Breaking in Badly (deleted scene from Alive After Dying)
By: Peter Lancellotti
Posted on: September 8, 2024
Breaking in Badly
By
Peter Lancellotti © 2022
Life has almost normalized since that fateful day in late 2020. Since then, I’ve been living and eating healthier, along with daily exercise. When the medical community began to get a handle on Covid19, many of us were still in self-imposed exile. At the time of this event, I remember being sent into panic mode with an anxiety attack rivalling that of a plane crash.
It was a windless day. I’d just returned from grocery shopping, and everything was now put away in its proper place.
After kicking off my shoes, and removing my jeans, I was left wearing only a purple buttoned-down long-sleeved shirt. I hadn’t been wearing underclothes, and hardly ever do. I plopped onto the sofa with a book.
I thought I might have left the garage door open. I live on the fourth floor about seventy feet from the ground. Two doors are the gateway to getting in or out of my place: a heavy wooden inner door and an ornate outer cast-iron screen. The electronic fob signal is in range of the garage from the walkway after exiting the condo. I’d done it before.
Being a tad obsessive-compulsive, I had to know if the garage was secure. In Los Angeles, any rodent or beast could have walked in and made themselves right at home. So, I casually walked out to check on it. Suddenly, with only the fob in my hand and my purple shirt on, the wind slammed my cast iron screen door shut, which was locked from the inside.
That’s when the panic struck! I almost yelled for help, but all I could muster up was a pathetic whimper. “Help.” I thought about the consequences of families with children seeing me on our floor as there were a few near my unit.
I rarely wear underclothes unless I’m going to a private affair or function where I’d be seen by people I know. Since the advent of Covid19, I hardly went out for any reason. But there was the occasional grocery store run, and on this fateful Saturday morning, it was only 8:00 am when I’d finished doing just that. Since it had been so early, there was no work crowd to speak of, and shopping hadn’t taken long at all. I left early because getting anywhere in Los Angeles on any given day was as unpredictable as today’s wind.
My neighbors are friendly, but I wouldn’t say they’re open-minded enough to see me in my birthday suit, sans shirt. I had definitively not thought this event through during my panicked moment. There were many people out of work because of Covid19. Some were most likely home with their children, especially at this hour on a Saturday morning.
There was a time when I served as volunteer treasurer on the board of the Homeowner’s Association, and I had been remembered as someone persuasive, getting management to tend to the building’s needs in a timely manner. That was before my husband died. That was all prior to becoming a curmudgeonly middle-aged widower.
Still standing outside my unit, I was about to try and yell for help, but again, I could only muster a whisper, even more quietly than the first, “Help.” I tried to wrap the flaps of my shirt from my groin to the back of my fanny. That only served to make me look even more ridiculous.
Due to health issues, it left me with very little upper body strength back then after having two back surgeries less than a few years prior. Looking at the window, it racked my brain pondering how I’d get inside. Adding to my aging body, I’d also been diagnosed with Type II diabetes and developed severe peripheral neuropathy, which causes permanent nerve damage coupled with vertigo. Balance was a problem and being unable to feel the walkway beneath me furthered my quandary.
My doctor was having me tested as diabetic induced vertigo continued worsening. He finally gave me the good news that I’d brought my diabetes under control with a proper diet and a pharmaceutical. However, peripheral neuropathy in my feet could still be unpredictable and is to date incurable. Some days are better than others. However, that day was a particularly painful one with stinging, burning numbness in my feet. Unable to feel the walkway floor beneath me yet knowing it was there, I’d contemplated breaking the kitchen window five feet up. I knew this was going to be difficult. It felt like I’d be breaking in badly.
I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of getting arrested for what should have been a simple breaking and entering, let alone indecent exposure. After watching enough television, you might have thought I’d known exactly how breaking and entering was done, but this would be a case of an allegedly smart person making bad decisions.
Despite having a long-sleeved shirt on, I stupidly took my closed fist and punched the window, ripped my shirt cutting my arm severely. Within seconds of hindsight, I realized how moronic that was when I could have easily taken off my shirt and wrapped my extremity before whacking the window. I continued with one idiotic move after another as I was working with pure adrenaline and little brain power.
