He's in the Jailhouse Now

*Confidential*

So last night was pretty interesting. I was upstairs putting something in the oven when the phone rang. I answered it, and was asked if I would take a collect call from Paul. In the instant I took to think about it, I knew he was calling to ask Gualter to go and pick him up from wherever he was, and I also knew that I was sick of paying for whatever Paul wanted, so I said "No" and hung up.

He called right back and Maria answered. She accepted the call and took the phone down to Gualter, asking me on the way why I'd done that. I said I wasn't going to pay for any of Paul's collect calls, so I wouldn't accept them, and if she was going to accept them, she would need to pay for them. Gualter refused to speak to Paul or to go pick him up. (The story was that Paul had left a couple hours earlier with two bus tickets and $17.00 from Maria to get a haircut.) Maria comes back upstairs and is passive-agressively trying to argue/scold me, asking why I did that, and how I don't know how that hurts her because that's her son, and I don't know what she goes through because I don't have a son. I tell her she should be proud of the fine job she's done with Paul, and also that I never will get to have a son if I have to keep living in this crazy house. She keeps going about how I don't care about the family, and only want to change things, and she does so much for us, she takes out the garbage, how can we treat her like that? I point out that we pay the bills for her, which is a pretty good trade.

Half an hour later, he's at the door, pounding on the doorbell and kicking the door. Turns out he took the bus back after all. I yelled up to Maria not to open it, but of course, she does. He comes in the kitchen and he's furious about me not taking his call and at Gualter for not picking him up, and he's obviously drunk. He's slurring shouting in English and Portugese and throwing stuff around. I'm in the basement, trying to comfort Rufus, who is understandably disturbed by all the fracas. So Gualter, Maria and Paul are all upstairs shouting, and stuff's being thrown around, and I decide after a couple minutes that it's only getting more heated and so I call the police. Paul is threatening Gualter that he knows guys who will beat Gualter up, and he's going to mess with our car, and that Gualter will never be rid of him (true dat). Gualter tells Paul he's going to the courthouse tomorrow to revoke his surety so the police will come and round him up. I finally venture upstairs to tell Gualter I've called the police. On hearing that the police have been called, Paul says something not very original to me, to which I do not respond, and I go back downstairs.

The sideshow continues, and after about 20 minutes the police show up, and Paul's sitting on the couch. They ask what's going on, and Paul asks them if "they wanna go" and starts to get up. They tell him to relax, but he keeps trying to get up, and he winds up punching one or both of the cops. They have to call for backup because officers have been assaulted, so we soon have three police cars in front of the house. They have to wrestle him down and drag him to the cruiser, sans shoes, because his resisting and fighting have throughly ticked off the cops. He threatens to use karate on them. And he actually managed to do some kind of damage to the cruiser. Gualter and Maria each gave statements, and it looks like he will be charged for assaulting a peace officer.

Gualter and I are going today after work to revoke Gualter's surety. We don't know yet if we'll be on the hook for paying since Paul broke the surety. I'll post again on that tomorrow.

The main thing is, I'm fine, Rufus is fine, Bella is fine and Paul is out of the house for good. I confirmed with Gualter that after that performance, he won't be visiting again, let alone staying. He agreed, although he's not looking forward to dealing with his mom, who is surely going to blame both of us (but me more).

Anyway, I wanted to let you guys know what's going on. Gualter's concerned about me telling you guys about this, that it will only create more problems, so I tell you this in confidence. Please do not bring this subject up to Gualter. Please don't call me tonight because then it will be obvious that I've told you. Post your comments here, and I'll keep updating you.

Sarah