Dear Man Yelling "Alice"

Dear Man Yelling "Alice:"

I don't know who you are. I don't know who Alice is. I don't even know if you are necessarily a man, or perhaps just a woman with a very manly voice. What I DO know is that every night around 11:00 PM, you stand outside your house, somewhere in the vicinity of the intersection of Spaulding and Norton in West Hollywood, yelling "AL-LICE" at the top of your lungs. These are all the facts that I know.

Obviously, I assume Alice is a pet of some variety; and most likely a cat, as it's somewhat ill-advised to let a dog wander around the neighborhood and expect it to return when you call it.

Let the record reflect, Man Yelling "Alice," that our neighborhood is both densely packed and quiet; and unless the fire station a block away is called to action late at night or one of the many ubiquitous helicopters in the skies above Los Angeles is passing, you can generally hear a pin drop. What gives you the right to shatter this quiet with your petulant yelling, night after night? Why do you get to invade the rest of our consciousnesses, in the midst of our evening vespers and ablutions, bellowing for your gallivanting feline? I've gone through a smorgasbord of emotions over the course of the past few months, listening to you every night, not entirely dissimilar to the five stages of grief. The first was disbelief: "Is this actually happening?" The second, anger: "HOW does someone think this is OK?" The third, sadness: "That poor man, or woman with a deep voice... his or her cat is gone." The fourth, resignation: "Oh, there's that man or woman calling for his cat again. I guess this is going to become a habit." The fifth, quaint bemusement: "It's just not bedtime until the neighborhood looney stands on his stoop yelling Alice after eleven o'clock."

It is that final stage that has ensnared me, Man Yelling "Alice." Perhaps you are one of the elderly people in the neighborhood, increasingly disillusioned as the gays migrate to the less fashionable side of Fairfax, driving up the rents; a lonely widower with only your cat to keep you company. Is this merely a nightly summons for Alice to return home, or a ritual, performed both ad memoriam and infinitum, for a long-ago vanished pet, akin to leaving flowers by a headstone? The former is at least remotely understandable, the latter, however unlikely, certainly poignant. Perhaps Alice is all you have, perhaps that is why you care so deeply that she return every night.

In the end, it doesn't matter; as I'm moving in ten days. But rest assured, I'll be thinking of you as bedtime approaches, a scant few blocks south, where I'll certainly keep my eyes peeled for Alice. And continue to angrily slam my window closed just as I have been.

Best regards,
Dear Crabby