I was procrastinating. I needed to revise an article I submitted about Toni Morrison and Arab feminist writers...and yes, by then I felt as if I would rather have leapt off the Bay Bridge than look at the damn paper again. In service of my need not to revise, I thought I would go outside and trim trees. Did in in my underwear. I spent about 45 minutes doing that, bagged up the remains and went inside. Just as I settled down to write and I heard helicopters and police cruisers circling my neighborhood. Then police with bull horns screaming and figures running around my house. I had just stepped inside. Looking outside I saw four young men running from yard to yard trying to escape the hunters. My dogs went crazy. Helicopters were humming overhead. Cruisers were beeping and men were yelling. The men being hunted crossed back and forth around my house and then into and out of my yard, hopping over the walls.
It's like T.V. except I hadn't seen this episode a million times. For a second I hoped they were after my neighbors from across the street. Good. I hate those people. Remembered I was standing around in a bra and underwear and put on some pants and a t-shirt because I knew I would just look silly swinging a bat while dressed only in polka-dotted bikini briefs.
Then the police rolled in on the sides of my house and hopped the walls to get to their prey.
"Get down!" "Get fucking down!" etc. being screamed as the hunted tried to find any way to escape.
Finally there were four men on the ground in my backyard and a bunch of policemen cuffing them. I lock my gates because I want to protect my dogs. So after everyone seemed under control I opened my back door and asked if they'd like me to open the gate. One policeman laughed and said, "Yes please. If I can avoid having to hop over the walls again...be good." I complied. The crowd trooped away. There were a few more exciting moments in the street in front of my house and then just before the policemen rolled away they wished a happy birthday to the kids and their parents who were partying when the hunt drove them inside for the duration. Happy Friday. Now back to my article and my haunted house. My cat died last week and I see her everywhere. She was unimpressed by the running men.
Oh, yes, they had murdered someone a block from my house. Life is a spectacle.
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