Cleaning off the broken chards lodged in the window frame might have been something I should have considered. But not me! Instead, I hoisted myself up feeling cuts ripping open my skin along the way. Once more in retrospect, I wondered why I hadn’t finished breaking and cleaning the window where I was able to barely lift my 235-pound body onto the outer windowsill five feet up from the walkway. (I now weigh 195 lbs.) I could hear glass falling behind me as well as on the inside as it hit the marble floor.
Fortunately, my shirt was shielding some of my body from most cuts I might have gotten until I was halfway inside. Right then, the shirt flopped up towards my neck leaving my abdomen and torso exposed and felt more ripping flesh. I concentrated on feeling proud of getting this far without anyone spotting me. I began to feel the lacerations from my groin and buttocks down to my ankles. It was a good thing I had no feeling in my feet. I had cut myself so badly, it looked as if I’d been prone to the practice of self-mutilation.
Once inside, I quickly ran to my bathroom, turned the shower knob to a tepid temperature and the spigot to a gentle setting, and let the blood flow off me as I sat down on a built-in seat of the stand-up shower to calm myself down. I began counting my wounds and reached eighteen. There were more, but I stopped counting at that point. That was only what I could see.
As I began to feel emotional stabilization returning using a breathing exercise, I noticed something small, clear, and triangular resting on my thigh. There was already so much blood all over me I hadn’t thought of examining it closely before grabbing it when suddenly my emotional control went out the window when I saw blood flowing rapidly out of my scrotum.
This might have been the peak of my insecurity as I came close to screaming, but the adrenaline rush had worn off leaving me too tired to yell. I’d have to call an ambulance now because I knew I would certainly need stitches. Damnation! After getting out of the shower, still bleeding profusely, I hadn’t noticed that blood was now dripping out from all the many cuts over my legs and torso as well as gushing from my scrotum. I didn’t even think about what my backside looked like, but I would soon find out.
Being disoriented, I couldn’t remember where my mobile phone might have been hiding. I didn’t want to start searching for it, knowing I’d bleed everywhere. In less than a minute or two, I remembered where it was, which was in my bedroom, fortunately adjacent to the bathroom. I grabbed a towel to make a secure pad for my groin watching the blood seeping through, then stepped out of the shower.
When I was a volunteer for the Homeowners Association, I’d delivered flyers to every single unit with the numbers for all our local emergency needs, such as the police and local fire departments because I didn’t want to call 911, which might result in a longer response time. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if this qualified as an emergency or merely stupidity. I found the flyer in my office and called, all the while tracking blood everywhere. My place now looked like a crime scene.
The ambulance arrived within five minutes, which is an excellent response time in Los Angeles, except they pulled into the back of the building where there’s no call box access. It took them another minute or so to call me. I explained that they had to come through the front of our building where I could buzz them inside. That took a few more minutes. Meanwhile, much of the floor in my condo looked like a place where funeral directors dealt with dead bodies.
The emergency med techs turned out to be a beautiful short, muscular woman with a buzzed cut shaved head in her mid-forties and a tall handsome man who looked to be in his early thirties. I could see their eyes and noses through their coronavirus masks, which were still mandatory back then.
Since I’d gotten home, I took mine off. When she saw me, she didn’t flinch at all and asked, “Would you like me to call the police? You have glass outside your kitchen window. Were you attacked?”
I’m sure the look on my face was a priceless combination of embarrassment and disgust. “No mam. The window’s broken because I broke it after locking myself out.”
The tall one looked terrified at first and then I noticed his facial expression changed to a smirk after he realized what had happened. He asked, “Sir, do you want to go to the emergency room?” He walked closer to me where I now stood in the hall past the kitchen with a towel bunched up over my groin, blood seeping through, and cuts all over my legs and torso.
They were all the way inside past another small hallway to the second bathroom which was pristine. “Can we go into that room over there for a minute?” she asked, pointing to the master bedroom. “It looks like there’s better lighting to get a good look at you.”
Her partner glanced at her and with a nod, he looked down at the floor noticing a trail of blood leading to the bathroom inside the master bedroom, my room. He also made introductions. “I’m Jake and this is Sharon. And you, sir?”
