He’d left a note in their letterbox – without his name, of course – telling them to cease the noise or he’d call the police. But that night the music was even louder. Mind-numbing drumming, rapping and barking; girls’ shrieking laughter; and that damn screen door, slamming over and over.
Behind the feathery curtains a full moon smiled at him patronisingly. Despite the heat he closed the windows, but it only deepened the beat. He mashed the pillow over his head, swore into the mattress. Beside him his wife softly snored, her head in another world, her body folded haphazardly in the quilt. Cunts, he whispered. Cunts, cunts, cunts.
He spent the next day at work snapping at his inferiors, sneering at his boss’ relentless questions and concerns. It was difficult to concentrate; the internet kept crashing; the printer stalled. It’s their fault, he fumed. Those neighbours. If he’d had a good night’s sleep all would be working well at the office, people would be doing their jobs without bothering him…
The bus home was packed. His only satisfaction was elbowing a stocky woman with a cumbersome handbag standing next to him who spoke loudly into her mobile as if everyone in the carriage was keen to know about her menopausal pain, her mother’s cancer, her husband’s eating habits. When she gasped and dropped her phone he pretended it was caused by the bus’ jerkiness; smiled innocently; elbowed her again.
Walking back to his house he practised what he’d say to the neighbours, reminding himself that he had to suppress what he’d really like to say (Shut the fuck up you noisy fuckers or I’ll fucking rip your eyes out). Pulling at the sweat sticking his shirt to his paunch he glared at the gloating moon, opened the neighbours’ creaking gate, and knocked on their front door.
Immediately their dog began yapping like a harpie – another sound Dylan detested – and he stepped back, not wanting to be attacked by the little shit. It had tried to bite him once before, but his wife had accused him of lying. ‘It’s only trying to lick you,’ she’d chided.
The tiny dog pushed its head against the fly screen as a mammoth in shorts and a grubby black singlet opened the heavy wooden door. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, accentuating the tattoos climbing his neck and jaw.
‘Cute whippet,’ said Dylan, surprised that a man the size of a sumo wrestler would have such a pet.
The guy had obviously seen Dylan’s astonishment, and said, ‘It’s my girlfriend’s – an Italian greyhound, so she says.’ He opened the screen door. As the dog thrust itself forward the mammoth knocked it away with his huge bare foot and growled, ‘Get out of here.’ The dog yelped.
‘I heard that! Stop fuckin kickin him, Zac!’ a voice screeched from within.
The mammoth shrugged. ‘She loves the little fucker. So, how can I help you?’
The house was obviously rented: a colossal motorbike was parked in the hallway, no shades decorated the stark light bulbs hanging from the hall ceiling, and mildew crowded the high corner wall. Voices cackled from within.
Dylan smiled his best smile. ‘Nice house you’ve got here, mate. Um, I was just wondering if I could get you to turn the music down? You’ve been playing it pretty loud, and my missus, well, it makes it hard for her to sleep.’
The voices inside had ceased; the other tenants were obviously listening.
‘What’s your name, mate?’ asked the mammoth.
Dylan held out his hand. ‘Sorry, mate, I’m Dylan. We live in the house behind yours – on the left. I gather your name’s Zac?’
The mammoth nodded. For a second Dylan panicked as his hand wavered in the air, but Zac then shook it. He had an unnervingly powerful grip. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Didn’t think it was that loud. But sure, mate. Whatever.’ He began to close the door then stopped. ‘Are you the bloke that wrote us that letter? About the noise?’
Dylan, floundering, bit his lip. ‘No, no. I mean – which note? You got one, did you? Probably one of the other neighbours.’ He laughed shrilly. ‘They can be a bit, you know, fuddy-duddy around here.’ Zac said nothing, his face a stone plank. ‘But, yeah, it’d be great if you could turn it down.’ Dylan turned swiftly and skipped down the path.
