G-L-O-R-I-A

Gloria came into my life as I was standing by my mail box wincing at the three medical bills I received in the mail today.

She arrived in a cab hanging halfway out the window. She was making obscene efforts to get my attention even though she had it with the whole "hanging halfway out the window" thing. "Hey mister, you have a cell phone? A cellphone, you have a cellphone? You have a cellphone mister?" She really wanted a cellphone apparently.

Upon having a closer inspection I came to the conclusion that Gloria looked liked absolute shit. Her entire right arm was bruised as well as her neck. Her sweatpants were stained. Her lips were cracked and raw. She had a number of prison-quality tattoos all over her and she reeked of booze.

Anyway, I let her use my cell phone to call her boyfriend's brother who lived in my apartment complex as she didn't know his unit or building number. The cab driver took her last ten dollars, forced her out of the cab and took off while she sat waiting for him to pick up.

Without my permission she started dialing other numbers. She left a message after dialing one, and instead of saying "where are you, I'm in your apartment complex but I don't know what apartment you live in" etc., she said something along the lines of "I talked to Mae and she loves you, call me baby." What? Never mind. It was kind of sweet, although slurred, and she seemed desperately sincere.

Then it got dark. I agreed to stay with her awhile to see if Antoine or whomever would call my number back. After about 10 minutes I told her I would call anyone she needed in order to get her a ride to wherever she needed to be. In the meantime I learned about how this lovely Antoine, who was her boyfriend who was supposed to be at his brother's at the moment, nearly beat and choked her to death that morning. "But I hurt him and I love him," she told me after I said that he didn't sound like a nice guy. I told her I could call the cops. She said she had already been to the police station. She pulled out the crinkled police report from a Best Buy bag she held. She said she won't press charges, even though she's certain that he's going to kill her.

Cue partial anxiety attack.

So I wound up calling and speaking to her Aunt Sheila. While on the phone with her aunt she slumped against my car and went on about how her aunt is just going to call her a "druggie piece of shit" and yammer on. Gloria started to well up when I looked at her. Sheila didn't say anything bad about her other than "Oh God," but did say she couldn't help her. The cops supposedly told Gloria to take the cab to her house and stay there. Because she disobeyed the rules, Sheila wasn't budging this time. Gloria was on her own. Then I called someone named Javari. He was a friend or something, but I never quite found out the relation.

Gloria then became a total asshole. When I got him on the phone and I said "I'm standing here with Gloria your..." she snatched my phone from my hands by force. She then proceeded to make threats and say that if someone didn't come and pick her up she was going to kill the baby inside of her. Great!

Cue shakiness.

If I had to bet, I would say that there is a good chance the poor kid is already dead thanks to the cigarettes and alcohol. Gloria had admitted early on in the conversation that she had gotten really drunk at some point after being assaulted.

In her newly acquired state of rage, though, she started to walk really quickly in the other direction with my phone. I made sure to keep up. I kept saying "Gloria, I need my phone back," but I really think she forgot I was there. After five minutes of lunacy and shrieking and bursting into dry tears I shouted "I'll talk to him!" This got her attention.

Whimpering, Gloria told me to beg him to come and get her. Wow, I thought, you sure do have a weird way of asking your last resort for help. But she had had a rough day to say the least.

Javari told me he was coming to get her right off the bat, but he said he needed directions. He asked who I was and I told him that I was just some guy who was getting his mail. "Oh, he said." And then he hung up. Gloria at that point looked like someone who had been rejected for the last time. As much as I felt bad for her, I was sickened by her and I hated myself for it. I tried calling him back two more times and he wouldn't pick up his phone.

After a couple more minutes of Gloria telling me about how her feet hurt because of the baby, and how she had to walk somewhere or the other, a maintenance guy came up curiously.

I just said "this lady needs help and I don't know what to do." Gloria's perma pout and desperate facial expressions quickly turned into the face of a pseudo hard ass. "I don't need no help," she said.

And just like that she marched off.

I'm wondering now if I could've helped more. I think I should've called the cops, but she was clearly hiding something from me. She didn't want the cops involved. But I also feel like an asshole for questioning her motives. I could tell by her defensiveness that Gloria doesn't have lot of people in her life who trust her which, in and of itself, could be causing a lot of her neuroses. The drugs and the beatings I'm sure don't help too much either.

Maybe she has fucked up too many times. How many is too many? I suppose it depends on the individuals involved and the degree of the fuck ups. How easy is it for someone to slide to Gloria's level of last-ditch efforts and complete isolation? I know that the answer for many is "very easily."

I still wanted to tell her something profound to snap her out of this tailspin -- a naive thought. I tried to hear her story. I asked her if Antoine had done this before, and she denied it. I told her not to go back to him, and that she didn't deserve this and all that cliche, trite shit. She seemed to ignore me and went off on a rant about how Antoine is cheating on her and for him it's all about the pussy, but that she will always love him. Over and over she talked about her love for him as if trying to convince herself.

What a weird interaction this was.