“Peter,” I replied, watching him hold out his hand, thinking it was a strange thing for a med tech to do, even though I had no blood on my hands. Did he think this was a dinner party? I don’t know what possessed me to attempt shaking his hand other than a muscle memory response because that’s what we do when people stick out their hands at you.
As physics never fails, when I reached for his, the towel fell, making a splatting sound on the floor. There I was, fully exposed in all my glory, looking like I’d been the victim of a stabbing, and both their eyes went straight to my groin. Outside of the blood, I could see Sharon admiring the place as it was spotless.
Before we continued following the blood trail, she took a quick look at the guest bathroom which I never use. Jake looked aghast at the trail of blood. I replied, “This way.” I walked them into my private bathroom where even I was shocked to see so much blood everywhere.
Jake’s eyebrows went so high, it looked as if they were about to touch his hairline. Sharon could not have been any calmer and was not the least bit surprised.
The bathroom lighting is quite bright. They were able to see all my lacerations clearly. Sharon asked me to step into the shower as she held my hand, so I wouldn’t slip on the wet bloodied marble floor. I hadn’t even remembered leaving the water running. Again, I watched blood flow off my body.
So far, Jake struck me as a novice—good-looking, but not very bright.
Sharon said, “Peter, you’re going to need stitches for your scrotum. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No!” I shouted, startling them.
“Why not?” asked Jake, nervously. He glared at Sharon.
“Because the head nurse on duty there lives a few units down from me and we’re fighting,” I tried to calm down, but felt my anxiety growing. “I can’t let her see me or treat me.”
Sharon cut in, “Peter, I’m sure she’ll be professional about this. You’re seriously injured.”
“No!” I was emphatic. “Can’t you sew me up here?”
I saw Jake beginning to panic, which didn’t make me feel any better. He spoke up rather loudly. “Peter, we can’t do that. We’re not equipped or trained to do that.” I wondered if he was lying.
I looked at Sharon. “Please don’t take me to the hospital.”
Sharon pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. She was pondering on something. She gave Jake a strange look who was shaking his head negatively. Maybe he wasn’t lying. She started, “Well, I did serve as a nurse in Iraq. I know how to sew you up, but I don’t have the kind of curved needle for that type of procedure. Peter, you’re bleeding pretty badly. On the way to the hospital, we can treat the cuts on your legs, your back, your upper body…” Her voice trailed off getting lower in volume, “… your buttocks, and your stomach right now, but wow! Man… your scrotum… that’s a different story.”
Jake was staring wide eyed at the ceiling hoping I’d see reason. She gave me a helping hand out of the shower while the handsome one stood a few feet away checking out my bedroom décor and averting his eyes. While stepping out, water and blood mixed, and I opened a drawer where I keep a sewing kit which had several different sized needles already threaded, though none of them surgical.
Jake asked Sharon, “You’re not really considering this, are you?”
I could tell she didn’t want to do it but clearly saw that getting me to leave was going to be problematic. “Jake, he’s going to go into shock if I don’t.”
That’s when I realized he was the newbie.
“Okay,” she said, deadpanned.
“You can’t, Sharon. This is not in our job description,” he interjected, nervously. He was glaring at her in panic, which was still not helping.
“Jake, just do as I say,” and then turned to me. “Peter, I’ll do it, but it may not look great if you let it fully heal. I’d recommend getting yourself to the emergency room when your friend—” She cut herself off for a moment. “—I mean, when your neighbor isn’t working.”
“Sure,” I replied.
Jake began to sterilize the surface cuts on my back, while Sharon went to work on my scrotum.
“Jake, hand me that topical anaesthetic,” she ordered, pointing to their equipment.
“What?”
“With our equipment!” she pointed, replying sternly.
He did, but obviously under protest as he shook his head. I could tell that Jake was in distress and disbelief as he watched her about to move forward with this possibly illegal treatment.
Sharon started, “Now Peter, you know this is going to hurt a little.”
Was she waiting for me to say something? I felt more sarcasm coming on, but thought I’d keep it to myself with a woman holding a needle near the crown jewels. “Yup,” I replied, biting on a wet washcloth with a groan when I felt the pin prick.
I saw Jake wince when the needle went through. Again, not helping!
