Calling in my Muscle

“Hi,” I called, smiling innocently as I approached the group of college-aged rockers lounging on their front porch. They grinned back curiously and twitched their cigarettes in a lazy but friendly simulation of a wave. It was Thursday night, practice night for Troubadour Dali, the band that insists on cranking out concert level rock music at ungodly hours of the night, the band that routinely wakes Norah from her sleep, the band that had worked its way through all the good will I had tried for the last year to show to anyone following their rock and roll dream.

Nice kids when they weren’t lost in their rock star haze.

I had long since stopped knocking on their door to complain about their 2 am sound shows, the noise level high enough to hide anything so quite as a pounding fist. And while I had, at one time, waiting patiently on this very front porch for them to reach the end of a song so that my knocking might be heard, these days I just throw open the door and stomp my blurry-eyed way into their set. And they always look appropriately embarrassed. “Too loud?” they ask with genuine concern as if there were any other reason I would be standing in their living room in my bath robe and slippers.

But this time, my lovely wife had devised and even more direct approach and I was more than happy to implement it.

“I just wanted to come over,” I began, shifting my daughter’s weight in my arm, “to introduce you all to my daughter, Norah…the little girl you guys make cry every Thursday.” I smile and laugh to make the accusation as friendly as possible. Norah hears the word “cry” and responds by pantomiming the word, balled fists rubbing at her sad eyes as if she had been practicing for this encounter. The band responds with appropriate “awwwws”, especially the female bass player. It’s stereotypical, I know, but the girl’s presence on that porch was exactly what had kicked this plan into motion in Moonshot’s mind. And judging from the response she was giving my daughter…it was looking like Moonshot’s instincts where right. Even if everyone else on that porch got stoned and forgot about the volume, the bass player was our trump card.

We chatted there, the band and I…friendly like. I asked about their new cd and truthfully let them know how much I was looking forward to hearing it. I like their music, I explained, it’s just hard to appreciate it through the seething rage after it’s roused my family from slumber. They laughed uncomfortably.

Moonshot, Norah and I departed with neighborly good wishes. We smiled to each other once we were out of eyesight of the band, curious how the guilt trip would work.

Not a single bass rift or drumbeat invaded our sleep that night. Even rock and roll could not withstand the combined efforts of we Grens.