Ouzo

Yesterday night, at approximately 11:30 pm, our neighbor, Ms. Linda, stumbled into our kitchen via the backdoor yelling that she needed my mom. 

"I'm going to kill myself.  I have a bunch of pills that I can take if you don't come down here!"  She yelled.

This was by no means a real threat, I think she just needed some attention.  Ms. Linda was wasted, or "sloshed" as we like to say around the house.  My mom came down the stairs, ready for the normal routine of calming Ms. Linda down.

When my mother accused Ms. Linda of being drunk, she responded with: "Julie, I'm not drunk right now, I'm high."

"On what?"

At this question, Ms. Linda paused for a moment in deep thought.  I expected her to say she had taken pills or something like that but a smirk took over her face as she answered: "vodka."

I don't know how long she has had a drinking problem but it has certainly has gotten increasingly worse the longer she lives with her mother-in-law.  A few months back, Ms. Linda's mother-in-law, Ms. Chris, lost the home that she had lived a great portion of her life in.  Ms. Linda's husband, Mr. Dan, had no other choice but to invite his mother to live with them.  Ms. Chris is a 99-year-old Greek woman.  She speaks broken English but I have a feeling that she understands more than she lets on.  Ms. Linda and Ms. Chris do not get on well at all.  They are constantly arguing with one another.  Earlier this summer, whilst my friend from England was visiting, we came home to find my mother talking with a disgruntled Mr. Dan.  The kids were sitting on the couch, eagerly listening in on the conversation.  When I offered to take them to Rita's for a treat, my 11-year-old sister motioned me to be quiet by moving her finger over her mouth.  They wanted to stay to hear the drama.

Apparently, while I was away, Ms. Chris and Ms. Linda had gotten into a epic battle next door, it was a clash of the Titans, Troy versus the Greeks.  Ms. Chris had proceeded to sink her teeth into Ms. Linda's arm.  Linda then came over to our house, screaming and upset, her shirt covered in blood.  My nine-year-old brother sat beside her, nursing her wounds with a wet washcloth and consoling her while my mother went next door to referee the fight.

I had only seen Ms. Linda's arm in the aftermath.  It looked pretty brutal.  There was a clear imprint of a jaw line sunk into her arm, that had now flourished into a deep blue-purple color.  Her shirt was covered in splats of blood.  It was quite apparent that shit had gone down next door.  I imagined this tiny Greek woman, almost a century old, with her one tooth latched on to her daughter-in-law's arm as Linda flailed about, trying to get this woman off of her.  This reminded me of a zombie movie.  The mother-in-law, thirsty for her daughter-in-law's blood had attempted to rip her arm off for food.  This is how I imagined the attack going down in my head.

I am glad that I was not here to witness this fight.  It would have ruined my individual picture of the two of them.  Ms. Chris is nice enough.  She sits on her porch and murmurs "such a pretty girl" as I make small talk with her.  Occasionally, when she wanders off the porch, I chase after her and offer my arm to help her back to the house.  She frequently smells of soaked urine but then again, so does Ms. Linda.

Ms. Linda is a sweet woman, when she hasn't switched over to Mr. Hyde.  It used to annoy me that it took her at least two months to figure out who I was.

My sister and I are almost polar opposites as far as looks are concerned.  She is tall, I am short.  She is a red-head, I am a brunette.  Our mannerisms are almost identical, however, our difference in looks provided me with the ammunition of telling Bella that she was adopted when we were younger.

"Think about it Bella, you don't look like any of us.  We found you in a basket in the stream."

I think this may have caused a lifetime of insecurity.  To this day, after looking the mirror, my sister sometimes says "I swear I am adopted." 

"Which one are you?"  Ms. Linda would ask me, referring to whether I was me or my sister.

I wanted to respond, "what are you talking about?  We just met earlier today," but I thought it was better not to.  Never rile an angry drunk.  So I'd smile and repeat me name, over and over again.

Hell, if I were in her position, I would probably become a raging alcoholic too.  Having to stay at home all day with a Greek mother-in-law, especially when her only child is her son.  Women are possessive over their sons because they are aware of the manipulative nature of girls in the same way that men are possessive of their daughters because they know when young men are thinking.  It's human nature.  Millions of years of evolution has made us this way, an infinite series of events that have shaped us.  It's going to take much more than good advice to change something like that. 

When Ms. Linda came over last night, she was in a particular drunken state.  Making it to 11 pm as an alcoholic is quite an accomplishment.  After 12 hours of continuous drinking, you're likely to enter an almost hallucinatory state by that point.  She came over, equipped with a 16 oz. can of Michelob Ultra, telling us about how earlier that day Ms. Chris had told her son that Ms. Linda had made out with the BGE workman, despite the fact that they were all together in the same house, in fact, in adjacent rooms.  The worse part is that Mr. Dan and Ms. Chris communicate with one another in Greek while Ms. Linda has no idea what they are saying to each other.  On this occasion, Ms. Chris had told Mr. Dan this is Greek, so Ms. Linda really had no idea what was actually said.  Ms. Linda sat on the couch, which left a faint smell of urine when she went home (much like marking her territory).

"This movie is shit," she barked, referring to 'The Count of Monte Cristo,' one of my mother's favorites.  "What's that movie with the girls drinking?  It was on the other day."

"Practical Magic?"

"Yeah, that one.  Let's watch that."

So we watched 'Practical Magic' while Ms. Linda calmed down and we finally got her to see the comical side of the day's earlier events.  She left, smiling and laughing.  No more Mr. Hyde, back to Dr. Jeckyll...until the magic potion once again touches her lips.