As Dylan closed the gate Zac slammed the fly screen. Dylan was certain he heard him say, ‘Yeah, guys, it was Dylan the dildo from behind,’ followed by a blast of guffaws.
Dylan the dill, Dylan the dildo. He’d got it all the way through high school, then through tech, and even once or twice behind his back in the office. As a result he’d been in too many fights, lost them all, and still had the occasional sharp pain in his ribs – and his self-esteem – to prove it. He clenched his fists.
The scratching and beatboxing woke him around midnight. Magda snoring loudly beside him, he threw off the quilt and scrabbled at the side table for his phone. After he spoke to the police he paced the kitchen, sneaking peeks through the curtains in the hope of seeing their red and blue lights, hearing their siren. As he guzzled water from a bottle in the fridge the music suddenly stopped; all he could hear now was Magda’s snores, and late-night traffic. He inhaled with satisfaction.
*
The next Friday Magda drove to the Blue Mountains for a few days to spend time with her brother. With the house to himself for a week, Dylan swallowed a few beers then opened a bottle of wine and settled down in his underpants in front of the cricket.
At 10 pm he was dozing, the reassuring sounds of the batsmen and commentators a gentle lull, when the music began throbbing. Knocking the half-eaten kebab from the coffee table he grabbed his phone and dialed the police.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ a woman told him. ‘But the law only applies from midnight to eight am.’
He turned up the tv loudly, and circled the kitchen, staring at the clock on the wall, clenching his mobile. At 11.59 pm he punched in the local police office again. Just as the number began to ring the noise ceased. Dylan’s hand hovered over his phone; he hung up when he heard the woman officer’s voice. He dashed to the unlit kitchen; held his phone tightly and scanned the dark fence and trees parting his property from the mammoth’s, waiting for the next song to start. But the night remained silent.
Mowing the lawn the following afternoon, he noticed his next-door neighbour pause as he shut his car door, then walk with determination towards Dylan. Dylan switched off the mower. ‘Mate,’ said Seth. ‘I don’t want to be rude but you think you can turn your telly down tonight? We all love the cricket, but I don’t need to hear those tv blokes yelling. Sorry to be a pain but the kiddies had trouble sleeping, you were playing it so loud.’
‘But,’ said Dylan, flabbergasted, ‘don’t you mean the music from the house behind? That bloody noisy rap or hiphop or whatever the hell it is?’
Seth shook his head, then grinned. ‘Nah. The kids might’ve liked that. All we heard was your tv.’
On Saturday night the music was shrieking from 8 pm. At 11.59 it stopped.
Dylan knew they were still awake long after midnight – from the heavy laughter, the car horns bellowing, the motorbikes revving, the occasional female shriek echoing until dawn – but each time he picked up his phone the racket quit. He lay on his bed, squeezing the mobile, exhausted by indecision. Finally at 3 am he called the police; again the sound ceased; but an hour later the mammoth’s girlfriend was singing loudly, so near, as if she were sitting on the back fence pouring her voice at his window. He was too tired to check; just shoved the pillow around his ears and wanted to weep.
At 6 am he awoke from a doze and noticed the back house was quiet. It occurred to him as he lay listening to nothing that the weird hours meant the mammoth and his roommates must work in a restaurant or pub. Or a hospital. He jumped out of bed, pulled on his trackies, ran to his shed and pushed the lawn mower to the far end of his backyard. He turned on his speakers and played Huey Lewis and the News as loud as Spotify would go, then remowed the back lawn. When he paused to grab a drink he left the mower running. After the grass had disappeared and the lawn had turned to mud he switched on his leaf blower and blasted it directly at the fence. The drone was so unbearable he ran to the bedroom and pressed his wife’s ear plugs into his ears, then kept blasting until the blower died. After an hour he went inside to cook himself an egg, but left the speaker blaring.
Again that night the mammoth’s music thundered from eight till midnight; again the next morning Dylan mowed and blasted and shrieked bad seventies tunes from his speaker.
