Trouble With Neighbors

It started when a new neighbor moved in downstairs. I didn't see him, I was at work, you know, making a living like normal people do, and this asshole moved in while I was gone. I didn't even know someone had moved into the apartment below until music began to pulse through the eastern wall and the floor. It was that steady beat, all bass, the pulse of disco. Then I heard the freakish falsetto: the God damned Bee Gees.

It wasn't that bad the first few days, then two weeks had passed and I caught myself muttering: "you can tell by the way I walk," under my breath. I got home that night and the music was pulsing as usual. I tried to read a book but it was no use, the Gibb brothers were screeching, the dance floor was open downstairs,  and I didn't have a prayer in concentrating on Kafka.

This went on for a few days and then things went quiet for a few more, I have no idea why. The weekend swung around and that Saturday night I was at my kitchen table, finishing up a crossword puzzle along with a bottle of wine. Even with the wine there was a headache along my right temple which forced me to the medicine cabinet. I couldn't find an aspirin but there were a few norcos left over from getting my wisdom teeth out so I popped one of those. I was at the dining table finishing the wine when the Bee Gees kicked up again, howling from down below.

The first norco hadn't kicked in so I popped another, the logic being that I might speed up the high by doubling the dose. Soon the room was soft but I was still on edge, the God damned Bee Gees seemed to be getting louder. I staggered up and pulled two old speakers from the closet along with an old amp and three computer speakers. I placed everything up against the wall and the plugged in my iPod into the amp.

First I played Patsy Cline and then D'Angelo and then I just let it play on random. I lay on the floor of my apartment, high as hell and at peace, the volume turned all the way up. “This is real music you bastard,” I thought to myself. “Take it in. Take it all in. You lousy bastard.”

There was something so indescribably satisfying about lying on the rug in the middle of the room, all the lights turned off. I lay there and the passing headlights from the street threw shapes along the walls and ceiling. I felt better than I have ever felt in my life. I let it blast until around three thirty in the morning to make my point, then I went to bed.
The next day I woke up late, craving bananas with peanut butter and honey, and set out for the store to get them. There was an old woman by the mailbox when I came down the stairs. She was struggling with her key in the box, hobbling on crutches, her right leg gone at the knee. She heard me come down and turned her head my way. I tried not to make eye contact but then she said: “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said.
“Do you live on upstairs?”
I nodded and looked towards the street, towards an escape.
“You have a party or something?”
She smiled at me.
“No.”
“That was some great music you were playing. Real good.”
She wasn’t being sarcastic.
“Thank you.”
“You like the Bee Gees?” she asked.
I nodded dumbly. My eyes wandered nervously and she noticed me glance where her leg was missing.
“Diabetes,” she said. “They say I might lose the other one too but I got to carry on. I did fine with one gone, they can make it both if they gotta. ”
Her smile never left. I nodded and then said that I hoped she had a good day and was on my way.
That night I dismantled the amp and all the speakers and when the Bee Gees came on I read my book, trying to tune it out.

-July 2012