“Plate number GGS 654. Plate number GGS 654.” I was chanting the mantra trying hard to assess the turmoil of what was going on around me while remembering the license plate of the silver Cutlass.
My summer days of a string of house-sitting jobs had come to an end and I had recently moved into an apartment complex. The only thing going for this brick box of rooms was that it was located almost in sight of the church where I was working as a youth director. Other than that, it was a crappy apartment.
The day I moved in I immediately regretted living there. It smelled of seven layers of paint, roach spray, and mildew from a drippy window AC unit. The roach spray was obviously a ruse since the neighbor’s beside, under, and above also had roaches. They just moved around avoiding the aerosol can.
My neighbors across the hall were a very friendly Indian family who did not, apparently, speak English. There were days I wanted to be invited to dinner to escape my routine Kielbasa and Ramen, and days I wanted to stitch up my nostrils to hide from the pungent smell. The whole hallway wreaked of chick peas and cumin.
One morning, after descending the hummus-scented staircase, I heard a distant commotion in the parking lot. As I got closer I saw neighbors yelling at a man who was, what I thought, violently hitting a woman. I picked up my pace to get closer and see how I could help. It was then that I realized that he had her by the hair and was stabbing her.
Because the crowd had grown, the man dropped the woman and fled to his car. I ran to the woman and looked up to see the back end of the car as it drove away. No one was doing anything. I could see blood on her chest, so opened her blouse slightly to see a puncture wound. I yelled for a rag. Everyone seemed stunned. Finally, a guy took off his t-shirt and handed it to me so I could press it against the wound in her chest. A small kitchen knife lay with broken blade on the ground. I tried to comfort the lady as she moaned, praying for her out loud. I was quietly petitioning for myself too.
When the ambulance arrived, they noted that the knife had not penetrated beyond her skin. Fortunately, it had broken. She was lucky and would be okay.
They found the car and man was arrested.