It was a Saturday morning and me and Elly had been preparing for a barbeque.
There were some things that were missing so I headed off to a local shop to get them. The one at the end of our street didn’t have the type of cheese that Elly
‘needed’ so I went a little further and got the correct mountain cheese for the barbeque. On my way back I heard shouting, 10 am on a Saturday morning, what lovely neighbours I thought.
As I got closer to our house I suspected the family across from us but as I entered my garden I knew I was wrong. The shouting was from inside our house. I rushed in to find Marvin stood over his pregnant sister, shouting down at her. I put myself in between them and told him to shut up.
I turned to Elly who was sobbing so hard her face had turned red and asked what was going on.
“He says we can’t have party.”
“Fuck him, it’s our house we will have a party.” I said definitely.
“Not your house English. Moj Tata’s house.”
My Daddy’s.
My dead, cheating Daddy’s.
“Ignore him baby. He is just jealous because he doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t have anything and we have it all.”
I walked Elly into our kitchen and returned to preparing snacks for our guests.
What kind of animal would reduce their pregnant sister to tears?
He stomped back off upstairs and turned on his radio.
“He can’t do that to you. I won’t allow it.” I said to Elly. “He gets a few passes because he is your brother and you love him but I won’t let him hurt you or Andrew.”
“He is fine. He only shout.” She said still wiping the tears away from her eyes.
“It isn’t fine. He is unstable, he is mental. I don’t want him here. Tomorrow he has to go.”
“Go where?”
“Back to your Mother’s, where ever. We are a young couple starting our family.
We don’t need him here making life difficult.”
We continued our preparations and the Neanderthal stayed out of the way. Our guests arrived and we made our way outside for a pleasant barbeque. Things were winding down when he decided that he would emerge and attempt to lure one of Elly’s friends to his lair. It didn’t go well and he appeared to be drunk, intoxicated at least and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been huffing gas.
The lady in question had brought her sponsor this time and he was the perfect man to deal with her flirtatious nature as he had a military background. He quickly put Marvin in his place and he scuttered back to his hole. It made me laugh and when we were cleaning up he returned.
“You think that was funny English piggy?” He snorted from the top of the stairs.
“Yes. Yes I do. You are a fucking dick and a bully. You bully your Mum, your pregnant sister and your Grandparents. You aren’t a hard man, you are a freak.”
I stood there expectantly with my garbage bag in one hand and a plastic fork in the other.
“I am more man than you English piggy.” He then emitted a squealing grunt that had to be heard to be believed.
I couldn’t help but laugh and as I did he came stomping down the stairs and Elly tried to come between us. I stepped in front of her and my child.
I was ready.
I had grown up, as the middle child, with an older and a younger brother to practice fighting with. I didn’t mind getting punched in the face.
Anyway, bullies never like people who fight back.
He swung wildly and I pushed him against a wall. As he came at me with his gangly limbs flailing around he stuck his leg out and I charged him. I knew that he was taller than me but on his back that didn’t count for shit. I started to choke him.
“I can’t breathe.” He wheezed.
“I know. That’s why am doing it dickhead.”
After a moment I thought about Elly behind me and I took my forearm off his wind pipe. I raised my hand to pound his face in and then thought about using my elbows. I guess I had calmed down by then because I became quite rational.
“I can let you up, we can shake hands and this is done.” I said.
He spat at me and kept muttering about getting me.
Fucking A-Class moron.
“Or I can pound you into the insignificant shit that you are.”
“Stop!” Elly shouted.
She had waited long enough.
I told her to make him agree that it was finished. If he tried that shit again I would hurt him, he should have got up and thanked me for not hurting him then.
Most of all he had to fuck off.
She relayed the message and he grudgingly agreed.
Dick.
I could take your fucking life. Stop being such a nob!
I returned to the kitchen and slide a knife into my pocket. I didn’t believe this was over, with a smarter man it would have been. With a man who understood honour and pride it would have been. He was none of those things. He was a child trapped in an adult’s body. He was anti-social, had major mental health problems and posed a deadly risk to my unborn child.
