The Black Box

I have a neighbor who lives across the valley from me. He's a bit of a rube, a yabbo, a park drunk and a nice fellow. I guess he's about 44 and he doesn't have a driver's license so he walks through the vineyards by my house and up the road to the park where he plays frisbee golf and drinks cheap beer.

By eighteen holes he's well lubricated and then he'll stagger around the park like a clown in borrowed clown shoes for a couple of hours talking to any other park drunks that will share their slurry with him and he'll try and score some more beer down at the store. Then he'll stagger home where he rents a room from some christian fellow who also employs him sober hanging gutters and painting houses.

I play frisbee golf with him up until his 4th beer then I tell him I won't play with drunks and he falls back and sits on a bench and thinks about what I said while drinking another beer.

The thing is, he's a pretty good player up until that 4th beer- a challenge to beat, actually, and Selma lacks for competition when it comes to things like good frisbee golf players so I tolerate the drinking and just make fun.

"Goddamn it, now how can a park drunk beat me like that?"

"Wow, good drive for a drunk,"

That sort of thing.

This fella is big and dopey and very pleasantly dispositioned- he just doesn't like himself very much, I suppose, and wants to escape his rather boring life with some frisbee golfing and drinking- so he don't mind my ribbing as long as I'll stay and play with him.

Well, the other morning he was stone cold sober up at the golf course. Drinking ice water!

"You won't believe what happened to me the other night."

"You're prolly right."

"The sherriff came to my door after I got home. I was pretty hammered..."

"That's a surprise,"

"...and he wanted to see inside my bag."

(This fella carries a backpack, a big backpack, around with him all day. In it, he carries about six frisbees, about six 16 oz. beers, and all the empties to get his deposit back.)

"I told him no way. I just got out of the shower and had a towel wrapped around me so I wasn't about to wrestle with him. But I got really angry. Luckily, my boss was there and he settled me down. "Ron," he said "just show him what's in the bag." I let him look and he found nuthin' but my beer cans and frisbees."

"What was he looking for?"

"Some black box that brings down airplanes."

"What?"

"That's what he said.He said he got a report I had a black box that brought down airplanes, that some neighbor saw me trying to use it and reported me."

"You're not smart enough to know how to use a black box that brings down airplanes."

"THAT'S WHAT I SAID!"

Such is life here in Selma...