Kermit Ladd Fiction: The Wall of Sound

Once again, I’m combining this week’s Three Word Wednesday post with real life. This is a stand-alone piece, but you old-timers will recognize and remember Kermit Ladd.

Kermit Ladd, intrepid journalist, was sent to the gorgeous suburb of Maison Villa to meet with legendary guitarist Terry Fantillo. With his seventh wife by his side, he proceeded to show all present his scaled-down models of the stack of amplifiers he intends to build.

“It’ll be the second man-made object visible from space,” he brags. One almost expects him to pound on his puffed-up cheset, but all present are spared that spectacle.

“I thought about making it a touring exhibit,” he goes on to say, “but my engineers told me it would be better to make it immoble. Otherwise, my stack,” he ads with one of those nods that tells you the speaker is about to divulge a huge secret for your ears only, “would confuse the astronauts in the International Space Station. They wouldn’t ever know what city they were looking at, or what part of the world was showing. I think it’d be great, but NASA wasn’t so into the idea. The astronauts have enough to deal with and focus on up there, I guess.”

When asked if he would ever turn on this wall of amplification, Fantillo laughs. “Wouldn’t that be the ultimate retribution for the asshole neighbor who keeps letting his dog shit in your yard?”

His laughter goes on even when he’s the only one laughing. If the atmosphere becomes strained, Fantillo doesn’t notice.

“Yeah, we’ll turn it on once or twice,” he says once his guffaws have smoothed out into something approaching a state of sobriety. For Fantillo, widely rumored to have an unacknowledged drinking problem, that is quite the claim. “The engineers tell me anyone in close proximity will be sorry, but we’ll do it. Maybe when we have friends over for the Super Bowl or New Year’s Eve.”

Wife Number Seven nods.

Fantillo smiles at her as if she has greatly pleased him. “It’s enough to have such a thing,” he says. “My wall of amplification. Maybe someone will put it in a museum, or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s going to be one-of-a-kind. No one will ever duplicate what I’m doing.”

The question, dear readers, is why anyone would ever want to.