Laughing loudly at my alleged hearing loss that doesn’t exist, the Universe has foisted on me loud noises—people, machines—to intrude on my peace and quiet. This, too, has been going on forever. Why? Is the Universe simply ironic? I don’t get it.
OK, it’s to be expected that if you’re sitting in a low-priced Chinese restaurant in Durham, NC, you’re going to be annoyed by…what? YES, you’re right: A Duke University professor in the booth behind you expounding on something arcane, and really really relishing the sound of his own voice. My heart sank when he started up, because I knew he would never, ever shut up. He loved the way his voice sank, then rose in emphasis, went guttural for just an ironic second, then segued into a solemn affirmation of this or that fact. His resonant tenor voice bounded off the far walls of the restaurant. Wow was he having fun!
I wanted to turn around and applaud and say I was rooting for him, keep at it, Mac, but also to ask him, This is a very dopey restaurant. Don’t you think it’s a little down-market for your talents? Shouldn’t you be somewhere expensive? I’ll PAY for you to go somewhere expensive. When we left, ahead of him, I glanced back and saw a thick, pasty, puckered-lip face thoroughly in love with the person who owned it. Oh, what I’d give to like myself that much!
My parents were university professors, and my maternal grandfather and great-grandfather were as well. OK, I never heard my great-grandfather speak, but I imagine that he was as quiet as his son and my parents were. What makes some people fall in love with their own voices?
Restaurants do produce a happy proximity. Once in Delaware, in a very nice restaurant named something like Black Exotic Bird the man at the next two-top regaled his dinner companion so loudly and at such length that I couldn’t help giving him a couple of would you please shut the fuck up looks. He didn’t care, of course. As he and his date were leaving, he lashed out at me: “I paid a lot of money to come here, and I can say whatever I want!” Well, at least he noticed my poisonous looks. The restaurant staff was appropriately sympathetic, though no free dessert was on offer.
The Universe has also generously given me the guy down the hill. Let’s call him Tony, as he insists on being called “Anthony.” He sent an email around to the entire neighborhood chastising me for calling him “Tony” wanting to “nip that in the bud.” He too has a resonant voice, and the loudest sneeze you’ve ever heard. He features it. When anyone comes to see him, he shouts at him or her. And he’s as bland and boring as I deserve. When his father came to visit, for some reason Tony had to introduce him to another neighbor. Tony triumphantly intoned for the whole neighborhood, “Gary, this is Tom. Tom, Gary.” Side-splitting.
The Universe is certainly chortling at how this guy loves really loud machines, especially on a quiet, sunny Sunday afternoon, when it would be so pleasant to sit out on one’s lawn reading the Sunday New York Times. Recently he fired up a gas-driven weed-wacker, which he applied to an ambiguous landscape containing rocks; the resulting whine of the wacker against the rocks recalled the scratch of fingernails on chalk board. This went on for well over an hour, off and on. To torture me, he’d quit, turn the machine off, and I’d think, OK, NOW, we get peace and quiet. Then, rrrrrRRRRRRRRRROOWWWW, it’d start up again. I could easily kill Tony. Sorry, Anthony. I’d slash his face to ribbons with his own weed-wacker.
What is it about men and their loud machines? There’s no point in exploring this, is there? It’s obvious. I think I should send Tony a toy fire engine in the mail, except that he wouldn’t get the joke.
Our house is near Pro Build, which is essentially a lumber yard. It wasn’t so loud until some brothers from Ohio started a shopping center that no one on the island wanted; they chopped down some absurd number of trees, like 800, despite the efforts of a nice girl named Sierra who perched up in one for a few days. Between that and how the aforementioned Tom, whose property abuts on Pro Build, likes to take down trees, there’s less and less of a buffer. I can hear their saws whining away, and, in the summer when I’m outside, I can hear their intercom system, sometimes very clearly, asking someone to pick up line 2.
One year, I went over and asked them to turn it down. They agreed, even understanding how the desecration of the adjoining lot had opened the entire area up to noise and light, but of course nothing changed.
Finally, there are the olds at my condo complex. My back window looks out on a very pleasant courtyard. The olds are always back there working away at the landscaping, and, of course, yelling at each other about what they’re doing. The main culprit is a new fellow named John, who has as resonant a voice as Tony. Unlike me, John may well have a hearing problem so doesn’t know that he’s shouting. To every one of them, I want to say, you guys all retired too early. Go back to work and shout at some co-workers. Or, likelier still, they’re all insane: they think that weeding this or that little plot and screaming about it to each other is more important than the goodwill of this neighbor, which they have forfeited permanently. Sadly, they’re all outside all the time, so they don’t read things, like this blog.
The Universe is having a good laugh at my expense. I’m not allowed to hear conversations that I want to hear, but then everyone nearby is intent on depriving everyone else of peace and quiet. Once when Kate was little, and there were a bunch of little girls at the house screaming, I said to Nancy, “I had hoped that my late middle age [now old age] would be a little more peaceful.” She answered, “You’ve come to the wrong place.” Sure enough, and true in all contexts. But I don’t really understand why it should be.
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