead and crashed her head into the window of a truck some guy was pulling away from the curb in. Obviously the object of her wrath.
It seemed to me that these David Crosbys would hang out at this negative energy vortex drinking and go home later and be frustrated. Sexually frustrated maybe, or just frustrated in general. But they'd start to fight. And we'd hear and feel it. We'd here grumbling and growling, muffled through the wall. "Rrruba muga miga ragga rigga you so&so." And then they'd fight. We'd here scuffling and slapping and then hitting the wall then pow, two fat David crosbys falling to the floor together in an angry embrace. And we'd feel it because their wall was our wall and our floor was their floor. They'd fight and yell 'til they must have been too tired to go on and stop. And we'd huddle together in fear, softly saying "Oh no, oh no".
We even met a guy with an interesting history, who later hung around a lot, because of this. He was a younger guy about our ages, late teens, early 20's. His mother was the alcoholic looking woman who lived there. So I guess he was staying there one night when the fighting began. He came across the hall and knocked on our door. "Hey guys, is it all right if I hang out here for awhile?" he quietly asked. Of course we said sure. We found out later he was wanted by the FBI for stealing a boat out of the yacht harbor with a couple other guys. It was easy. The ringmaster just went on the boats at night and scoped out the ones where the owners left the keys in. They sailed down to Mexico in it with the dream of making their living by taking tourists on sight-seeing cruises. But a little thing called El Nino caused them to crash the boat and ruin it on the Baja coast. So he made it back to the border and swam the river.
Later when the FBI caught up with him he didn't seem to get into too much trouble. Probation I guess. He cooperated. The feds were after the ringleader not his young accomplices. So he learned his lesson. We do dumb things when we are young. (And I'm sure dumb things when we are old).
In the apartment on one side were the fighting David Crosbys. But on the other side were the battling dykes. We could hear them and feel them as well as one would beat the other. We'd hear the one start accusing the other in a hate-filled voice I have seldom heard matched. "You bitch, you whore, you cunt," she would seethe (please forgive me for relating this awful language). "I saw the way you were looking at her." And the other one would blubber, crying "no, no, no". Then smack slap. More crying and pleading.
Then we'd hear and feel one desperately crawling across the hardwood floor to get away. We'd feel this because their floor was our floor and sitting there in our doped up on humbult sinse heightened sensitivity it'd reverberate through us. The other would clunk and clunk and grab her and both clammer onto the floor. The name calling would go on and pound pound pound on the floor, on the wall. I could see in my head the one sitting on the other and grabbing her by the hair and pounding her head against the floor. Just beating her over and over screaming at her in her jealous rage.
One evening as we were walking home and as we passed by their window we saw rising above the lower three quarters of the window that was covered with a blanket, a crutch waved straight up in the air. It was waved about and then, thwack, swiftly and violently brought down below our view. Then it was up above the blanket, then down. Up and down up and down. She was beating her with a crutch. That was the most horrible thing I ever saw.
To this day it is to my shame that I didn't call the police and tell them that there was a woman beating another woman near to death. The thought never even crossed my stoned out mind. Smoking dope or doing any drugs never does anybody any good.
How could things like this happen? They happen all over all the time. Today as we read this there's gotta be couples fighting. A man beating a man, a woman beating a man, a man beating a woman, a woman beating a woman. Right now I'll bet.