The Dragon Upstairs

In the apartment above us, a man was screaming and crying. It was a mid-August Monday evening, three weeks since we’d moved from Boston to Santa Monica. Working in cafes I overhead storyboard, tension, pace, money, the talent. I was beating the AI in online Scrabble to disengage from unpacked boxes and undone tasks. My son was in his room, adding to his Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

The monstrous sounds from upstairs reverberated through the pipes. When he pounded on something, the glass bottles in my bathroom rattled. Trying to block it out, I wondered if I should record it or call 911. His voice rose, thundering the same sentences, the same intonation, the same anguish. How did he still have a voice to scream?

I told myself I’d knock on his door at nine, check out the situation like the concerned neighbor I was. 8:58. I slipped into my flip flops. The man had started up again. My son and I looked at each other, a twin thought dawning. The exact same words.

The man was an actor.

At nine on the dot the yelling stopped. Soft laughter and good-natured conversation sifted down. I kicked off my flip flops, shut my laptop, the screen black.

“Welcome to LA,” my son said, drifting away, back to his own imaginary dragons.