This next little ditty comes to you courtesy of my experiences on my neighbor's swingset when we lived in Ontario. Yes, the town with the terribly small-bedroomed house, school bus drivers that don't let you cross the street to board, and schools with TABLES so we sit like cattle. With all of Ontario's apparent downfalls to a spoiled seven-year old, my neighbor's swingset was the highlight of my life. I had a tire swing in my backyard. The tire swing was fun, until your idea of fun no longer included winding it up and spinning yourself around until you were about to vomit. When that lost its luster, I'd head next door where there were two swings, a swinging see-saw thing, a fort, a slide, and a swinging monkey bar (that would later cause my first broken nose).
Can you say baller, shot-caller?
Anyway, one day during my admittedly many forays into their backyard, I got way more entertainment than I bargained for. To set this up properly, I have to tell you about our crazy, white-trash neighbors across the street. The lady was a single mom who looked and acted like Tanya Harding, and her two sons were often the ones who got in trouble for shooting their Nerf guns at random wildlife in the neighborhood. I'm fairly certain they also set several small fires in their driveway. Basically, they were legitimate butt-plugs. In addition to that, their yard was dotted with several pink flamingos, as a means of "classy" lawn art, and there was a bird fountain that was covered in bird crap that served as the piece d'resistance of the whole yard.
Shortly after we moved there, Tanya got a new boyfriend. Take every stereotype about car racing, mullets, and guys that drive shitty pickups, and you have Billy Ray Cyrus 2.0.
This is pretty accurate, minus the "authentic" Nascar crew jacket. Shirt unnecessary.
This dude pretty much moved in with Tanya...and that resulted in more than one visit from the local police. I'm sure this was about as much activity as the police got, since most calls probably involved livestock blocking traffic or someone trying to write the word "Poop" on the side of the school. And then came the day and Billy 2.0 and I would cross paths.
I was enjoying my time on the swingset when I heard yelling coming from the general direction of the should-be trailer home. I looked up to see Billy 2.0, aka Nascar, aka Waffle House wedding groom, come sprinting through the yard between my house and the house next door, being tailed closely by two cops. Naturally, he was shirtless, and was trying desperately to be agile in barefeet and skin-tight jorts. He kept sprinting right into the creek at the back of our yard and took off splashing downstream. He took a moment to wave at me as I gaped at the scene unfolding in front of me. I would later wonder why he waved. I'm not sure I'd have the where-with-all to be polite to an 8-year old who is privy to one of my life's more embarrassing moments. But maybe that's in the mullet code of honor. Regardless, I hopped off my swing and started to follow them. Not closely follow, but enough to where I could see what happened as they rounded a bend in the creek a few houses down. Billy 2.0 got straight-up tackled by the cop who was obviously tired of dealing with his shit. I bet Ontario cops don't sign up for strenuous exertion when they take the job, and this dude was furious. Billy 2.0 didn't put up much of a fight, and after they cuffed him, I quickly ran back to the swingset so I didn't look like the neighborhood creeper who was watching the local scandal.
I think after this final debacle, Tanya dumped Billy for good. At least he was never around much after that. His familiar rust brown pickup truck did not grace Tanya's driveway for quite some time, and I was secretly sad that I wouldn't get to see real live episodes of Cops unfold right across the street. Sigh.
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