The house across the street has two front doors; one is about a half-story higher than the other. She's trying to break down the lower one, which is mostly Plexiglass. Perhaps the house has a basement apartment. It's reasonably certain that either door leads to a badly insulated student-ghetto rental, occupied by some subset of the undergrad guys who sit smoking on the porch every day.

Maybe she thinks she's John Cusack in High Fidelity. It's storming hard, just like it was when his luckless record clerk went to howl feckless, incoherent curses at Catherine Zeta-Jones. There, you could blame director Stephen Frears for an overwrought, too-pat backdrop. Whom do you blame here? Her, for staging the scene? Him, for fucking the her who's not her? Him, as in Him, for allowing such things to happen? Stephen Frears, for giving young people ideas?

And anyway, when John Cusack runs out of breath and finishes his tirade, exhausted, he's still John Cusack. He'll go on to show everyone what a pretentious no-talent that art-school poseur was, and hook up with the mysterious but nurturing (and hot!) lawyer. What can she possibly follow this up with? Could any woman pull this off and come out of it the adorable loser instead of the psycho bitch?

She has to start screaming something else soon, or it's going get monotonous. "Why did you fuck her?" is pretty direct, so she should follow with something a little more obscure. Maybe an allusion that the audience doesn't quite get, but that sounds really good screamed. Or just something terse and enigmatic. This might be a good time to start shrieking the name of a childhood friend over and over and over again. Or would that be too "Rosebud"? Oh no, did she really go with "How could you do this to me?" Maybe you misheard. That would be a real step down. Anything would be better.

No, you tell your roommate, it would not be funny if everyone from your house separately went across the street later this week and screamed "Why did you fuck her?" Or maybe it would be.

Then it's just arrhythmic, nonverbal screeching for a while. When the police finally arrive, they somehow know not to turn on their flashing lights.

— Julia Lipman (julia@flakmag.com)

Also by Julia Lipman:
Writing About College Admissions
Jonathan Franzen's author photo
"That is all."
Noam Chomsky's e-mail