Long ago, in the early pandemic, tussling in any way with Maggie would overwhelm everything else in my life for at least a week. Things have really changed.

So that is everything else, now onto Maggie

On Thursday, Calvin heard her yelling at her newest helper, a black woman wearing draped red clothing. Calvin said Maggie was lecturing her in the back but he couldn’t hear. When the long, at-home workday ended, Calvin and I were both on the ground floor. He, masked, was making dinner (yes, I know the sick one shouldn’t cook but he loves it and I hate it). I was masked in the living room hanging out. We were waiting for Biden’s press conference to begin.

I could hear Maggie on her stoop talking with more anger than usual, and of course the Paul McCartney blared. There’s one song that goes something like, “Did you come on to me? Will I come on to you?” Maggie plays it over and over again. She must have some fantasy that hinges on it. Oh yuck.

I love hanging out on my stoop with a glass of wine watching the block but I can’t do it that much because of Her Hulking Presence and Paul McCartney next door, but this night I was curious. What was she saying to this woman? Usually her Potemkin salaried friends just do what she tells them (“Turn on the water, pour it on my hand, move that over here”) but this aid seemed different.

So I took my phone and my glass of wine and sat on the stoop, away from Calvin’s Covid germs, and watched as Maggie berated the woman in poor French. Then she sprayed the woman with the garden hose. And then she did it again and the woman left her yard and stood on the sidewalk, near my yard.

It was too much. The woman leaned on our fence and sobbed. I walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder (Maggie couldn’t really see us because of bushes etc) and said, “Can you just leave here? She’s not going to be nice.”

The woman said that Maggie had something of hers inside and she couldn’t get it. I said, can you call your agency? What are you in danger of losing? Your phone?” She seemed to have her phone. I then kind of lost my head and faced Maggie—she on her stoop with her beer and the hose, and me standing at her gate on the sidewalk—and I told her to give the woman what she wanted and stop spraying her with water.

So she hosed me. Of course she did. She got me pretty good! I was totally soaked and my wine caught some hose water. So I retreated and then just yelled at her. She hosed me again and I THOUGHT I got my phone set to record. Then I performed my soliloquy which was not captured by technology, but let me give you the gist, because it was my proudest moment of that Thursday, and I’m in danger of forgetting it as the sands of time trickle down through the hourglass of life.

What I said to Maggie from behind my opened glass outer door as she sprayed at me with her garden hose

• That she was a mean person who preyed on people who could not fight back
• That no one loved her
• That she was impossible to love
• That she was nasty and cruel to people who couldn’t fight back (I really hate this about her. I’m sorry to belabor this point but it’s the one I can’t get over. I still remember yelling at her when she was fucking over her tenants early on. She stole from them! She still has their fucking couch)
• That I was going back inside my house to my family, who loves me and whom I love
• That Maggie does not have anyone inside or anywhere who loves her

I was super eloquent, however, and said a lot more that I don’t remember. Then I went upstairs, leaving my soggy mask outside, ruined, and my hose-water filled wine glass in the kitchen, and changed out of my wet clothes into pajamas.

I lay on my bed with my hair wet and thought, “What a fucking idiot I am. This is all for nothing.” I lay there and felt the misery of having screamed at a lunatic, perhaps entertaining the block but probably not.

Then the misery flowed out of my body and I got up and went back downstairs to Calvin. Unlike past tussles, my. heart rate was not elevated at all. It had already gone down, and honestly, it had not gone up that much. It’s a weird feeling to scream at someone calmly. I recommend it!

We then ate a modified salad nicoise (Wyatt was at his summer job and he hates tuna and salad and anchovies, so we sneak in the salad dinner when he’s out) on different floors while watching Biden—Calvin in the basement and me in the living room. Oh Biden.

A few hours later the cops knocked on our door and I spoke to them. The aid must have called the cops but she was long gone—the 114 is not know for being on time for anything. The cops asked me if Maggie was a danger to herself or others and I said she was only dangerous to poor immigrants without documentation, but that she would live forever.

Later I thought I should have said, yes, she’s a danger to me. But she isn’t, of course. She’s a nuisance to me. She keeps me off my stoop sometimes. She has stopped calling me fat and ugly, which annoys me. She should have kept that up. I enjoyed those exchanges.

Oh, she did send me an email with a Spotify link but I don’t follow her Spotify links because who cares? Earlier in the week she sent me a few emails but I could not follow them. Her logic has stopped making sense to me and I’m not willing to go back over her social media and try to figure it out.

The next day the real, head mafia aid came over and stayed a while. The entire Potemkin crew came over, actually, but work was really busy and I care too little to spy. I do have a working theory as to what’s going on, and here goes (bullet points incoming!):

• Lady with blonde ponytail who blasts salsa balads from her white SUV is Head Honcho at shady health aid agency
• No one wants to work with Maggie so Head Honcho comes often
• Head Honcho is the brains behind the fake Handicapped Parking spot—she’s VERY CAR PROUD
• Head Honcho has to spend more time than she wants to keep Maggie happy
• Maggie abuses the weaker links in Head Honcho’s agency

This is Queens, you know, the borough where shady small businesses flourish!

Thank you for letting me dump the contents of the last few days. I feel lighter.