The freaks come out at night.

I don't know what's up with things at my apartment lately. But last night, when I was watching "Chicago" at 9 p.m. instead of packing, this person in a white T-shirt starts screaming at me and knocking on the window in my living room.

At first, I thought it was some of those BMX twerps from down the street or perhaps a wandering trailer-park hooker, for I don't live in a good area. I turned off the movie, left the room and the person in the T-shirt disappeared.

So, about 45 minutes later, I realized that my cell phone is in my car, so I went outside to get it.

I walked outside, and the person in the T-shirt, a woman with stringy brown hair and a shrill voice, is sitting under a tree in front of the house. And she's babbling. She looked at the stray black kitten next to her, the one I've seen around the apartment lately, and starts talking to it.

I decided that I'm going to have to get to my car, even if she's camped out on the front lawn, so I try to make some noise on the front walkway to see if the vagrant lady will turn around. But she never turned.

So I walked to my car.

"Can you help me?" the vagrant said. She was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt and didn't seem to be able to hold up her own head.

"With what?" I asked her, though I kept walking and didn't look at her.

"Whatever," she said. "Damn, we all just ..."

When I got to my car, she got up, mumbled to herself and then started walking first up and then down the street. She put her hands in her hair and massaged her forehead as she moved - never in a straight line. She stumbled to one side, then the other.

I went to my car and called the police, telling them that a deranged or drunken woman was in front of my apartment house. They told me that they'd dispatch a car. I told them that she was walking down the street, which she was.

I started my car because I didn't want to be there when the police arrived, went in the other direction from her, then I made a turn to a road parallel to the one in front of my apartment.

She wandered through the intersection past my car, waving her hands in the air and half able to stand. A car behind me actually stopped and began talking to her. I just kept going.

I drove back about 15 minutes later, and there was no sign of her, that other car or the police I'd called.

So I went in my apartment and started to go to sleep.

I'd been asleep about 20 minutes, and there was this loud bang on my door. I saw the vagrant woman's silhouette as she wandered past my blinds. I called the police again, and, while I was talking to the operator (who said they'd sent an officer to speak to her on Jones Street, not Bell Street), I watched the woman out the window.

She laid on the patio in front of my house and rolled around. Then, she got up, knocked on my door and tried the doorknob. (When she tried the doorknob, I freaked out a bit.) And she kept babbling.

Hearing my voice on the phone must've set the woman off, for she left my apartment after a moment and began wandering further down the street.

I put clothes back on, in case the police showed up, and I laid on my bed and watched the woman wander out of sight. I kept watching for the police car, but I fell asleep before anything else happened.

I don't know if she was drunk or crazy. I don't know what she needed help with. And I don't know why she wanted to talk to me.