The monkey made me do it

Kenny's Eventful Evening

I went to bed last night fairly early (10ish) and fell immediately into blissful slumber, dreaming of ponies frolicking through fields of lollipops or maybe they were happy little puppies on sticks, when all of a sudden a metallic SLAM woke me from my happy place and made me sit up in bed (it was a little after midnight). For reference, my bedroom is in the front left corner of our house, and borders partially on the neighbor's driveway (though I never hear their cars or have had a problem with noise in the past). Then I heard what I initially thought was someone laughing, followed by another SLAM. I realized that the man was in fact crying - sobbing uncontrollably - and slapping his hands against the cars in the driveway right outside my window. I didn't peek, but tried to listen more closely and make some sort of sense out of his percussive ramblings. The best I got was "Ohhhh, God...." and "I can't...." and then heaving cries and more metal whapping.
I sat there for ten minutes, thinking that any moment his grief would lessen and he'd either get into the car he'd been abusing or go into the house, but he wailed at the same pitch the whole time and didn't even slow down when a family member came out of the house to try and talk to him. The poor kid sounded like he was only a teenager, and the conversation went like this:

Kid: "Kenny, you have to come in the house now. You're being loud."
Kenny: WHAM "I (WAAAAAA)... can't... (A-huuuuhhnnnhhh), Oh.... GOD!" WHAM WHAM
Kid: "Kenny, I'm going to call Mom. You have to come inside."
Kenny: "GOOOOOOODDDDD!!!" (various snorting noises) WHAM

The kid left, and Kenny kept on going with even a slight increase in the tempo of the car slaps and the pitch of the howling. The next round was with an adult male, maybe a brother or uncle, and went more or less the same - Mom threatening, come in the house - but with the addition of the threat of "Kenny, the neighbors are going to call the cops if you keep going on like this!" I sat very still and hoped that none of the neighbors would call the cops and pour more pain on poor Kenny's already troubled day, but then realized that I was probably the only neighbor he was concerned about. The brother/uncle/random guy got sick of it all and told Kenny he was locked out of the house, and slammed the door.

Kenny kept on for another fifteen minutes, it was getting close to 1 in the morning and he'd been howling for almost a half hour now. Then the reinforcements came in. Three (maybe four, I didn't peek and risk ruining the lovely imaginary scenario I was building in my head. Kenny in my brain was about 45 and in a pimp suit with a very large hat and rings on every finger (hence the nice SLAPs). I'm pretty sure that's not reality but it worked for me.) large adult men came out of the house and started insisting that Kenny come inside. You can guess how well that worked:

Guy 1: "Kenny! You HAVE to come inside or I'm-a gonna drag you in"
Kenny: "Gooooodddd! (sniffling, indistinct wailing) I can't.....I can't!!"
Guy 2 (this guy was my favorite): "Kenny, you're not acting like yourself. Get a hold of yourself and come inside."
Kenny: "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Guy 3: "I'm going to throw you in that house. Just watch me."
Kenny: "Can't..... GOD.... Nooooooooooo...."
Guy 2: "He's not himself. I think the Devil got in him."
Guy 1: "What?! Kenny get in the house right now."
Guy 2: "By the power of Christ's blood..."

Then it got messy. Kenny somehow managed to keep up an almost primal howl through the entire exorcism (which, from what I could tell, was only being performed or paid attention to by the one guy) and subsequent physical dragging into the house.
I reluctantly fell back to sleep, but kept an ear open in case he managed to escape the padded room again.

posted by LadyJay @ 11:02 AM