Chapter 1 - Too Loud for a Saturday
My Neighbor Called the Police on My Kid's Party for Laughing Too Loud — But the Second That Officer Recognized Him, He Bolted for the Fence
My name is Aaron, and last Saturday I threw my son Cody's seventh birthday party in our backyard. One bounce house. Twelve kids running on pure sugar. A speaker playing the same cartoon theme song on a loop. And one neighbor who looked like he wanted to call in an airstrike.
Walter lived three houses down on Briarwood Court, and in the four years since we'd moved to Millbrook, he had filed a complaint about almost everything. The dog barking. What time I ran the lawn mower. The color of our recycling bin, once, though I never figured out what he wanted me to do about that.
Now, apparently, the sound of kids laughing at three in the afternoon on a Saturday.
He came to our fence twice during the party, arms folded across his chest, jaw locked. "Keep it under control," he said the first time.
The second time, he didn't even bother with the gate. He stood out on the sidewalk with his phone already pressed to his ear, staring straight at me while he talked into it.
Twenty minutes later, a patrol car rolled into our cul-de-sac. No lights, no siren, just a slow crawl to the curb.
Walter was off his porch before the car stopped moving. He hustled across two lawns to meet it.
I followed, wiping frosting on my jeans, ready to explain that this was a seven-year-old's party, not a block riot.
The officer opened his door, stood, and slid his sunglasses up onto his head. He looked at Walter. Really looked at him.
And his face changed. The polite, here-we-go-again expression slid right off, and something older took its place.
"Well," he said, a slow grin starting. "Talk about a reunion. What's it been, seventeen years? You remember me?"
Walter went white.
He didn't say one word. He spun around and bolted across the yard.
May you like
The officer went after him instantly.
I ran after both of them.
