Jack ‘n Tracie

We had a rather freaky incident happen yesterday. You all know that our neighborhood is quiet and mellow, except for the house across the street from us.

Some of you have even witnessed the fights that go on over there. Up until yesterday I felt bad that Crystal (the 13 year old daughter) has to live in such a dysfunctional household but kept my nose out of their business.

So, yesterday we were in Lisa’s driveway on the corner (which would be directly next door to Crystal’s.) Lisa’s very pregnant and was washing her car. We walked over to ask when she’s due and to find out who she used to drop some trees on her property. (We need to drop one.) While we were chatting, we started hearing screaming coming from Crystal’s house. We stopped talking and all looked, then looked back at each other and rolled our eyes. Here we go again.

But this time was different for sure. It sounded like CRYSTAL was screaming. And that bothered me. It went on for several minutes. Jack said it could be play-screaming but it was hard to tell. As we were walking back across the street to our house, we heard their door fly open so we turned and saw Crystal fly out of the house and her grandmother fall hard in the doorway as she tried to grab Crystal. Crystal was crying hysterically. Jack and I stopped dead in our tracks. The thoughts going through both our heads were “do we help the grandmother who just fell or Crystal who’s hysterical, or just keep on going..”

Crystal started toward us but her grandmother yelled for her to get back in the house. Crystal shouted “No! You bit me!”

Jack and I were like “what the HELL???” But we didn’t say anthing.. we were just shocked. Crystal sat down on the bench under their tree and started rocking and crying. The grandmother just layed in the doorway saying over and over “Get back in the house Cyrstal. Now Crystal. Get back in the house!” and Crystal just kept rocking and crying and saying “NO!”

Then the grandmother shouted our way that it was alright and that Crystal was just, “throwing another fit”. So we turned and continued to our house. When we got halfway across our lawn we heard Crystal shout out, “No no! you bit me!!!” again so we turned to look again and I told Jack, “if that’s true I’m calling the police..” Jack said, “um yeah, what the hell is going on?!?” The grandmother was chasing Cyrstal around their yard… She turned back to us and said “It’s really alright, Crystal just throws fits”.

Crystal ran back into the house and her grandmother chased her in and shut the door behind her. We then heard Crystal screaming again and it went on and on and on.. and really freaked me out. Then we distinctly heard Cyrstal cry out “no!” and “ow!” so that was it. Jack went over there and I headed for the phone.

Jack knocked loudly on their door and the grandfather answered. I heard the grandfather yell something and it sounded like he was yelling at Jack to get out and go away which scared me because now Jack was thrown into the mix of whatever was going on so I called 911. (We didn’t realize the grandfather was home either). Jack just wanted to make sure Crystal wasn’t getting the crap beat out of her or something… because her screams were THAT bad. And the whole saying-her-grandmother-bit-her thing….

I told the police all I heard and then Jack came back while I was still on the phone with them. Jack said the grandfather was just yelling at the dogs to get back when he was answering the door. He wasn’t yelling at Jack. He said according to the grandfather, Crystal has a mental condition and throws fits and that all her grandmother was trying to do was hold her down. Jack said “but she said someone bit her” and the grandfather said “I don’t know about that”. So I relayed this to police and said it may be true and that my call might’ve been a false alarm.

In fact, I instantly felt foolish that I called. I know how teenagers can get overly dramatic …and if that’s all that was happening then I shouldn’t have called the police. But the police said since I reported a “possible disturbance” they had to come check it out.

I was *so* weirded out then. Jack was too. Did we do the right thing? Should we have kept out of their business? What if Cyrstal was the one flipping out and hurting people and they were just trying to restrain her? All those thoughts went through my head and I was going to feel like a total idiot if the police came and found nothing wrong. I was thinking stuff like “We’ll have to move. They’ll hate us now”, etc. It was blatantly obvious that I was the one who called the police so they’d know for sure.

I was supposed to be working (covering for a co-worker so he can work for me next weekend) so I got on my laptop from the couch and Jack watched from the other couch out the window. There is a tree in front of their house that blocked some of what was happening and our doors were closed so we couldn’t hear anything. I just felt small and stupid and wanted to hide.

But then an officer knocked on our door. We invited him in to sit down and he asked for the whole story of what we saw/heard that led up to my calling them. Jack and I relayed everything to him and he nodded and said the grandmother did not know how to discipline Crystal, that Crystal wasn’t crazy and that the grandmother crossed a few lines. They took the grandmother to jail.

He asked us to write up statements of everything we saw/heard. He was familiar with the family and said there wasn’t much they could do until now because there wasn’t enough to go on. He said they’ve known for a while there was a problem, especially when Cyrstal’s mom is not there (she was out of town this weekend at a wedding) and now he was going to work on the solution to the problem. Which included arresting the grandmother and keeping her at least overnight and sending Crystal away until her mom got home. (Crystal’s godmother came and got her.)

He said if you looked up the word dysfunctional in the dictionary, it would point to that house. He also said when he was trying to talk to the grandmother, she said things to and about Crystal that no grandmother should say about her own granddaughter.

The grandmother did bite Crystal in a few places. Lisa heard and saw more since she was closer and already in her driveway. When we talked to her later she said it was really bad and that they were taking pictures of Cyrstal’s bruises and bite marks! I told her I was glad I called then.. and she said if I hadn’t of, she would’ve.

I’m still freaked out. Just the thought of a grown woman biting a child… wigs me the heck out. What in the world? And Jack and I kept wondering what other things Cyrstal has been subjected to. And of course what’s going to happen when the grandmother gets out of jail and Cyrstal’s mom gets home. Are they going to freak out on us?

Lisa was saying that from what she heard, it sounds like Crystal may not be allowed to return to that home. I should hope not! But that leaves us stuck here with them across the street likely mad at us… Which scares me.