The
light and warmth are seeping out of the day; a storm is on its way. Soon I have
to catch a bus to my sister’s. It’ll be dark by the time I get there. On the TV
Keith Quinn, the rugby commentator, is advertising funeral insurance.
Today
I went back to the dentist to collect the custom-made splint I have to wear on
my front teeth at night. This is because I am grinding my teeth down into shards
and nubs, apparently; I already have stress fractures, according to the x-ray
evidence. The splint will correct
my behavior. It will prevent me from sleepy-time grinding. According to Alex,
my handsome Brazilian dentist, in twenty years time I will thank him.
I’m
not thanking him now. When the splint is locked into place (with a ferocious
cracking sound), I can’t close my mouth. My front lip protrudes, as though
someone’s punched me in the face. Swallowing and breathing is hard. And I can
barely speak. In fact, the word “speak” is lost to me entirely. I was able to
communicate the word “horrible” to Alex, and I communicated that over and over.
Even
more irritating, the splint itself is really high-maintenance. It needs to be
coddled at all times – bathed in warm water, kept moist, cleaned with special
powders. I hate the thing already.
Ironically,
grinding my teeth may be caused by stress; the splint is stressing me out even
more. I’m dreading going to bed.
But
that’s nothing new this week. I’ve been woken up three nights by carousing
under my window. On Wednesday night, there were two carloads of hooligans
blasting out their stereo, drinking, and having an impromptu party (start time:
2:30 AM). The police and noise control were summoned, but forty minutes later,
they still hadn’t arrived; luckily something startled my tormentors and they
cleared off in a hurry. (What Albert Park needs, I think, is the Hound of the
Baskervilles.) Last night a group of incoherent jesters had a party outside for
an hour after midnight. But after various calls – to the Auckland City Council,
which owns the lane behind this building, and from the Central Police Station,
where a very helpful sergeant promised me they’d come and “clear the place out”
more often – I’m a little more hopeful of a night’s sleep some time soon.
Sergeant
Ben explained that it was probably students or people from out of town – the
suburbs, I guess – who are on their way to clubs and don’t want to pay the high
drink prices. They buy cheap alcohol in the supermarkets and come to the park
to drink it and start the party. He
said this was one of the reasons the police were opposed to the endless opening
hours in Auckland bars.
I’ve
read about this in the paper. The mayor, John Banks, and the council say that
Auckland needs to become a world-class city, and that means people should be
able to go out all night. Early closing = provincial.
The
trouble is, I don’t think the world’s jet set are descending on Auckland to
drink cocktails and champagne in the manner of Russian billionaires in St-Tropez. I think all the young people who
live in too-quiet suburbs are driving in to drink and take drugs in the park,
squeeze into clubs, and then drive home off their heads. Dealing with this is a
problem everywhere: hence the new regulations in London forbidding drinking on
the tube and the bus. The dark side of a city that never sleeps is a city that
never stops drinking, vomiting, fighting, and making mischief under cover of
darkness. Look at New Orleans. How many Tulane students have been mugged on
their way home – or to their cars – at three in the morning? Too many quiet,
dark streets; too few police. If we want a world-class city, we need a much
bigger, denser population, and a much larger, more powerful police force to
keep order. This applies to New Orleans and Auckland, I think.
So
I’m staying at my sister’s tonight, with only the horrible splint to keep me
awake.
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