Two days ago Anne and I were sitting on the bed reading at about 2 pm. It was a bright, warm day, one of the rare days lately without precipitation. We had woken up only a few hours before, and once we felt like it, the plan was to drive up to the Ski Basin to look at the trees turn, as Kay had suggested to me. There is fall even here, for those of you who don't know. Anne and I were both just finishing up chapters, about to shower, when we heard a woman's voice through the window shouting "Get off of me! Don't touch me! Get off!" Her voice was full and loud, but she sounded more annoyed than distressed. She was maybe two houses away. "Don't touch me. Oh my God!" She said this last almost like a valley girl, but at a full scream. Maybe she was three houses away; maybe she was the next block over. There was silence, and then she shouted, "Somebody call the police! Don't touch me! Get off me, you jerk!" Anne looked at me. I went to the window to see if I could get any more information, but the situation wasn't any clearer. Anne picked up the phone and dialed 911. She told the dispatcher what was going on as best she could, laughing nervously the whole time because of the uncertainty. What was going on, to whom, and where? Was time running out or wasn't it? What would the police even do when the got here? She didn't know what to say when the dispatcher asked for an address, so she gave them ours and said we didn't know just where the screams were coming from. While she was talking, I ran to all the windows to see if I could tell any better; I could see nothing but the neighboring houses, silent and unmoving. Anne hung up and said the distpatcher told her that someone else had called as well, but she didn't know if they were sending the police or not. We still heard a few screams, still sounding intensely annoyed, perhaps fearful, and saying the same things, with no other person's voice accompanying it. I have no explanations that make any sense. My only thought, and a pretty unlikely one, is that the neighborhood retarded kid had grabbed on to some stranger woman and wouldn't let go, but that doesn't work, as it would most likely happen in the street, where someone close to the scene would soon have come to help her; and for which she probably wouldn't have asked for the police anyway.

Since she was still shouting, if seemingly without much fear, I wondered if I should go out and try to help. I was still in my pajamas, but maybe my presence would scare off whoever was doing . . . something . . . to someone . . . somewhere. I reached for my pants and asked Anne. "What would you do if you went outside?" "I don't know." I put my pants down, but I felt paralyzed and thoguht that I was failing. I wondered if anyone else on the block was trying to help. The screaming came less often, and I didn't know where to go, so I stayed in. A few minutes later we heard police sirens, and then the sounds of an ambulance, winding around the community trying to find the woman. We no longer heard her voice. After a while, the sirens stopped and the afternoon was quiet again. Anne and I went up to the ski basin, and the trees were beautiful.