A couple nights ago I woke to the sounds of an elderly woman shouting. I looked out my bedroom window and saw, in the neighboring building, a silhouette in a window. “Help! Somebody help me! I’m on the 12th floor. Call the fire department!” It was 4:00 a.m. I was astonished that no one else heard her. In her rant I heard the word “gas” and thought of carbon monoxide poisoning. I called 911.
Minutes later, a fire truck rounded the corner with sirens blaring. They parked in front of her building and casually entered. I waited to see her light go on but it didn’t. A few moments later I saw the firemen exit her building and enter mine. KA-KA-KA went the pounding knock on my door. I looked through the peep hole and saw five firemen, axes dangling from their belts, wide as they were tall, staring back at me. I opened my door and they asked about the call. I explained that they were in the wrong building, I’m the one who made the call, but the woman in distress was next door.
“We were just there, no one came to the door,” one of them said. They eyed me suspiciously.
“Let me show you,” I said.
I brought one of them into my bedroom, and pointed to the window where the shouts had come from. There was no one there. He aimed his flashlight.
“That one?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We were just there, bangin’ on the door. Nothing”
“I’m telling you there was a woman shouting for help. I felt it my duty to call.”
He shook his head, looked me up and down, gathered his team, and left. As they stepped in the elevator one of them hissed.
I watched from above as they got back in the truck, but in that moment, the woman poked her head up and let out a bloodcurdling “HELP ME!”
The firemen heard her, flashed a light on her window. “What’s your apartment number?”
“1604”
A few seconds later, her light came on, and I saw a fireman in her apartment. I went to sleep.
The next evening I asked the night watchman in my building if he knew anything about it. “They just took her away,” he said, and explained that she’d had a second shouting episode a couple hours earlier. She’s about eighty, he told me, lives alone. He shook his head resolutely. “I don’t think she’s crazy. Just lonely. I think she just needs someone to talk to. The right man.”