I know that summer has begun and the schools are emptying out...at least some of them. I also know it was a full moon on Thursday and it's a four-day weekend, starting last night. I know all of these things and thought I was prepared to deal with them, when, at two ten a.m., this morning, I was rudely wakened by about seven "kids" (maybe in their twenties?) screaming "FUCK!" and then going on to use the word as adjective, verb, noun, adverb and term of endearment, as loudly as possible, for a LONG TIME.
I figured, after the first shock wave, they were moving down the street to parked cars...supposedly illegal after dark, in the neighborhood, without a sticker. (Amazing that the police don't patrol the bar patrons and nightclub customers...) Noisy, but, like a passing thundershower, moving off. Oh no. For whatever reasons, these revellers had chosen to park under my windows, and continue the fuck-a-thon,at full throttle.
They also began peeing into the bushes and trash cans on the side of the building...announcing that they needed to do so and were doing so and the status of their project as it burst into full stream. The girls were the loudest, sadly to say. Then they started tossing bottles and breaking them in the street, laughing at that hilarity, and crunching cans. I didn't hear any cars being wrecked, or I would have reported a crime in progress and cops might have actually shown up while things were in motion.
But I know the "game". There have been many neighborhood meetings about the clubs in the area and their spill over into the neighborhoods. For a week or so, the sports bar had valets who would walk patrons through the neighborhoods to their cars, so to keep the loudness under wraps. For a week. (That was like three years ago.) Now, once two a.m. hits, all the valets are long gone and people not in the club lots move like screaming zombies down the sidewalks. It's scary, too, when you hear the slam of car doors fairly near-by, and know they are going to be pulling out, into the street, and driving...somewhere. We've seen the celebrity fender-benders...and the lack of response, even there--except by the papparrazi.
The neighborhood dogs were silent...suspiciously so. They bark when a leashed dog walks their block. I suspect that, like me, the owners were in their apartments with lights out, doors locked, and holding their breath till the hordes left, in silence. Nobody wants shots at their windows or retaliation in the street. Everybody knows the police, if they take it seriously as drunk and disorderly, won't arrive in time to find the culprits, and only come knocking for a report--so the whole night's shot. And there won't be follow-up, the next night, either. So, what's the point? Keep the dogs quiet and the shades down...
All I can do is to make people who- have- people, aware: if you need to get that plastered, with or without i.d. and friends in tow, pee before you leave the club. Please! Be at least unyelling as you walk around trying to locate your car. People live in the dark houses you pass. They've gone to bed long before you heard "Last Call!" However hilarious you think your nightly adventures were, or amorous, or dangerous, nobody outside the bar thinks so--especially nobody whose sleep you've wrecked. There are kids and old folks and sick and desperate people in those homes and you've managed to add to their miseries. Get drunk but don't mess with residents who aren't. Take your party home, quietly, and continue,there.
I may sound like that crotchety neighbor who complains about kids with frisbees at two in the afternoon on a summer day, but, really, I'm breaking my butt paying rent and trying to hold on. I don't need to feel like I'm living in a war zone, too. Cause, supposedly, THIS neighborhood is not.
If you drink, that's your deal. Just don't inflict it on me. If you have friends who get loud when they drink, or abusive, or feisty, get the car and pick them up outside the bar door,when its time to split, please. If you have "kids"--and these days that may well mean adult kids at home--teach them to respect other people's rights. Teach them manners, even when drunk. Teach them about being human beings. What might fly on "campus" isn't cool in the average two a.m. neighborhood of working people--or even people looking for work. Life sucks enough, sometimes, in this city. It doesn't need to suck this badly. Step up. Please.
No comments:
Post a Comment