UNBELIEVABLE!
I just finished my evening walk.
I wait for the breezy part of the afternoon. After all - it's Texas.
Quiet out ...until - until it wasn't!
I hear horns honking. A regular riot of horns.
Rounding the corner I see what can only be described as
some kind of procession headed toward me.
First thought: it must be a funeral.
But heck no!
Every one of the seven cars displayed blinking lights, emergency lights flashing, colored balloons flapping on the radio antenna...
Who'd celebrate a funeral??
At the tail end of the procession was a local police car - it too had every damn one of its lights flashing, its horn honking like all the rest!
WTF is going on??
A long shotgun barrel pokes out of the lead car window and a deafening blast echoes through the neighborhood.
I jumped out of my skin...of course - you would too.
But the blast was filled - not with buckshot - Nooooo - a showering cascade of multi-color confetti rained down.
What in hell?
I'm so puzzled my head hurts.
"I've got to figure this out." I said to myself.
___
From one of the cars a young man jumped out for a minute or so to speak to a neighbor who had been sitting on a lawn chair in his own driveway. I could see them chatting before the kid returned to the car just as the cavalcade of cacophony made the right turn and shambled toward my street.
Once and awhile the shotgun blast and confetti banged aloud and the riot of honking horns magnetically extracted the neighbors out their interior quarantines in stupefied curiosity.
"Yeah - join the club", I mutter to myself.
I suddenly had an idea.
I turned on my heel and headed toward the old fella in his drive-way, stopping short by about twenty feet as I asked him aloud:
"DID THAT GUY you were talking to explain what's happening?"
He snuffled and nodded.
"Yeah, Billy Joe used to be my paper boy - he recognized me and stopped to say hello."
I waited ... "A-n-d ?????"
He sat back down in his chair.
"His brother Stevie Ray just got released from County Jail on account of the shut-down and pandemic. The whole family is celebrating", he said.
I thanked him and walked away.
None of what he said made a bit of sense. I wasn't satisfied.
Five minutes later I turned my corner and - straightaway- beheld a most unexpected sight!
All the cars were jammed together and several police vehicles had them wedged in - hands up - apparently under arrest.
I walked within hearing distance of a police woman. I thought I would hazard a dumb question... more of a statement, really.
"One of the neighbors way back down the street said some guy named Billy Joe had been released from lockup and the family was just celebrating."
Oh the look this policewoman gave me!
A hard expression with radioactive beams piercing my skeletal structure caused me to stiffen with sudden fear.
Then, she just sort of laughed spontaneously.
"Released? He broke out and called his daddy to come and get him. The dad rounded everybody else up. It was his mamma's birthday they were celebrating when they got the call."
(I just stood with my jaw open)
"That officer with the red face and the handcuffs over there followed them all the way from County Jail. I'm surprised he didn't shoot em' all."
She laughed again and then - just as suddenly - went back to being dead serious.
I skedaddled, as we say in Texas.
___
The damnedest sight I ever beheld in my life ...
that is, if you don't count the really ugly naked lady who insisted on sunbathing in her backyard as my friend Doug and I mowed her grass for money back in high school.
____
