Hearing Held Over a Turntable and a Baritone

Tuesday: The Complaint Arrives

I know what is in every box on this lane and I tell no one, so it felt strange to find news of my own at the community mailbox cluster. A notice was waiting there, on cream paper, in Doris Kowalczyk's hand.

It cited "a sustained sound at 6:40 in the morning, emanating from the vicinity of No. 9, of a baritone character." Doris is devastatingly polite. She had attached a bibliography.

Mags Delacroix-Burke issued Memo 214 within the hour. A hearing would be held in Tamsin's garage on Wednesday, because that was where the evidence was, and because Mags had been waiting years for evidence.

The record ended, the arm lifted itself, set itself down on its rest, and the platter stopped, and nobody had to stand watch.

Wednesday: The Hearing

Tamsin had run the detachable RCA cable from the turntable to a pair of powered speakers. She had also flipped the switch on the back so the built-in preamp sent out a line-level signal, which is what speakers without a phono input want to hear. Her cable management was immaculate. I felt the room judge my truck by comparison.

Mags set out a twelfth chair at the front, labeled it Reserved: Brenda, and read into the minutes that it would stay empty in honor of a domesticated bear who preferred to attend from a distance. Something under the porch at No. 2 shifted once. Mags recorded it as assent, and Gus, who owns the porch, asked that it be recorded as the porch.

ORACLE, invited to observe, announced that the hearing's one flaw was a shortage of baritones and began recruiting a second, though no one had asked for a first. Mags thanked it and filed the call under Miscellaneous.

Then the question arose of whether music could be played at a noise hearing at all. Mags rose for the Cat-Owners' Caucus and cited the Treaty of the Warm Windowsill, the Fourth Napping Accord and the ancient ruling of Whiskers v. Everybody, all of which held that every dispute over household sound is settled by the nearest sleeping cat, since the Caucus holds that living with a cat is the highest form of human existence and has never needed a second opinion.

The nearest sleeping cat was Admiral Biscuit, in the outbox. Everyone watched him. He rolled over, which the Caucus read as leave to proceed, and Doris noted that it was the first time anyone had won a motion by changing sides of a tray.

Exhibit A: One Side of One Record

Tamsin pressed the button. She mentioned that the power adapter sits out on the cord instead of inside the case, which keeps its electrical fuss away from the signal. Then there was a clarinet in the room.

The record ended, the arm lifted itself, set itself down on its rest, and the platter stopped, and nobody had to stand watch.

Doris listened with her pen capped. Then she asked to see the 45 RPM adapter, a small plastic ring, and Tamsin showed her how the single I had brought sits on it. The turntable plays at two speeds, 33-1/3 and 45. Doris wrote that down as a finding.

Then she read her notes. The turntable, she said, had been present at 6:40 but was not the source of the baritone. Tamsin keeps a phone on the shelf, and it had caught the morning in question. The baritone was me. I sing along. I had not known, and I would like it entered that I still do not believe it.

Thursday: Ruling and Route

The ruling was that the complaint was sustained against Wendell Pike personally and dismissed as to the turntable. Mags called it a split decision. Doris amended the Lending Ledger to show one record player on long loan to my truck. I may play it in Tamsin's garage after eight in the morning, provided I hum.

It stays in the garage because it needs an outlet and something to play through. A turntable on a truck seat is only a turntable on a truck seat. I understand that.

This morning I drove the route with the windows up. At the first red light I looked at the sleeves in the footwell. I told them out loud that I do not sing.

At the end of the lane, in broad daylight, the streetlight flickered.

Signed for, as always,

Wendell