...Something so familiar
seemed to be hanging
just outside my periphery...
like an annoying honey bee
Suddenly I popped up
from a languid moment
of heat driven exhaustion....
knowing something
had to be done.
So I grabbed my official hat
out my office door I...hobbled along  
due...to... my left leg being asleep
"wake up you fool"
I muttered as I angled
past the front desk
where
that new deputy stood playing on some little box
"Is that an IPOD?"
No sir! what's an Ipod ?
never mind
just keep people off that bridge
till I return and tell you different! Is that clear?
Yes sir Danial...uhhh chief ...!
Good now get going.

I got to go talk to the D. A.
then out I went to the most oppressive sept heat seen in decades

"NO! No way! That's not possible!"
You think so...? the chief asked
well just look out there in the streets.
Where are the kids-
home studying for school when it's still 2 days away?
Raymond Frazer D.A. for Upton county + 2 more back in the hill country.
"I am...de...
doodlytermined
so you coming?
"Yeah chief...but just to prove you...
can't and won't
overstep your authority."
And who would determine that? Judge.... Willoughby?well let's go see what he has to say then.
If you can get him
to approve your overreach
I won't say another word!

Hello Judge my dispatcher call you?
"Yes. She did and ,I must say...lunch?sure ,but it sounds like a walk down memory land lane
We might as well! gonna get some good bbq and cold beer out on the hiway.
10 minutes.
We will pick you up
after you get done with Betty Lou

oh and write this on a sheet of of cardboard and post it. .*** the judge chuckled
be there to pick you up in a jif.

Who's Betty Lou? And where we going now?
Find that Deputy of mine give him a special assignment.

County ordinance or 2
So ....
Technically
we were trespassers
By all truth of right, wrong or law...but
No harm meant by the rules
we bent
MAYBE...
Telling too many seemed the major flaw


That overbearing, solar flaring, heat streak
summer of desperation turned inspiration
When seeing people instead of watching people
Gave me different ways of creating separation

From what I see and what I'm shown
What I'm told and what it is
I actually hear
What I say and what I truly believe
And how somethings really are...just as they appear

Amazingly enough this cyber shift implosion
Crashed thru the outer me
careening around within my fragile core
While crouching down in a clump of bushes
Staring into caramel brown eyes of a girl...who was
Just as naked as me

It blew through town back then  like a hot dry wind on a July day
When people were melting like long stick candles   bowing
like an emissary to a King
In any window where the aftenoon sun shines bright
As it is
magnified...like the stupid cruel rumor

A rumor that a farmer broke a water main while plowing

Literally what else would it take to break
That fragil overbearingly irriatatingly ******* monotony
that held the midwest
American small towns dying summer that
year
a near-death grip
Except.... maybe...if
the rumor had
turned out to be phony

The trail of misfit cars, pickups, motorcycles rolling North
must have looked like the jailbreak/ carnival parade it was...that
seemed to gather stragglers like a magnet gathers iron filings
Soon on saddle bank road 120+ kids
Naked and as innocent in the fact...
That one might think that today was the day
they were born and in some ways...
they were! Fully fledged
in exodus
from the womb
of pure monotonous ladened
claustrophobic morality... have way to languished hedonistic daydreams

Static groups of slow-melting apparitions
Unaware uninspired unintended refugees
Of homes...
of family...
and abject boredom
of that sad summer of high petrol- low crude performance and
Summer jobs never blooming and now... add a drought.

As the final Saturday wilted on the absentee mind
Before the Monday rises to drag them back in...
...to the ritualized killing of all who found
The looming tedium  of lessons and tests
unbearably cruel to have school begin its pull
Without ever even having a glimpse
Of the dying ghost
of a summer break that never was.

Until...that steady drone
rose from a distance
Those 90cc pistons
spitting hope as its frantic echo
Seemed
to somehow announce
from 3 miles away
"help he's killing me!"

Razer was making that hybrid bike scream
then...right down main he came shouting thunderously
But to no avail...
....as every word
unheard...
undecipherable

"...daughter shake
bigganake
common shop..." was the word that ppl heard....

...then it died
PISTON ROD took off over the barbershop
Headed for the moon

Razer stood over the smoking carcus
Spit on it ...kicked it... then saluted it ...
Before saying hey common nowz its flowing and growing
Quicker than quick ...
and that was how summer came to a glorious end.

with a ten acres puddle
Water spraying 30 ft high and by gawd we took to it like
butter to hot biscuits.
until that is
the cops arrived!

And we all run to hide.
.. so here's where
I started this tale

Shhh.. I said
to this *******
beside me
Flesh-colored and glistening ...
We better stay put
you know...
... till it calms down
Hey!  I don't believe I've ever seen you around...the town before...
do you live here... in Braeden  I mean?

We just moved here
she said.
Hi, I'm Joy-Ann Hope
And she surely was at that!
  forever  ...well
Until I changed her last name and she became Joy-Ann PAYNE.
HEY IM NOT TO BLAME
9 MONTHS  later we
met a little girl
named Summer Dawn Payne!

We know all that Daniel...but you cannot expect us...the DA and Chief judge ..not to mention members of the school board and...
Shut that up Judge Willoughby...
and be Mickey Willoughby and Ray Ray ...not D.A.Frazier for a second so you can remember.
Think back 38 yrs and how that line of dried out ,dusty, forlorn kids suddenly came alive that day ...the horns honking, bicycle tires spinning and Ol Joey P ...rest his soul on that horse of his as it clattered along the concrete and clopped by the lead car by galloping along the grass shoulder.
Beat us all to the puddle and I will never forget what we saw when we got close
Him and the mare neck deep ...ha haha ha Yes. Joey P and Nantucket Grey were good people. Rest in peace old friends.

Okay ...the heck with it say the judge mickey to the sad moment of revered silence ...I'm about ready to retire and as I recall that day now I realize 1 thing
Crystal effen clear now
I saw Mary Hortons ...uhh Who that day..and that I somehow got old.
I'm sold Chief ...Sorry, Daniel what do we do?
Well Ray Ray County DA what do you not have to say now?

Just Question guys...shall we go get a tractor or sledge hammers?

Oh come on guys this is the 21 century and I am chief of police with ... well army surplus courtesy
of the fed gov and everything we said we would fix when we got "growed up"
Maybe today we help the next gen or two know what freedom really feels like.
Ray .. call the sheriff " little Bobbie Jones " and tell him
- and them-
to stay the f away.
Judges order.  
Hope wins again.