On a sunny Saturday at the park next to the Menil Collection, I unfurl a picnic blanket atop the rye grass. A bottle of wine and a stack of magazines are quiet pleasures. Or they would be, if the guy on the nearby park bench would stop shouting into his dangling mouthpiece.
Cell Phone Guy holds court near my picnic like a portly Falstaff in Shakespeare in the Park. And banishment “on pain of death” isn’t in his script. But still, I have not come completely unprepared.
My picnic implements include an Extech Digital Sound Level Meter, which I whip out and point in his direction.
Cell Phone Guy confides to his phone: “My first idea was Spain. My second idea was we could go through Brussels and northern Europe, where Lisa’s at.”
The sound meter says 56.9 decibels.
From there, ranking Cell Phone Guy’s relative obnoxiousness is easy. The ambient sound of the park’s rustling trees measures 50 decibels, and every increase of three decibels equals a doubling of sound intensity. So Cell Phone Guy is four times louder than nature.
Still worse, he has the vocal stamina of a rhesus monkey on speed. A two-bit rental agent, he aphorizes: “When you’re dealing with ghetto people, you’ve got to have ghetto expectations.” Regarding the babe who failed the real estate certification exam and won’t call him: “I mean, she frigging bombed!”
With my girlfriend under assault at my side, it feels like Cell Phone Guy is the bully at the beach, kicking sand in our ears. I resolve to defend our honor. Steeling my nerves and pointing to another bench across the park, I shout, “Can you move over there?”
“In a minute,” he says. And he chatters on.
As I ponder what to do, it’s my girlfriend who attacks. She grabs the decibel meter, waves it at him and taunts: “Keep talking! I’m recording you!”
Cell Phone Guy gasps and mumbles, “I’ll call you back.” Lumbering over to the picnic blanket, he announces that he’s calling the cops. “This is a private conversation,” he says.
But God begs to differ. A voice descends from the sky. It belongs to a grinning homie perched in the branch of a nearby tree — and it offers some advice about the real estate hottie. “I can understand why she didn’t call you back!” God interjects. “She could just be lying about not passing the test.”
Cell Phone Guy ignores the backlash and plops onto the grass, right next to the picnic blanket. “This is about what is tasteful and what is not tasteful to me,” he proclaims. “I didn’t like the way you talked to me, so I am going to camp here until you leave.” He pushes a stick into the sod, delimiting his property. Dialing a friend, he loudly outlines his plans for a sit-in.
In Spanish, he says “tape recorder” and “bitch” and “trash.”
The Extech flashes 61.7 decibels.
Informed of the reading, he brags, a bit cryptically, “That’s stage three! That ensures that I could land at any airport.”
Cell Phone Guy is not taking off. The sky grows dark and the wind blows chilly. Even God, descending, waves good-bye. As the blanket is folded up, Cell Phone Guy changes course.
“Hey, are you guys looking for an apartment to rent?”
We decline the offer and hurry to the car, with Cell Phone Guy in tow, lobbing more questions. Only the rumble of the engine dissuades him. Turning heel, he walks away silently, cradling his phone. — Josh Harkinson
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2005.