I waited for him to leave but he didn’t.
“Is he fucking off or what?” I asked Elly.
“He is too drunk. He will go in the morning.” She answered.
I was glad that I had put the locks on each door and went around and made sure any steal-able items were moved into our bedroom. We watched TV and went to sleep. It had been a stressful day and once the adrenaline had worn off I just collapsed into slumber.
At about 3 am I was back up as I heard him trying all the doors. Then he stomped back upstairs. I woke Elly up.
“He is trying to nick our stuff.” I said and she was still half asleep.
She muttered something and ignoring the situation returned to her dreams. I still had the knife so I unlocked the door and switched on the hallway light. As I did he lunged at me knocking the knife to the floor.
He had been waiting in the shadows like a coward. I was awoken and it was fight time, me in my briefs against him all padded up in his boots and thick coat.
If that’s what he needed so be it. I had a lot of anger to work out. I was ready to knock someone’s fucking block off. I was bleeding from a gash on my right arm where he had pushed me into the wall.
I didn’t feel it.
I waited for him to pounce, the uncoordinated mess that was his attack would leave ample opportunities for a counter attack. Instead he started smashing things. He had a hammer and was swinging wildly at the wall, the tiles in the hall way and when Elly emerged he barely missed her and got it stuck in our bedroom door.
He ranted at her in Polish as I tackled him and started to wail away. I was caught in the doorway and couldn’t land anything properly. I think I did myself more damage than I did him. Elly picked up the knife and as he squirmed away she handed it to me and he was gone into the night like a scalded dog.
I just looked at her.
She was more steeled than ever.
“I can’t go on with this shit. He can’t live here. Tomorrow we go to the police.”
She agreed and we locked everything up. The house had an inside bolt so he wouldn’t be back and even if he did he wouldn’t get in. Krueger had been barking for a few minutes before he settled down but he was no good as a guard dog. Elly held onto him and we tried to go back to sleep. I went upstairs to examine the state of things but there wasn’t enough light and it stunk. I held back on opening a window because I didn’t want another route into the house.
When I returned to Elly she was still shaking but she was aware enough to complain about my arm bleeding onto the bed. I went to the bathroom and cleaned up. I returned to my family and we nodded off. I don’t know how long for but we were rudely awoken by banging on our door.
It was the police and I could see Elly’s brother stood behind them like a battered wife waiting for the police to remove her crazed husband so she could return to her children. I couldn’t help but chuckle and we invited the police in for coffee and to make our complaint on the provision that Marvin wasn’t allowed back in the house.
The police maintained that I was there illegally and he was a rightful owner. The assertion that he had threatened to kill our unborn child, his mumblings in Polish to Elly last night, didn’t move the Police. They saw it as a domestic dispute and they explained that many domestic disputes occurred but few were prosecuted.
“Tell them about the hammer.” I pleaded and Elly did.
“They said that he didn’t hit us and just wanted to scare us. He said that you had a knife.” Elly replied after conversing with the officers.
They were blatantly checking out her expanding cleavage as well.
“So what they want to wait until someone dies?” I asked.
The Police got very antsy at that remark and told Elly to tell me not to threaten him. They would arrest me.
“Not England now English.” Said the bespectacled junior officer.
Great.
Incompetent, racist, pervert cops.
Just what village life needed.
Krueger emerged and started to bark at them.
Kids and dogs know douches on sight.
They rambled on in Polish laughing intermittently. When they had finally left Elly explained that Marvin had visited the police on several occasions to complain that Krueger was having parties in our garden and Marv wanted the police to intervene.
“Fucking nut job! What were they laughing at?” I asked.
“They think he is funny.” She said.
“Mentally ill, attempted murder is funny to them?”
That sums it up.
It wasn’t funny to me and I found a deterrent. Pepper spray for me and Elly and a taser if that didn’t stop him.