Cool Ranch Dorito Battered Walleye and What about a Backhoe?!!!

They say word gets around in a small, small town. Well, that just might be true. My new friend, Bobby, leaked a copy of Burning Xmas Trees & Airsoft Gun Wounds out his back door and that folded, creased, wrinkled copy passed hands all around the neighborhood and lucky for me I was invited back for another round of garage beer drinking, mischievous fun!

"I told the neighbors Jennifer Cole was coming up and we're having a fish fry!" Bobby told me over the phone. "They might even fry up some Phe-Zaants!"

I chuckled a smile at the thought of another go round. Suffice it to say, the weekend before I totally missed out. From what I understand this is what 'happened.' They waited until dark and drove a truck into the back yard where they loaded up an entirely assembled wooden playground and right through the neighbors yard they hauled it as the same neighbor flicked them off through the window. They took it over a few blocks to the Growler Cozy's house and sonofabitch if I could've seen that...

As I'm gearing up for Saturday, I can't help but wonder what sort of faces they'll throw my way. Bobby keeps telling me how much they loved "The Story," yet I'm still interested to see how they react towards me. Well, it's humbling to be in such great company! Even as I walked inside the neighbors house to use the bathroom, their son, girlfriend and 2 neighbor girls knew about "The Story." The spunky little Blondie told me she liked the part about her best and how it was the most creative story she'd ever read. I smiled and said, "You live it honey!" She smiled back and said I should write a book.

AHEM! EXCUSE ME! My apologies. I digress. This is not about me (blush blush!)

Back in the garage the lady down the street with the fish house in the driveway shows up with her pitcher of lemonade and Jeremiah Weed, and I can't help but wonder why she brought a glass, that straw would work just fine in the pitcher! Maxine and Pat (we'll call them) are getting out the deep fryers and a 5 pound bag of french fries and battering up some pickles! They pile those fries high on a sheet pan and load 'em up with cheese and bacon. Cheese and Bacon I squeal! "Yep, how else do you eat french fries." He says! And so it begins.

Bobby's at one fryer, talking, yelling, little boys running up to him. One of them is stocking the fridge with beer and dumps a whole case or so onto the garage floor. "DAMN, How'd you do that?! Grab some that didn't fall before you put them back in!" And the fish?! DELICIOUS. It barely hits the plate before we're nabbing at these large fillets battered in Shore Lunch and, wait for it...Cool Effing Ranch Dorito's. Yeah, that's right. There's venison steaks and pork chops on the grill. Grouse casserole in the crock pot and bacon, cheese, green onion potato salad on the table. I brought some buffalo chicken dip with celery, they laughed at me about the celery and said, yeah, no, not here honey! And the folks keep piling in. Sounds tame so far, eh? Yeah, well its still light out.

Night falls and let the fireworks begin! There's a crotch rocket racing a dirt bike down the street and a F-350 or something or other with dual exhaust coming down the road with a sticker reading SLEDNECKS in the back window. Bobby's on his deck lighting off a commercial grade 4th of July sized firework as if to say Let the Games Begin!
BOOM!

In the front yard there's a feud of fireworks between us and the people kiddy corner (or at least that's how I interpret it.) AND I do believe I happened upon the winning side for two reasons:

• One of the most Giant of the fireworks resulted in a softball sized flaming comet orbiting from the sky and missing the guy next to me in the driveway by millimeters.
• Their <sarcastic tone here> fireworks appeared to be fairly old and acted as flaming worms or snakes or some shit as they flickered across the ground instead of the sky.

You do the math...

As you may have guessed, by now, Johnny (Maxine and Pat's youngest) is running amuk. He's tumbling up to Bobby screaming, "Hey, Hey! Bet you can't catch me!!" Bobby's faking him out with loud dramatic stomps and motions and he takes off. Full speed he goes head long into the stacked hay bales he was target shooting at earlier and he's lying on the ground whimpering. I can't help from laughing from my place by the raging fire, until I come to and realize, I'm being an ASS! I yell over to see if he's okay and he gets up and starts antagonizing all over again, leaving the hay bales out for the  morning evidence and storytelling. 

It's loud mind you! In addition to all the relatives I met before, I've discovered extended cousins, neighborly merchants and people from my own freaking town! I'm wired up, running from circle to circle, remembering all their names only to rhyme them out in this story. From the driveway, Buck and Pam pull up and we're all yelling, "Get your guitars and get over here!" They stroll on through spouting nonsense about how the guitars aren't coming out tonight and how I missed last weekend when the whole damn neighborhood was belting Cash and Denver! I'm squealing and batting my buzzed up eyelashes and Buck finally obliges and we start sprouting classic tunes!

Of course, Growler Cozy's mom (Shelly,) and I are too far in to remember the lyrics we've known for ages so we dub them up on our internet phones and start bellowing where we can. And it's still loud. And we're laughing. But nothing compared to the firework madness from a couple hours ago. But, wouldn't you know it, the cops pull up!

"We got a call about noise. You running a backhoe in the yard or something?"

We're all laughing, rolling, WTF are they talking about! A backhoe?! What? We busted a full firework show, where the hell were you for that Jack Wagon! They ask who's house it was and Pat owns it, most matter of factly and forks over his ID. We're still yammering and laughing. Shelly and I are chewing chunks of now cold and jerky like venison and the Uncle's are slinked back in their chairs telling stories, belching and ripping on each other and their kids. 

When the sun comes up, Bobby and I walk over to Pat and Maxine's to get all the crap we left behind the night before and they say, "Let's go. $2 taps at the legion." Oh, who could turn down such a delightful hangover cure? We order up the tall taps and the boys are nabbing dollar bills and quarters to play the Claw Game and I'm enthralled. They've won nearly 90% of the time. What the hell is happening over there. I head that direction and they proceed to pull 4 more rubber balls from the cage, in a row. They can't lose! I'm yelling, let's clean out the whole damn thing!!

An older lady comes out of the bathroom nearby watching and says she got two the night before and went into the bathroom, put them in her shirt and the world outside the bathroom was briefly none the wiser. The boys win 2 more and give them to her. The grand total? 13 balls and 2 bears. And I'm laughing, hard, wondering what the hell? I guess from a business stance this place knows what they're doing, let 'em win so they keep playing!

We go in on pull tabs, get play backs and Pat says, "this is it, we'll win on the playbacks." Sure as shit, he pulls $100. Ah, fantastic...

And even as I try to close this, I know there's so much more to pack in. The lust for laughter and life is seeming ceaseless and my hand hurts from the ferocious speed in which I attempt to describe it all. With the threads between, lie the color as the people. If food were a language, they'd speak in meats, game and potluck and if you listen close enough you hear the sound of fish being battered in their laughter and fried in sport and fun. Where there's deer meat, there's fireworks, stray motor cross bikes, and wild, well mannered kids running on foot and their dedicated mothers taking them to try outs and buying pizza's from the other kids too! I only hope my sequel story makes them smile the way their weekend welcomes make my heart do.

PS: When do we get to go shoot some Phe-Zaants!