I Need To Learn Spanish

Dog walking can be an exciting experience. Chauncey and I usually walk later in the evening, but tonight he wanted to go out early. It was not even 8:30 when we stepped out the back door of our building and into the pine needles that cover the floor of the back yard.

Picking our way across the hard cherry looking fruit that falls off the other trees, we heard tires squealing and saw a car roar past us on the street. It is a busy street, but most of the traffic travels at a modest speed. Not this car. We barely saw it!

A few moments later a police car quietly pulled into the parking lot. I watched it and urged Chauncey over into the trees so I could see where it was going. There is a policeman who lives here, but it turns out this wasn't him, or if it was, he was not just coming home. By the time I could see the car, the officers inside were gone, but the air was filled with sirens.

We are not far from two major thoroughfares, so the sirens could be going anywhere, but something just told me they were coming here. I edged in a bit closer to the parking lot, which is huge, probably three blocks, or more, long, and wide. Chauncey was thrilled, there were trees here he'd never sniffed before. Soon, emergency vehicles entered from both ends, accompanied by squad cars, all converging in one area.

Not generally an ambulance chaser, but finding it irresistible when it was so close, I worked my way around to the office area and stood back where I could see, but would be out of line for any real trouble. People were starting to appear around the entire perimeter now. It's hard to dismiss that many flashing lights. Also a birthday party was breaking up and parents were coming to pick up their children from the clubhouse. I tried to listen to what everyone was saying.

Two young women who are my neighbors on my end of the complex were excited, wondering if they would put up police tape and how big an area they would cordon off. "In my old place, the father of some chick's youngest came and shot up her crib then her oldest's daddy came, picked her up and dumped her in front of the emergency room door. Only he didn't go in 'cause he already had five warrants out on him. Of course the cops blamed him. They taped off everything. We had to crawl under it, or step over it every time we went out."

A woman with four little girls, who were making over Chauncey, was chattering animatedly into her phone in Spanish, occasionally nodding and smiling at me. She might have been asking me something, but I don't speak Spanish and she evidently uses her children as interpreters. Unfortunately for us, the kids were more interested in the dog than anything else by this time.

The police escorted a man on a stretcher out and put him in the ambulance. He was sitting up and appeared okay to me, but who knows. I suppose you can look pretty good, but if they are hauling you out on a gurney something is wrong. Then the other ambulance roared out, sirens blaring. Looking around the parking lot, I could see people standing there, back lighted like something out of, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." A huge area surrounded by faceless people standing in small groups peering into the distance and beginning to fade back into wherever they came from.

Chauncey and I also decided it was time to make our exit and we went home via the back pathways, moving from one puddle of light to the next until we reached our own sidewalk where the girls we had been standing by earlier, hurriedly put their huge pit bull mix back into their apartment and went back to being the strangers who never speak.

United by a few minutes of excitement, we have all retreated, once more, back into anonymity.