Open Writing

“My son’s having a party.” My friend and neighbour yelled this information to me from her balcony as I arrived home late one Saturday afternoon. “Just thought I’d warn you,” she added.

Her son was rather partial to entertaining out under the stars, so I knew we were in for heavy metal on the ghetto blaster until all hours.

“I’ve been praying for rain,” his father joked. But as the afternoon drew on and darkness descended, it was obvious it certainly wasn’t going to rain.

Nevertheless, determined to make the best of it, my husband and I decided to confine our activities to the end of the house furthest away from the party. We decided a pizza, some wine and a Pavarotti video would settle our nerves. As our neighbour’s guests started to arrive, we ventured to the noisy end of the house to peep through the curtains. The crowd of young people packing my neighbours courtyard was beginning to spill onto our driveway. The noise was deafening. Any idea of an early night was quickly forgotten.

I started to become agitated.

“We can’t complain, it doesn’t happen often,” said my husband, in his usual calm manner, as he ushered me back to the quiet end of the house where big Luci was belting out "Nessun Dorma”.

“That’s Italian for none shall sleep,” I proffered knowledgeably.

“Very fitting,” quipped my husband.

As the evening progressed, we snacked on our pizza and sipped our wine. We wondered how one end of the house could be so quiet, when the other was so noisy. Sitting in our lounge there might not have been a party at all.
Pavarotti’s velvet voice purred on. This evening wasn’t turning out to be so bad after all. I snuggled up to my husband. “Time for bed,” I whispered romantically.

We made our way to the bedroom and started to prepare for bed.

“Something’s not right. It’s too quiet,” said my husband. “I’m going out to investigate.”

“I’m going to bed,” I grumbled.

He was back in a few minutes to tell me the street and surrounding reserve were lined with members of the riot squad.

“You stay here”, he said “I’m going to see what’s going on.”

Stay here! Not likely. Off came the nightgown, on went a tracksuit. I wasn’t going to miss out on the action.

As we ventured down our garden and onto the reserve behind it, the scene that greeted us was something akin to that at the end of a rock concert. There were young people everywhere.

Then I saw them. The police standing behind their shields, batons at the ready. They said nothing, but their presence was enough to indicate if any of these kids made one wrong move, let alone looked as though they were enjoying themselves, no mercy would be shown.

The kids, all 400 of them were in fact being well behaved. So why the police? I turned out the young lad next door, a student, was told he was allowed to have 30 friends around for a party. However, word somehow got around all the polytechnics and colleges in the district that it was open house! As there wasn’t much activity elsewhere this night, the lad’s party was their best bet. It was simply a case of too many.

Once the police arrived, the youngsters decided this was the most exciting party ever and were reluctant to leave. Nevertheless, they dispersed eventually, without incident, and soon after midnight the street was in its normal state. But I couldn’t help thinking 20 riot police, a police dog and its handler and five transport officers in cars to block off surrounding streets was somewhat of an over reaction.

“It was a police exercise,” said my friend’s husband next day. “Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. And”, he added, “that was my son’s last party.”

Finally, a plea from my friend to all young people. "If you want to go to a party, please wait until you’re invited.''