Charlie's Page

I'm living in a house where there are 6 rooms. All of us have been living at the hostel for a minimum of four months - most longer than that. Friday night, I returned back around six o'clock from work and Jim and Jose were playing Scrabble. They like each other and hang out together. In the spirit of friendly competition, Jose kept calling Jim bitch and motherfckr. It was tiring to hear but whatever... When they stopped playing Jose mostly sat at the dining table listening to music and drinking beer after beer. There was a big bread knife (about a foot long/ 260 cm) on the table in front of him. Later, around 10 I wanted to watch a DVD on the common room TV. I was about 15 feet (5 meters) away just around the corner. I asked him to turn the volume down a bit which he did - at least for a while.

At around 11:30, his wife comes in walks toward him in the kitchen. Pretty quickly, she walks back out again. Jose follows her more quickly going out the front door. After about 15 seconds, I didn't think that I heard the door close so I looked around the corner. The door was wide open so I go and close it. I hear them at her car arguing. More than once here, I heard arguments after people have been drinking a lot so I go down to the main building and tell Mike who does the overnight shift that Jose is outside and arguing so be prepared just in case. Everyone who knows Jose says he's a good guy. Mike says not to worry nothing is going to happen.

I go back out and she is in the driver's seat. The door is open and he is up against her with his arm around her shoulder. She is says about three or four times let go, let me leave. I say to him, "If she wants to go, let her leave." After about 20 seconds and back up just past the front of the car because I wanted my presence there so things wouldn't get out of hand. Soon, he quickly comes up to me and gives me a hard shove in the chest forcing me back a number of steps. I catch myself from falling over.

I quickly go to the main building. Just before I go in, I see him quickly coming after me. I get just inside the front door and he grabs me by the chest a pulls me a bit. I then call to Mike just around the corner to call 911. Jose then lets me go and goes around the corner. Mike comes out and says that he's not going to call 911. Jose then grabs a small end table and smashes it against the ground. He then goes up to a glass case and punches two glasses windows. He then quietly walks around the corner and goes into the kitchen a grabs some towels to put around his bleeding hand with the help of Jim. Mike has his head in his hand despondently again saying he wasn't going to call the police. Jose is now quiet and things have settled down. There is quite a bit of blood that has dripped on the floor in many places. Jose sits down and when I approach him, he just raises up his hands at head height and shakes his head.

I go back up the house into my room. After a while, there's a knock on the door, "Charlie, it's Mike." I go to the door. Jose is there with his head down and apologizes. I say that it's cool, I understand how people can lose their temper, I've done it myself. After they left I go to the kitchen and put all the sharp knives in my room - just in case.

In a while, I go back to the main building, Mike says everything has settled down. Jose does not want to go to the hospital to patch up his deeply cut hand. (He doesn't have the money for it anyway.) I say to him he should at least go to the clinic tomorrow. He doesn't want to do that either. I sweep up some glass and then go back to my room. In a while, the police knocks at my door and asks if things are alright. I see Jose behind him and say in a positive voice, yeah, everything's fine. I return to the main building once more. After the police leave, I went to sleep just after one.

At four, Mike knocks on the door. He asks me if I can work for him in the morning because he can't sleep. I say I have to work at the bookstore tomorrow. All the excitement is over but I can't go back to sleep until seven when I sleep for about an hour.

The next day, people told me that Jose was actually the one who called the police. Nothing dramatic has happened since and he has been asked to leave the hostel.

What is also bothersome is that there is a guy who has been taking my tortillas, margarine and eggs. I found out who it was that same night but I still found three of my eggs missing this morning. What a jerk.