The Moaner Down The Hall

In my first apartment in New York, I lived with a friend from France named Laurence. For our first New Year's Eve together we went out, had a good time and went to bed around 3 AM. At about 5 AM I woke up to go to the bathroom and Laurence was up and totally freaked out. She told me that some guy was yelling for help and that it had woken her up. I was still half asleep, so naturally I assumed that she was talking about the sound coming from outside her window. But as I went to her room he started yelling and moaning (not in a "I'm having sex and letting the whole building know" way but in a "I'm in pain and disoriented" way) again and I realized it was coming from outside the apartment in the hall. I opened our door and looked down the hall- he was still moaning and yelling so I crept out and walked down the hall and peeked around the corner. The guy was moaning and yelling "Help me!" slowly in a deep guttural voice. I thought someone was in the apartment with him and was possibly hurting him, so I decided that calling 911 was the only logical course of action.

The cops showed up pretty quick for New Year's Eve. They banged on the guy's door and told him to open up but he wouldn't. They talked to him for a while through the door (we were around the corner eavesdropping) and after some time, convinced him that when they said they'd break the door down, they weren't joking. We heard them ask him what was going on and if he was alone. We didn't hear what he was saying, but the cops kept telling him he had to be quiet and go to sleep and that he was disturbing the neighbors. I guess he was giving them a hard time because they started threatening to take him to Bellveue (the local NYC state mental hospital- totally medieval and scary). They told him they'd take him if they had to come back that night. When the cops came back to us, they told us that the guy was alone but just extremely drunk and not in any danger. We were relieved.

Later, when we would see this guy in passing, neither of us could look him in the eye or even say hello. We were afraid he knew it was us who called the cops on him. He even seemed embarrassed when he saw us. He was a nice enough guy and after some time I got over my nervousness and started chatting with him. I am now convinced that he probably doesn't even remember that night.