A man lives next door with a woman. I worry for them. The man has antisocial traits that trouble me: he looks downward at the cobblestone when I pass him on the street, and greets me quietly and all-too-colloquially. He erupts behind closed doors.

Some of the things I hear him say to his girlfriend are so blatantly inappropriate that I cringe. He calls her names, insults her intelligence, threatens to walk out. And then he does. He disengages the security system on his Oldsmobile -- bleep, bleep, bleep! -- and squeals away.

He is a mess of incontinent fury. And I feel sorry for the both of them. They are utterly trapped -- she in his apartment, him in his ways.