I went into work last week and a friend of mine in the kitchen greeted me with, “I have something you need to hear.” This particular individual isn’t known for getting all that giddy over most things, so his robust enthusiasm caught my attention. Everybody else in the kitchen had seen the twinkle in his eye, and were working harder than usual to suppress their knowing giggles, so as not to spoil the surprise awaiting my virgin ears.
Here’s what he had to play.
I went into work last week and a friend of mine in the kitchen greeted me with, “I have something you need to hear.” This particular individual isn’t known for getting all that giddy over most things, so his robust enthusiasm caught my attention. Everybody else in the kitchen had seen the twinkle in his eye, and were working harder than usual to suppress their knowing giggles, so as not to spoil the surprise awaiting my virgin ears.
Here’s what he had to play.
This was recorded at my friend’s new apartment in the lower Fan. This is not a joke. He had just come home and was relaxing in his room when the sounds you are hopefully listening to as you read this invaded his post-work bliss.
Apparently, this went on for an hour or so. Most people would have called the police or at least made some attempt to get the noise to stop, but not the nameless one. No, he found great amusement in the piercing wails (if you listen closely, you can hear his muffled laughter). When he asked his roommate about the tortured sounds emanating from the other side of his bedroom wall, his roommate told him it happened about twice a month. At first, his roommate had been alarmed by the bi-monthly audio invasions, but he had gotten used to it over the time he had lived in the apartment.
They both thought it was funny.
As we stood in the kitchen listening to the 8-plus minutes of howling, we all took turns guessing as to what was making the gentlemen scream. The unanimous choice amongst us was that he was having something shoved up his ass. One chef guessed that the guy was a Chicago Bears fan who was related to DeAngelo Hall. That made all us Redskins fans laugh, but still–all joking aside–object in ass was our collective guess.
When I got home later that evening, I played the recording for my wife, expecting big laughs. When I hit play, she didn’t laugh. She remained silent. “Don’t you think that shit is funny?” I asked, troubled that she wasn’t getting it. She paused for a moment.
“It sounds like you having a cluster headache.”
Shit, it does. It’s been so long since I had one, I had almost forgotten the decades of agony those fuckers used to cause me. And it wasn’t just painful for me, either–my wife had to endure my screams during those episodes. When I listened closely, I could almost hear how she would think that. I tried to point out that my screams were those of genuine undesired physical pain, and the shrieks on the recording seem to take some devious, disturbing satisfaction from whatever is causing him to squeal. Having lived through those painful fuckers, I know the difference. “It’s the sound of a dude getting something shoved up his ass,” I said with conviction, “He’s not having a cluster headache.”
She just walked away.
When you live in the city, you open yourself up to the possibility of hearing the people next-door shoving things in their ass. Not that people in the counties don’t shove things up their asses; you are just less likely to hear it. And as grotesque as it may seem, that’s why I live in the city. The increased possibility that I may hear my neighbor submit to his desire for putting objects in his rectum doesn’t bother me. I can’t say that I would actively seek to live next-door to somebody I could hear rigorously indulging in this type of behavior. But if I were single & childless, I would find it more amusing than disturbing, providing that the rent was cheap enough. That’s why my friends don’t care about the dude screaming next door, or if said screaming (that hopefully you are still listening to) may or may not be caused by having objects shoved in his ass. The rent’s cheap. All’s good.
Chris Bopst has been a fixture on the Richmond music scene for over two decades, playing in GWAR, the Alter Natives, and The Holy Rollers, among other bands. His free-form radio show, The Bopst Show, has existed for over a decade, appearing on multiple Richmond AM radio stations before becoming an internet podcast in 2008. Weekly episodes of the podcast can be found at rvanews.com.
