problemas grandes en un pueblo pequeno

i was talking to my mother this evening, when i could hear in the background my dad burst in and say "there are 20 police cars up the block." this coming from a man who lives in a town that only has one police car. and at most 2 officers on duty at a time. this is a town where i once unlawfully entered the library at 2am, knowing that the police officers were changing shifts at that moment and i wouldn't be caught.

my mom said she was going outside to put some meat on the grill, and go "crook-hunting." I told her to take a big knife. she said the sawzall might be better.

an hour later i called back to get the report of what was going on.

the neighborhood was abuzz, 8 different neighbors had stopped by, all the kids were riding their bikes around checking out the scene. the traffic from 136 was rerouted on cole street, making the front porch prime viewing real estate, and the k's had come over to watch. kerkid heard a plane overhead, and thought it was a helicopter, at which point kathkid said she knew there had been helicopters on the scene earlier because she thought she had seen one.

Denny, the neighbor who you can hear from 5 blocks away, any summer night yelling "Hans" (his son's name), came over to give his version of the report. Which presumably would let the whole east side of town know, given his town crier skills. Some guy named Cletus beat up his girlfriend last night. Kerkid asked if it was Cletus Newton, the high school football defense, shotput and discus coach.

**Coach Clete was beloved by many of us back in the glory days of track where we spent more time hanging out at the IGA than running the circuit. He was the type of guy who weighed 300 pounds, but didn't let that keep him from riding his harley and being an athletic coach. Plus, since he wasn't actually "our" coach (except for mary, jessie, and marcy) we didn't have any ill feeling toward him for making us do intervals or dots or boxes or bunny hops. he was just pure fun on the track bus.**

well, kerkid heard this news and wondered aloud why they didn't just send his best friend, mike law (former hey high interim principal, athletic director, and sexist phys ed teacher) over to talk to him. taking it upon himself mr. k called mr. law and asked why he didn't just go over and talk to him. apparently, mr. law then informed mr. k that it was not Cletus Newton, but some other Cletus that lived on the same block (what are the chances?) that had beaten up his girlfriend. and apparently had a large arsenal of hunting riffles. hence the swat team being called in. oh, and by the way, coach Clete apparently doesn't even have a girlfriend (shocking!)

so, now as of 10:20 pm cst, they heytown, county, and state cops are using sirens, airhorns, and bullhorns to try to coax this other clete out of his house.

so, no doubt thanks to kerkid's assumptions and denny's loud mouth, half the town will be calling for Clete's resignation as school starts tomorrow. I'm a little sad I wasn't there for all the commotion. Not since the escaped convict ran through town 10 years ago has so much action taken place!