Saturday, September 27, 2008

The Price of Garden Access in Brooklyn, Part I:

You can break up a party: make like a sitcom housewife and bang on the ceiling with a broom, then walk upstairs in your bathrobe, and say, “listen, I don’t mean to be a bitch, but it’s 3 a.m.” If all else fails, you can call the police. They won’t show up for an hour or more, but at least you’ll feel you’re taking action.

An orgasm, however, is a different matter, an entitlement with which you cannot interfere. These are the truths I pondered last May as I lay beneath a 4 a.m. sex marathon that earplugs wouldn’t block out. I knew because I was wearing some.

The man cried, “oh yeah, baby. Like that, baby.” Shoes clomped. Springs clink-clanked. The girl let out shrieks the likes of which I hadn’t heard since I lived under the same roof as a Moluccan cockatoo back in Miami. I thought about the bird as I drifted back to sleep: the way she raised her crest and danced back and forth on the perch, screaming, “Ah, ah, ah, ah,” as the sun came up every morning.