Last night

The wind was howling last night, hooting down the chimney, and still this morning, it’s going strong.  There was a day trip planned to Victoria but the 7 o’clock and 9 a.m. ferries have both been cancelled, so the jaunt has been postponed until tomorrow (if the wind dies down)

Our next door neighbors are obviously out of town for the long weekend because it is the third night in a row that there has been a wild party thrown.  Last night just before 4 a.m. I’m lying in bed, whoops and hollers and bits of drunken conversation, carried to me on the wind.  There is a car revving, outside the house, and I get worried, they’ve been partying hard for days.  Is it safe for this person to drive?  My mind flashing back to our first night home, in the crowded emergency ward.  That’s the hospital these kids will be taken to if they ran off the road.  I want to call the police.  Not to stop the party, kids will be kids, but to stop this person from driving home.

“But maybe,” I told myself.  “This guy’s the designated driver?  My son David always was.  He’s probably fine.  Been sipping water all night.  Just gunning the motor to show off to the girls.” I breathed deep, tried to calm my clenched up belly.

And then I heard, “Mike no!” “Mike you can’t drive that car.” “Come on Mike.” It sounds like a tussle.  Whoever is in the car starts tooting the horn.  Not loud, just light toots, like tapdancing feet.  And then a door slams the engine guns and a car screams down the cul-de-sac.  There are shrieks and squeals, giddy female ones, falling out the passenger windows, skipping over the burned rubber of the tires as the vehicle screeches around the corner.  Silence on the lawn of our neighbours house.  My pounding heart.  No way to stop them.  I send a prayer for their safe arrival home.  Hope that the streets are bare of other cars and people.  The kids next door go back inside.  Everythings quiet now.  I don’t know.  Maybe the rest of the party is sleeping over on the sofas, floors.  After three nights of partying, I imagine there is going to be some heavy duty cleaning going on there this morning before the parents get home. 

It’s odd isn’t it.  We’re new in the neighborhood.  Never met these neighbours.  Living side by side and I have no idea what they even look like.  Gone are the days of warm plates of welcome-to-the-neighbourhood cookies.  But I feel connected somehow.  Like I know something about them.  I know that their kid has friends who are old enough to drive.  I know that they tried to stop one of their friends from driving home drunk.  I know that they didn’t succeed.  I know this much now, about them.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, November 12, 2007 in Chewing the Fat

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