The Woman in 10A Asked Why I Was on Her Balcony

I told her I had taken a wrong turn.

She looked past me at the railing, then at the sliding glass door behind her.

We were ten floors up.

“That’s a very wrong turn,” she said.

I agreed.

There was no point being defensive.

People become suspicious when you become defensive.

She opened the door another six inches.

I could smell garlic, laundry detergent, and whatever expensive candle convinces people their apartment is not technically a box in the sky.

“How did you get out there?”

I looked to my left.

Then my right.

This felt responsible.

“I’m still reconstructing that.”

She stared.

I smiled politely.

This did not improve matters.

Behind her, a television was playing a cooking competition. Somebody was crying because their soufflé had collapsed.

I understood.

Structural failures are humiliating.

“Do you live here?” she asked.

“Not specifically.”

Her hand tightened around the door handle.

That was when I noticed the hammer on her kitchen counter.

I pointed at it.

“You renovating?”

She slammed the door.

Fair.

I remained on the balcony.

For approximately four minutes.

Then she called building security.

I could hear the conversation through the glass.

“Yes.”

Pause.

“Yes, a man.”

Pause.

“No, I don’t know him.”

Longer pause.

“Because he’s on my balcony, Dennis.”

Apparently Dennis required clarification.

I waved when she looked at me.

She stopped looking at me.

Ten minutes later, someone knocked on her apartment door.

She hurried to answer it.

I tested the balcony divider.

Cheap aluminum.

Decorative, really.

The kind of barrier designed by someone who believed human beings respected boundaries.

I stepped over into 10B.

A man watering a fern screamed.

I apologized.

Then I entered his apartment.

“Wrong turn,” I explained.

He backed into his dining table.

The fern hit the floor.

So did he.

Not dramatically.

More of a folding action.

Like patio furniture.

His wife came out of the bathroom holding a hair dryer.

She hit me with it.

Twice.

The second time felt personal.

I took it away.

She screamed.

The man got back up and attempted something heroic with a ceramic fruit bowl.

We disagreed about this.

Violently.

The bowl lost.

So did the table.

The fern had already made its position clear.

By then Dennis was pounding on 10A.

The woman was shouting.

The wife was shouting.

The man was bleeding from the forehead and asking why I was in his apartment.

I told him.

He did not appreciate the explanation.

So I took another wrong turn.

Through 10B’s front door.

Into the hallway.

Dennis saw me.

I saw Dennis.

Dennis was forty, tired, and wearing a security uniform that had never expected to become relevant.

“Sir.”

I stopped.

He stopped.

Everyone stopped.

It was a beautiful moment of professional uncertainty.

“Were you just on that woman’s balcony?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I took a wrong turn.”

Dennis closed his eyes.

Not for long.

Maybe two seconds.

But they were important seconds.

They were the sort of seconds during which a man reviews every decision that led him to accepting night-shift security at the Marlowe Heights Apartments.

Then the elevator opened.

Three police officers stepped out.

Dennis pointed at me.

The woman from 10A pointed at me.

The bleeding man from 10B emerged and pointed at me.

His wife pointed the hair dryer at me.

Nobody had returned the fern to its pot.

I slowly raised my hands.

One officer said, “What the hell happened here?”

I looked down the hallway.

Apartment 10C had its door slightly open.

Interesting.

“I think,” I said, “I’m on the wrong floor.”

The door to 10C quietly closed.

Smart woman.

The police officer sighed.

“Where do you live?”

“3F.”

Everyone stared.

Dennis looked toward the stairwell.

Then toward me.

Then toward the balcony doors.

“You’re seven floors too high.”

“Yes.”

“And on the outside of the building.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

That was becoming a surprisingly popular question.

Before I could answer, something enormous crashed against the windows at the end of the hall.

Everybody turned.

A window-washing platform swung into view.

Empty.

One harness dangling.

Dennis looked at it.

Then at me.

Then back at it.

I said nothing.

There are times when additional detail only complicates an otherwise manageable misunderstanding.

The officer reached for his handcuffs.

I nodded toward the platform.

“For what it’s worth,” I said, “that was the first wrong turn.”

The woman from 10A whispered something.

I couldn’t hear all of it.

Just the final two words.

“...fucking psychopath.”

People are quick to judge.

Especially neighbors.

I never did find 3F.