Festival in The Park

The thumps were driving him crazy.

When the Rutherfords bought their home, the large park across the street was a selling point. With a grass amphitheater, full playground, stocked ponds, and sidewalk around the entire park, what was there not to love?

Monday nights in the Summer, that’s what.

The City decided to showcase local talent every Monday during the Summer months. The music was good, until it wasn’t. The sound technicians felt three blocks North, South, East, and West would be delighted to hear this untested talent. Or else they had become deaf from the noise levels, and volume didn’t matter so long as there was no reverb and squeaks from overmodulating.

Leon and Jody went to the amphitheater the first Summer they owned the home and didn’t bother going back the entire three years they had lived there. Even during that concert, they had to leave during the band’s break to fetch a pair of ear plugs. They never went back because they never found the plugs.

Pity.

As Leon sat in the living room trying to watch the evening news, the thump thump thump of the band across the street shook the chandelier lights. Loose metal and glass in the kitchen rattled with each beat so he turned up the TV.

He threw his head back and closed his eyes. 

“These people,” he thought. “I have a mind to ….in fact, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Leon got up from the couch and made a bee line to the band shell in the amphitheater. While Tony Moran and His Fellow Dogooders were finishing their cover of Freebird, Leon grabbed the microphone and said, “This is ridiculous. I can hear your bass and drums from across the street. And why don’t you practice some before you get on stage? You’re terrible, absolutely terrible.”

He walked off the stage with the entire audience booing and hissing him.

“Leon! Leon! You dozed off,” Jody said. “Time for our Monday night date on the other side of town. Nice restaurant and some bowling afterwards, remember?”

Leon looked up at his wife as the thumps from the park band continued.

“So, you didn’t hear any boos or hisses?”

“Wh…what?”

“Never mind,” Leon said. “Date night it is then.”