When the doorbell rang that afternoon he was tempted to ignore it; if it was the mammoth they were beyond words now (and the guy was, well, scary). But through the peep hole he saw it was the neighbour from next door.
‘Mate,’ said Dylan. ‘Can I help you?’
Seth fidgeted with his keys. ‘Look, I don’t want to make a fuss, but that music…and the mowing…I’ve been asked by the other neighbours to ask you politely if you could please, please, turn it down…Or just not do it so early in the morning. It’s really becoming…intolerable.’ He pressed his palms together prayer-like. ‘My kids…you know? And a lot of the locals have worked all week and need a sleep in. It is the weekend!’
Dylan stared at the man. ‘Are you kidding me? You’re having a go at my noise?’
The man waved his hands. ‘Everyone else around here is respectful.’
‘You mean you really haven’t heard those fuckwits in the house behind me? A few doors down?’
Seth pursed his lips in sorrow. ‘Mate, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just keep it down, okay?’
The music commenced again at 7 pm. Again it halted at 11.59. Monday and Tuesday night were at peace, but it all began again on Wednesday. Dylan rang his office on Thursday, said he was working from home for the rest of the week, due to what felt worryingly like covid. ‘Yeah, right,’ said his boss, and hung up. As the sounds reverberated at twilight’s end Dylan trundled his wheelie bins to the footpath for the Friday morning collection. Still in his pyjamas from the night before, unshaven and bone-weary he didn’t notice the neighbour’s whippet until nearly rolling over it with the green bin. It yelped, then snapped at his legs, growling, its short grey hair standing on end, its teeth barred. He kicked and swore at it, banging the bin over as he tried to evade the little fucker, and as the bin hit the gutter the dog dashed into the street and was ploughed down by an oncoming SUV. As the driver’s brakes squealed, Dylan sprinted up the path and slammed his door. Crouching behind the front window he watched the tank; it idled for a few minutes, its windows black and secret, its driver hidden, then suddenly took off. No one else was on the street. The dog lay in the middle of the road, panting, and he prayed to god that it would stand up; but the panting lessened, the dog stopped moving. Dylan closed the curtains and squatted below the window pane in the moonless evening, hugging his knees.
He heard the screaming from the house behind an hour or so later. He sat stiffly on the sofa in the dark, not moving, not thinking of food or drink, unaware of what the tv was showing, waiting for the knock on the door. Eventually the screams became howls, and then a hiccupped simpering; finally the neighbourhood was suffocated by silence.
The world remained quiet for the next few days. Dylan snuck out the front door on Monday morning and with shoulders hunched scuttled to the bus stop and his office. Magda had decided to stay with her brother until the following weekend, so on the way home he bought some ready meals and pasta at the local Coles. The street was stationary, noiseless, when he arrived at his door; only the occasional siren in the background and a plane soaring high above broke the silence. His sleep was rocky that night, but over the next few evenings the quiet reigned and apart from dreams about bleeding dogs and children he slept peacefully.
On Thursday night, after arguments with his boss and a client, after battling a bus strike in a freakish storm, he ate some leftover cold sausages and collapsed into bed. His dreams were wild: he saw the mammoth’s motor bike, the grey Italian whippet riding sidesaddle and yapping even more annoyingly, as the bike screeched up Dylan’s stairs and smashed onto the bed and Dylan was choking under the weight of the huge Harley wheels and the mammoth’s King Kong fists.
He beat at the pillow as he woke, tangled in the quilt. But opening his eyes he saw it wasn’t the pillow choking him: the mammoth was towering above him – without his bike – and had twisted the sheet around Dylan’s neck. As Dylan struggled with the man’s huge wrists Zac leaned forward and Dylan could smell the beer on Zac’s breath as his own lungs ached and the darkness became permanent.
‘My girlfriend thinks I’m doing this for murdering her dog, dildo,’ the mammoth panted. ‘But really it’s just because you’re a cunt.’
Photo by Derek Story on Unsplash