I have an extreme aversion to needles. I can’t even watch my own blood being drawn let alone a makeshift job at sewing my ball sack back together. I thought it was a wonder they hadn’t fallen out. She was fast. It was done in less than three minutes. I had four stitches. I thought there’d be more than that. However, upon closer examination, I think my own mind exaggerated the situation, but when seeing the amount of blood that came pouring out of me, it’s a wonder I hadn’t passed out.
Jake continued bandaging my cuts, and then moved to my legs. I concentrated with all my might not to think any sexual thoughts. I probably would have loosened my stitches if I had. He seemed to be moving faster as the minutes went by. The look on his face suggested he was aware that I found him attractive, which made him uncomfortable. He averted his eyes. I think he couldn’t wait to finish and leave.
After Sharon completed her part of the job, placing my sewing kit back onto the bathroom sink area, again she reiterated, “Peter, do you promise to go to the emergency room to have them check you within the next twenty-four hours?”
I nodded affirmatively.
Jake asked, “What’s he going to tell them about how he got stitched up?”
I felt like saying, “I’m right here,” but kept the satirical remark to myself.
Sharon pondered. I could tell she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She was tongue tied. “Any ideas?” she asked me.
“Do I have any ideas?” Satire had graduated into definitive sarcasm. I felt like part of a Saturday Night Live comic skit.
Jake was putting the last bandage on a surface cut when I looked at his beautiful blue eyes set in chiselled features with conservatively cut black hair. He looked back and forth at Sharon and me, then said, “I’ve got nothing.”
I volunteered, “I can say I did it myself.”
Sharon asked, “Then why did you call us? Peter, this call was already logged before we got here.” Her question was rhetorical.
“I can say I was in too much of a panic to go to the hospital, and—that I didn’t want to bleed all over the inside of my car. The interior is pristine. I wouldn’t have wanted to take the chance of getting blood all over it.” This is true. I would have had to spend a chunk of money to have the interior reupholstered.
After Jake and I returned to a calmer state, I could see Sharon holding in a laugh. I think she felt worse for Jake than for me. I was already certain that she’d been in charge, but it was undeniable when she asked, “So, Jake, how are you doing on your second day?”
Even I wanted to laugh had I not hurt all over. Ignoring her question, Jake began packing up their gear. Since Sharon knew I was in my late fifties, she took my vitals one more time before they packed up. Jake just watched. He’d certainly need to toughen up if he was going to keep his job. I knew there was a learning curve to every job, but I think Jake received a hairpin curve to his newly acquired position.
After they’d gone, I realized there was still the problem of all the glass on the kitchen floor, the broken window, and the giant shards outside on the walkway. I started with the kitchen floor first since that was the most immediate issue. Since I punched the window inward, I didn’t think there was much glass outside. So, I decided that I would deal with it tomorrow as darkness now settled in the city and made myself something to eat.
Later, I called my friend, Leon, in Tennessee before it was too late on the east coast where the time there was three hours ahead. (This whole tale happened back in the day when Leon and I drank hard liquor. We’ve both stopped drinking since then.)
By now I had a few cocktails in me and was no longer feeling any pain. He was howling with laughter when I told him the story. A tale like this is always funnier in hindsight.
Suddenly, there was a knock at my door. Since I’ve lived here, there are some unspoken rules I was raised with which apparently others were not, and one of them was unannounced visits. I don’t understand how some people were brought up. I always thought it was customary to call before showing up at someone’s door. But that’s me!
“Leon, could you hold on a second. There’s someone at my door.” I began walking across the living room towards the entrance.
“Are you expecting company?” asked Leon.
“No.” He could tell I was perturbed. Like me, he also thought it was rude for people to show up unannounced. I thought, maybe it’s a gay thing! But my parents weren’t gay!
I opened the door and my neighbor’s daughter was standing there looking up at me intently. She’s a beautiful young Asian adult and was visiting her parents literally in the unit next door. “Naomi,” I answered, giving her a curious stare. We only knew each other merely in passing. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Peter, but did you know you have a bunch of glass outside your boarded up cardboard window?” she asked.
Meanwhile, Leon could hear the whole conversation.
“Is there a lot?” I asked.
“Well, there’s enough,” answered Naomi as she seemed anxious.
