Writer's Cramp 9-28 - 971 Words

Some Neighbors are a delight to have around. Others are a delight when they move away.

         

A Squirrel Named Larry

          Living in our attic, rent-free, mind you, was Larry.

          Larry was not your average, unassuming gray squirrel, the kind you might see nervously burying nuts in the garden. Larry was an enormous, flamboyant Malabar Giant Squirrel. For those unfamiliar, imagine a squirrel the size of a ferret, painted by a drunken hippie using every color in the neon palette: deep maroon flanks, a purple head, a patch of burnt orange around the muzzle, and a shocking black tail. He was less an animal and more a highly accessorized, velvet-lined carnival float.

          He was also, undeniably, the literal Party Animal.

          The irony of Larry was that by day, he was aggressively low-key. He was a creature of refined, if questionable, taste. If you listened carefully to the muffled sounds above the plasterboard ceiling during the afternoon, you could hear the distinct, tinny sounds of British comedy echoing from an ancient, battery-powered TV he must have dragged up there. Larry was obsessed with Are You Being Served?--I swear I once heard him let out a small, satisfied churr during a Mrs. Slocombe double entendre.

          His preferred lifestyle involved extreme lounging. Instead of actively foraging or scampering, Larry existed in a state of horizontal bliss, powered solely by glucose and nostalgia. We knew his diet intimately because of the forensic evidence left behind: sticky paw prints on the eaves, empty cardboard tubes, and the sickly-sweet scent of root beer that occasionally drifted down the heating vents. He adored Reese's Pieces, consuming them by the pound and using the orange foil wrappers purely for decorative purposes.

          But when the sun went down, and when the last light was switched off downstairs, Larry shed his identity as a TV-watching connoisseur and transformed into the Dionysus of the damp clapboard.

          At precisely 11:30 PM, the atmosphere would change. The first sign was always a low, vibrating thrum that bypassed the eardrums and struck directly at the fillings in my teeth. Then the music began. It wasn't modern pop, or even classical. Larry had a penchant for heavy, rhythmic, brass-band jazz, the kind of music designed explicitly to shake foundations.

          Then came the guests.

          The attic door, which we had meticulously screwed shut, was clearly only a minor inconvenience to Larry's extensive social network. His friends were a veritable who's who of nocturnal pests: Clyde the Raccoon (a big, messy brute who clearly served as the bouncer), three generations of Possums who specialized in slack-jawed staring, and perhaps most distressing, a colony of bats who seemed to have been tasked exclusively with producing excessive amounts of echo-location feedback noise.

          This was the Bacchanal.

          The noise levels were astounding, but what truly set the parties apart--what haunted my sleepless nights- was the clog dancing.

          Yes. Clog. Dancing.

          I don't know where Larry procured the miniature wooden shoes, or why dozens of small, hairy mammals felt compelled to synchronize their rhythmic stomping eighteen inches above my head, but the sound was apocalyptic. Thump-thump-CLACK! Thump-thump-CLACK! It sounded like a rogue kindergarten class holding a construction demolition derby.

          "He's violating the Geneva Convention of quiet enjoyment!" I hissed to my partner, Sarah, one thunderous Tuesday night, as root beer appeared to have spilled down the wall, leaving a brown stripe next to the emergency fire extinguisher hook.

          We tried everything. Tapping the ceiling with a broom, which merely served as a starting pistol for even louder enthusiasm. Installing soundproofing foam, which Larry repurposed as strangely lumpy chaise lounges.

          There was only one solution: the police.

          Calling the non-emergency line became a grim weekly routine.

          "Yes, hello, 10-4? I have a major disturbance. Loud bass, excessive whooping, and forty squirrels performing Nordic folk dance routines in my ceiling."

          "Sir, is this still about the rodent?" the dispatcher, Brenda, would sigh. She knew my voice by now.

          "It's a Malabar Giant Squirrel, Brenda! And he is hosting a rave!"

          I would hold the phone up, letting her hear the frantic, thumping rhythm. Brenda would grudgingly dispatch a unit.

          And this is where Larry's true genius lies. He possessed an uncanny, almost supernatural, sense of proximity to law enforcement.

          The instant the siren's distant, high-pitched wail hit the three-block radius, the party would cease.

          Not slowly fading out. Not a gradual quiet. Immediate, stunning silence. The sudden silence was often more disorienting than the noise itself.

          When Officers Miller and Reyes (whom I now considered my tormentors) trudged up my driveway, the house would be eerily tranquil.

          "Evening, sir," Officer Miller would say, shining his heavy-duty flashlight onto my face. "We've got a noise complaint from this address."

          "You do realize I am the one calling, right?" I would stammer, utterly defeated, standing in my pajamas with a sweat rag draped over my shoulder.

          "And we'd appreciate it if you stopped," Officer Reyes would cut in. "We've swept the perimeter. No loud music. No visible crowds. Sir, we are getting dangerously close to issuing a warning for repeated false alarms."

          They'd leave, their skepticism thick in the air. I'd shut the door, walk three feet toward the stairs, and before I could even take a deep, cleansing breath, the low, vibrating thrum would begin again, followed instantly by the deafening Thump-thump-CLACK! Larry was laughing at me. I was sure of it.

          Now, we don't call the police anymore. We've invested in industrial-grade earplugs and accepted that we have entered a perpetually loud, high-energy lease agreement with a brightly colored demigod of excess. We are merely the downstairs neighbors. The rent, it seems, is paid in silence. Larry only grants when the police officers are coming, or when he absolutely has to catch the final act of Mr. Humphries trying on a woman's bra. And that, I suppose, is a price we have to pay for living beneath the King of the Clog-Dancing Bacchanal.

Words: 971
Prompt: A Squirrel Named Larry