Installment #2 "The Crazy"

   I might have some of the happenings out of sequence because it was a long time ago, but though out of order,  the episodes are accurate as they are  burnt into my mind.  I'd lived a very conflict-free life up until then, and was not in the habit of provoking any threatening behavior.  Maybe it was the pregnancy which triggered the outbursts, because that's definitely what they were; it seems folklore has recorded such instances.  Or maybe it was the visits from Birdie's sister Dot, who was even more erratic, crazier as it were. 
   One day as I was walking up the cellar steps with  laundry basket in arms, the kitchen door opened at the top of the first floor steps, and there stood  Birdie and Dot.  The only interaction I'd had so far had been the potholder purchase, and I'd had no suspicion anything was amiss, until one of them shrieked, "The next time you're coming up those stairs, I'm going to take a hatchet and smash your head open!"  


Another episode
    Dot had taken to frequent visits; no good ever came from any of them, and that summer was so chaotic that my mother had real fears that my unborn baby would be affected.  Our next-door neighbor was Norma, a young (though several years older than I) mother of little twin boys, Kevin and Kelvin, about three years old. Her husband was stationed in the military, so she was home alone a lot. Somehow Birdie, with dominant sister Dot, had a gripe against the family, maybe because the little boys were too loud while playing in their sand box, who knows. Norma used to come to my apartment for coffee and to commiserate about the trouble Birdie was causing us.  Norma had also been the subject of complaints to the State Troopers, obviously for no valid reason.  Sister Dot used to call the Troopers frequently, for various complaints and reasons. When the trooper would come to our shared front door, I, from upstairs, could hear the conversations.  Dot was well-to-do, had come from a financially sound Saratoga family, as I understood it, and was married to the owner of the Valley Inn, (who, rumor had it, she may have murdered), but that came later.  She was always well-dressed and coiffed, black hair in a fashionable do, jewelry and colorful clothes.  I was still in my 20's so she seemed oldish, but she may have been near the age of 50, attractive for her age or so  she thought or hoped.  She would greet the trooper in a girlish seductive voice, and try every ploy to get him into the apartment, but he never did, always stood at the door. He knew the drill.  

The Tauntings
    I can't remember all that happened, but Dot was visiting her sister frequently.  Now that I look back, maybe because there were  men there, it's  possible  she may have been drawn to them.  Don and Barbara, newly engaged, were frequent visitors, and Dot would put on displays, often calling out in a singsong voice, prancing in full view in the driveway, and even lifting her skirt.  I couldn't have fathomed why. One morning she backed her car out of the garage, which they had the use of, having been the first tenants.  She parked directly behind Dave's car, so there was no possible way for him to move his car to get to work.  He asked her to move it, but she refused.  "Nyah, Nyah, you're not going anywhere."  He reported her to the police;  her story was that she'd had diarrhea, and had been unable to drive her car, so she avoided any culpability. 
 
But then...
   The State Police did enter the downstairs apartment one day!  Norma and her husband couldn't take it any longer.  Not when Birdie told them she was going to take a rifle and shoot the twins as they played in the sandbox. She was going to shoot down on them, she said, from the upstairs window.  That would mean our apartment.  So, once again, the troopers were at our door, to warn us, I suppose.  They said they were not taking the threat lightly, because they had checked Birdie's past and had found she'd been arrested in N.C. for shooting a Revenue Agent.  Really, no kidding.  Birdie refused to go peacefully into custody, so she was forcibly removed, kicking and screaming, strapped to a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.  My mother would light candles for my unborn child.