Night hunting in small towns

OK! I really did not intend on writing tonight, but I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. For those of you who know about what I think true freedom is (dancing in the streets with guns), this may be extra fun for you. Most of you know about my trend of meeting new and interesting characters over the last few weeks. Well tonight, just around too dark to see, my trend met freedom. I was in the house just about to get a piece of the blueberry stack cake Heather made for fathers day when I hard a loud bang. I was holding Sariah and Heather had frosting all over her hands from getting the cake to the plate. I froze for a second thinking about what could have made that sound. I was trying to hand Sariah to Heather, and she was busy looking for something to get the frosting off her hands. That’s when I remembered Archer was in his bed asleep and ran in to check on him. He was still were we had left him at 5:30. They had gone swimming and he came home and went right to bed. I looked all around the house trying to find what might have fallen but could find nothing. I was finally able to hand Sariah off to Heather, and then I went outside. As I entered into the front yard, I saw a guy walking in the street and my neighbors and their friends sitting in the driveway. There were about three cars there and a few small children. I couldn’t see that clearly and the salsa music was loud enough to drown out most of the conversation. I yelled over to ask if everything was OK and the guy in the street yelled something back. I could barely hear him. The salsa music was turned down, and I yelled my question again. That’s when I realized the guy was carrying a gun. A rifle to be exact. I immediately began looking around to check out everything in the picture to see who else might be carrying a gun. I also had a very strong realization that I did not have a gun. I hate to be the only one in a conversation without an instrument in which to kill someone. It makes me nervous, maybe it’s just me. I finally got an answer from the gunman. He yelled over in broken English, “I was shooting at the bats.” I replied with “bats?” He said “you know the flying things” and began walking over to me. I got nervous but walked out to the street were he was. He was kinda hiding the gun behind his leg with his left hand and stuck out his right and said “My name is Regal.” I said (and immediately thought of squirrel) “Hola, I’m Adam Hathaway.” I could smell the whiskey on his breath as he spoke. We entered into a conversation about guns and I told him I was a teacher and coach. He showed his gun, and all I could come up with was I teach. I was searching for common ground and still scanning the crowd. Regal told me he was the cousin of a kicker and soccer player we had a few years ago. I talked to him for a while but can’t for the life of me remember what the conversation really was. I just remember fragments of topics. To make matters worse, my other neighbor’s dog came running out to “protect” me, and I think that made him a little nervous. I didn’t want him to be nervous. Nervous drunk people with guns are not a good thing. I at least learned that much from Homerville. I told him that wasn’t my dog, and he, still in broken English, said almost doubtingly “ohhhh, so that’s NOT your dog.” This particular dog runs all over the neighborhood, but is at my house more than anywhere. The Mexicans who live next door own two rotwiellers that are chained in the yard. Several other neighbors have complained about them, but they have never been a real problem in my opinion. It suddenly hit me that this man had shot a bat out of the sky with a rifle while he was pretty drunk. I started to worry again and began running scenarios through my mind just in case he started to pull the gun on me. I quickly ended the conversation. I don’t know that I could say we “finished” the conversation; it just ended. I came inside, careful not to turn my back completely to Regal. I heard one of the children yelling about another bat flying around and figured that would be a good time to exit this scenario. I am contemplating a good “would you rather” question and trying to decide whether I should get my gun and wander the streets for a while. Don’t worry, I’ll be clothed. I’m not that free.