Noise Ordinance

By Kurt Phillips

The dogs bark and howl as the echo of gunshots vibrate the double-pane windows.
Two people lie on the bed, bodies tense, waiting for the next discharge to break the August night. It will be a distraction from the awful music that's been throbbing since earlier in the evening.
"This has got to stop.

Nolan Priest has a long night ahead of him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kurt Phillips
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798988101338

Book preview

To the thorn in my side

that bled this dark yarn.

CONTENTS

- Noise Ordinance       - 1

- An Interview with {redacted} a.k.a. Nolan Priest        - 50

Camouflage - noun

: the disguising especially of military equipment or installations with paint, nets, or foliage

: concealment by means of disguise

: behavior or artifice designed to deceive or hide

-  Merriam-Webster

***

Natural selection, in the Darwinian sense, could not explain the miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect and imitative behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of the struggle for life when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator’s power of appreciation. I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception."

- Vladimir Nabokov

***

Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my monkey.

John Lennon

Noise Ordinance

The dogs bark and howl as the echo of gunshots vibrate the double-pane windows. 

Two people lie on the bed, bodies tense, waiting for the next discharge to break the August night. It will be a distraction from the awful music that’s been throbbing since earlier in the evening.

This has got to stop, Nolan mutters, wide-eyed and exhausted, from a position next to his wife.

Is it guns or fireworks? Emily lies on her side, face to the window. Their voices are the low volume of a tired married couple.

It's gunfire. Not sure what caliber, it's a little muffled. Anyway, I don’t care. This has got to stop.

You wanna call the police? She asks.

Nolan thinks about it. Is anyone texting on the neighborhood thread?

Emily takes her phone off the nightstand and lets it illuminate her face. She slides her thumb over the screen a couple of times before letting the phone fall to her chest. Yeah. It’s lit up. Ricky and Laverne called a half hour ago and so did Jim.

Is anyone coming out?

It doesn’t look like it, she says. I mean, that asshole is still shooting at stuff. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

CRACK

Juneau barks in the living room and Ripley’s nails clickety-clack on the tile in the hallway just outside their bedroom door. Nolan clenches his eyes shut to block it all out.

The commotion began as soon as he shut his laptop to go to bed. He had just placed the barstools on the couch as a dog deterrent when his nightly ritual was molested by gun fire and shitty music. He may or may not have slapped his forehead.

This kind of thing is bound to happen outside city limits from time to time. On certain nights it comes from all directions, 4th of July, or as it’s referred to in canine circles, Hell Night Purge of a Thousand Vacuums. You just had to accept that shit on holidays. But this was a random, run-of-the-mill, vanilla Tuesday night, and it was all coming, once again, from a single, isolated location, Asshole Neighbor’s. Also known by residences of the Weintraub neighborhood as Jackass, Tannerite Guy,