The neighbors downstairs

December in St. Louis is usually annoyingly cold and snowless. We rarely had a white Christmas. What little snow we did get would melt quickly, since the usual December high was 45 degrees. I used to head off to school with a dusting of snow making the world look like it was covered in diamonds, my hair freezing solid; but on the walk home at 3:00, the snow would be gone and the streets would be dry. Typical St. Louis winter.

One Christmas eve, we got blessed with a warm snap. Literally. It was the usual freezing bitterness on the 23rd, then bam! 75 degrees the next day. It was great until the hoosiers started drinking. We were kept up half the night with the party downstairs. It seems their entire family and a keg of beer had crammed themselves into the 4 room apartment below us. Of course, with the weather so nice, they were drinking on the porch too. The next morning, as mom was refusing to let us wear shorts to Christmas mass, our downstairs neighbors started arguing. Mom said, "Damn this weather! They always do that!"
Which was true, Hoosiers do always drink and fight when it gets warm. We went to church (in dresses, mom always wins) and changed into shorts the second we got home. We were just beginning to open our presents when the fighting downstairs spilled out onto the front porch. I actually stopped unwrapping to listen to big Ken (the father) fight with little Ken (his brother-in-law). The fight had been going on for nearly 2 hours by this time. I think they had taken breaks to drink more beer, though.
Mom sort of growled, and went for the phone. She had a feeling she'd be calling the cops pretty soon. Sure enough, she had barely gotten the phone in her hand when big Ken threw little Ken (Kenny) through our storm door. Glass went everywhere; a good portion went into Kenny's neck and back. At least big Ken hadn't thrown him head first.

Mom was livid. She forgot about the phone and stormed downstairs with a broom and dustpan. Knowing her, she was probably going to make both men clean up the broken glass. My sister and I rushed downstairs too. This action was too good to miss!
Big Ken had gone back into his house and Kenny was sitting in the middle of the porch, drunkenly trying to pick glass out of his shoulders. Mom kind of deflated and started picking up the glass herself. She ignored the little drops of blood everywhere. She ignored Kenny, too.
Kenny gave up trying to evict his glass and went inside to apologize. Apparently he had called Ken a "fat fuck" in front of the kids, then compounded it by disparaging Ken's ability to buy Christmas presents for his family.
(I don't think the children were traumatized from hearing their Uncle call their dad names nearly as much as they were traumatized by the bloody fight afterward. But that's just me. After all, who beats the snot out of someone -in front of their kids- for saying something they shouldn't have said in front of the kids? Hoosiers, that's who.)
We could hear the whole thing, of course. In 80 degree heat, you know every window was open. Kenny apologized profusely while his sister pried glass out of his body with a pair of tweezers.

Mom finished with the glass and sat on the porch smoking, waiting for everything to die down. Eventually Ken came outside and mom showed him the dustpan full of glass. He said, "What happened?"
He had no recollection of throwing his brother-in-law through our storm door.

He was a good guy in general. He replaced our glass and everything. The sucky part for me is that I still can't remember what I got for Christmas that year.