What Would You Think?

So, we have these neighbors who like to fight in the middle of the night or in the early hours of the morning or when one of them is leaving for work. Their yelling is loud enough that often we can catch snatches of what they're saying even if our walls do a pretty good job of keeping out noise. We've never heard the guy on the other side of us for example, but the front doors are particularly bad at shutting out or keeping in noise. For the sake of anonymity and for ease, I'll call them Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. They yell all sorts of things, like

• "No, Buffalo Bill, I'm not going to the hospital. Just leave it alone and I'll pull it out myself." (We figured she either had a splinter or an ax in her head.)
• "Annie Oakley, I have to get to work. I have things I need to do." This was shouted several times and each time was punctuated by the front door slamming.
• "Get it through your head, Annie Oakley. You're not black!" In fact she is a short, Asian girl.
• "Why do you lie to me Buffalo Bill? I know you're cheating on me."

Last week, I noticed this awful stench one morning. A few days later it was still there, and then I remembered that I had seen Buffalo Bill leaving one morning with one of those big, black trash bags. And things had been incredibly silent over there since our trip to Portland back in March. If you've read Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" or seen Hitchcock's Rear Window, I'd bet you'd be thinking the same thing I was; Buffalo Bill finally killed her and her body is rotting in the apartment while he carefully removes her bit by bit.

So what would you do? I thought about going over and slyly asking how Annie Oakley is doing or if Buffalo Bill had noticed that foul smell out in the hall. I mentioned it to the custodian in the hopes that he'd know if it were really a body rotting. He just mopped the carpet in the hallway. It didn't really kill the smell. I wondered if I should say something to management, but before I got around to doing so, the truth became quite apparent when I woke up at midnight to hysterical screaming.

Buffalo Bill: "Shut up, Annie Oakley! Just shut up. You'll upset the neighbors."

Annie Oakley: "You're lying to me again. I don't care. This is the way I am. You're trying to control me again. I knew that if I came back you would. I don't care if I'm too loud." And then she stomped on the ground several times.