I opened the cast iron door and walked outside to look. She pointed at the pile of glass. It was a substantial amount. I said, “I didn’t think there was that much. I had to break into my own place earlier.” That’s all I told her. At that precise moment, there was a gust of wind, and the cast iron door slammed shut again! I shouted, “No way!”
Leon sounded scared. “What happened? What was that?”
“The damn door slammed shut on me and I don’t have my keys—again!”
Leon went full on into hysterical laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“I’m not!” I answered with vehemence. With pretence in my tone, I turned to my neighbor’s daughter. “I’m sorry Naomi, but it’s been a very trying day. It looks like I’m going to have to climb into my window one more time.”
She started to laugh. I almost verbally sailed into her, but then she said, “Peter, don’t worry. I’m small. I’ll climb in and open your door. Let me just get my father’s short step ladder,” Naomi finished, trying to contain her own laughter, then walked a few steps over to her parents’ place.
Leon had heard the whole conversation, and practically screamed with laughter in my ear. “I’m going to pee myself!” he yelled.
“Oh, shut up!” I snapped back at him.
After catching his breath, Leon said, “Oh, Peter, you’ve got to see the humor in this.”
“Do I? Really?” It was obvious I was furious with myself for being such an idiot.
Leon eventually made me laugh. I was finally able to see the comedic peculiarity of today’s fiasco.
Naomi was back in minutes and was smart enough to come back with a towel wrapped around her hand and arm and pulled out the broken glass from around the window frame. She pulled it all out onto the walkway. I’m sure she was thinking how annoyed I was with myself after she surmised my earlier interior clean-up efforts. She even replaced my makeshift cardboard window.
“Leon, I’m going to have to let you go. I’ve got to clean up the glass on the walkway.” We finished our conversation and hung up.
Naomi had me inside in under a minute and offered to clean up the glass outside after seeing the many bandages on my arms and torso when I’d answered the door without a shirt. At least I had trousers on this time! If she only knew how many bandages were under those pants, along with my gloriously stitched scrotum, she might have had a coronary. She said, “You didn’t have to hang up. I’ll clean up the glass out here.”
“You don’t have to do that, Naomi.”
“Peter, my dad said you had the EMTs here. Didn’t you go to the hospital?” She was eying me suspiciously because I didn’t answer right away.
“Uh—well—not yet.” I had a definitive dubious tone.
She remained expressionless, knowing I seemed terribly embarrassed about something. I didn’t feel the need to tell her everything, especially since she was well acquainted with one of the head nurses in the ER. Then she came forward with, “Well, it seems the whole building is talking about it.”
“Talking about what?” I asked beady eyed. She was a visitor! I wondered how she could possibly know that the whole building was talking about me. There were close to one-hundred units here. If everybody knew about it, then why was a visitor the only person asking about my welfare?
Naomi continued. “They know that the EMTs were here for you,” she answered, sheepishly. She knew more than she was saying, but I didn’t want to press her without telling her any more than she already knew. It made me wonder how everybody could have known that an ambulance was here for me only a few hours ago. I’ve seen ambulance drivers here before and I’ve never known who they were here to see, unless someone told me, and I don’t usually make a point of asking. Not everyone wanted to announce their maladies.
After Naomi left and I heard her sweeping up the last of the glass, I finished my cocktail and decided to watch television, knowing I didn’t have the concentration to read now.
The following day, I did go to the ER when I knew my neighbor hadn’t been working. The doctor who treated me was in disbelief when I told him how I’d convinced the EMTs to stitch me up. He complimented Sharon’s work. She’d done a top-notch job, and it didn’t have to be restitched. He also said that I’d been lucky my cut was right on the scrotal raphe.
I’m sure when Sharon got home that evening, she looked up the legalities of what she did to find that the Good Samaritan law was in effect in California since I insisted that she did the job herself. It was irrelevant since my neighbor, the nurse, found out about it anyway since I was the talk of the complex. It was that situation that ended our dispute which resulted in a friendly embrace. She knew Sharon when I told her about what had happened. They probably went out to lunch and had a good laugh at my expense.
Believe me when I say that I will never leave my place again without my keys!
The End
(audible to follow)
Back
Oh Peter twice in one day! I’d be so embarrassed!
I told you it was self-deprecating. LOL! I’m not afraid to admit it.