All I Did Was Ask

This afternoon, my neighbor across the cul-de-sac was blasting the rest of us with incredibly loud rap "music." The bass was plundering my house, literally shaking my house windows, vibrating the glass -- and I don't have the old wood double-hung windows. The noise came from two huge speakers in the open trunk of a car the guy was working on. I tried to ignore it but how do you ignore something that is pounding, thundering through every room of your house? I couldn't read the long, technical, scholarly chapters for school. I couldn't take a nap so I would be awake and ready to party at my friend's daughter's wedding at 5:30pm. I couldn't relax at all, so after about 90 minutes, I walked across the cul-de-sac to ask this guy to turn down the volume. When I got up to the car, I had to plug my ears with my fingers, so when the guy saw me standing there, I signaled to turn it down. Well, he jumped out of that car, yelling, coming at me in a threatening way like he was going to hit me. Of course, there were no other neighbors about because most people hunker down in their homes, turn up the TV or stereo, use ear plugs, or whatever, but they never confront someone like this because they don't want to be threatened or be on bad terms with a neighbor because, Lord knows, I've been retaliated against and it's an ugly and stressful situation. People like this guy think they can do anything they want. (And that's exactly what he told me.) It's a free country and they can do what they want. No one else has that right; just them apparently. The rest of us don't count; we're just little nothings with no right to have peace and quiet in our own homes.

Well, that guy went on and on yelling about how I'm disrespecting him. I'm disrespecting him? He's blasting everyone within a 2-3 block radius with stadium-level music "sung" by a rapper spewing the f--- word over and over and over. This is the second time in about 10 months I've asked this guy to turn down the volume. He never forgave me for the first time I asked and he's disliked me ever since. He lets his kids run wild in the cul-de-sac, chasing each other through everyone's yards and playing around everyone's cars, including baseball in the middle of the cul-de-sac. I sound like I'm kvetching, but I'm actually scared because I've never had a guy come walking towards me in a menacing manner, hollering and yelling at me, when all I asked for was the volume to be turned down. Unfortunately my car is an easy target for vandalism and so are my dog and I; I walk him late at night because it's cooler and quieter.

I don't understand why hardly anyone else ever stands up to guys like this. Am I the only one in the universe to be bothered by thundering bass so loud it vibrates the glass in the windows of my home, by singers spewing filth at such a mega-level that it hits you in the face when you open the door, by the totally blind inconsideration of these loud-rap-music-loving guys to anyone else on this planet?

I'm just putting this out there in case something happens to me. You never know.