fun with drunks

for the past two weeks i have been busy reconstructing in the nashville area. you can check out reconstruct with the link to the right or by clicking here. reconstruct is a ministry i really do love. though it is exhausting, it is extremely rewarding to see volunteer groups of youth help fix the homes of people in need.

sometimes people don't seem to catch the vision. for instance, just this past week i encountered such a person.

pulling up to the house to check on one of our groups, i noticed a sun-burned, shirtless man in jorts (jean-shorts (tebow)) standing in the front of the lawn yelling at the kids on the roof.

'this should be fun,' i thought to myself. i put the car in park, took a deep breath and opened the door to hear a slurry of what i shall call unfriendly words geared towards me.

it became quite obvious that this man, i'll just call him jerry, was more than a bit inebriated. jerry was covered in a number of strange welts, as if he had rolled around in some type of prickly bushes just for kicks and drunken giggles. when i took a look at the back of his head, i could do nothing but admire the rat tale he must have so painstakingly maintained since the mid-eighties.

the belligerent jerry decided i was to blame for an alleged mooning from two of the kids from this group. the kids denied it, the adults didn't see it but jerry was quite convinced that he had seen to adolescent derrieres exposed in his general direction. he preceded to accost me with a verbal onslaught that would make sailors uneasy, provided those sailors liked to use an excess of profanities and poor grammar.

i apologized more times than i should have, with each attempt to move past this incident resulting in more and more squiffy retorts coming from jerry. it is as if each time i told him it was wrong of those kids to do that, we were very sorry and would punish the children was as offensive as somebody exposing their hindquarters on an unexpected swiller.

as the conversation went on, jerry decided he should call the police. this was just plain silly for him to do. yet the bibber had lost the ability to reason out this situation quite some time ago, judging by the rat tail.

he dialed 911, reported the mooning and talked to me as if i had better get ready for my stay in prison.

thank God he did that. the phone call meant i didn't have to speak with him any more. we would wait for the cops to arrive and let them sort it out.

jerry would yell something at me across the street. i would yell back that we weren't talking until the police arrived. this actually made him a bit sad. it is as if he was a little boy that kept doing something long after i'd asked him to stop, never really believing i would take the toy away. i did take away my ears for him to yell in and my face in which he would waive and point his arms and fingers. yes, he looked a like a sad little boy when i told him to be quiet, a sweaty derelict of a child.

the police finally arrived, as did the higher ups of reconstruct. jerry was greeted by the officer with "we're tired of seeing you jerry. what is it this time?" jerry preceded to lay out his accusations with passion, vigor and absolutely no lucidity whatsoever. it was actually quite fun to watch.

the police officer gave him an option: he could let it go or go to prison for public intoxication. with the wisdom of solomon, jerry opted to drop it. i guess he was less pickled than i originally estimated.

with that, we gave our side of the story. we said that we don't think the kids did what jerry accused them of doing. the officer said, given the chance, he probably would have mooned jerry himself.

he said this with a bit of remorse. as a police officer, he was held to a higher standard and could not go about pulling his pants down towards possible law-breakers. although that would be an interesting crime-fighting tactic. it would confuse the perpetrators. the officer assured us we wouldn't have any trouble from him and went his way.

jerry gave up the dream and didn't bother the crew again.

we went our separate ways. yet i know jerry and i will always have a special bond. it is a connection built on love and sensitivity. he pushed me to the edge of my patience: spitting in my face so generously, nearly poking me oh so many times, etc. i thank him for it.

"jerry," if you're out there reading this, or if you can even read this, i love you man. maybe we can go rolling around in a thicket sometime or i could put some beads on that rat tail of yours. whatever you're up for buddy, i'm game.