Update and Explanation on the Saga of the Drama with the Excitement on Gregson Street, Part II

Sara is my best friend. Like my BEST best friend. She's that friend that gets me and likes me anyway and isn't afraid to tell me what to do. We used to be stay-at-home moms together but now our kids are in school all day, they go to different schools, and she went back to work (Huh. I seem to be the only one that no longer has an actual child at home all day who hasn't returned to the real world. Weird.). Thursday is her day off. So, Thursday is also my day off. Day off from what? Doesn't matter, really. What matters is that every Thursday I am lucky enough to be able to sit in my living room and have a drink and talk with my best friend. And when we talk, it's AWESOME. We could totally solve all the world's problems.

Last Thursday was Dirty Martini Thursday. (We generally pick a different cocktail every week. Recipes and suggestions gladly accepted). We were meeting at my house at high noon and the plan was that Sara would distract me with the awesome talking while I made fresh salsa. It's tedious, with all of the chopping. Right before noon, my dachshund started barking out in the yard. Not wanting to be the rude neighbor who lets their dogs just barkbarkbarkbarkbark, I stuck my head out the front door and hissed, "Wiener! Knock it offffff......" and then I choked. Because walking up the street past my house (along the cross bar of the T that I live on) were about a half dozen police officers, some in uniform, a couple in windbreakers that said SHERIFF on the back, one in a shirt and tie. All with their guns drawn. As they approached...wait for it...Creepy Gary's house, they trained their sights on his front door. Three of them ducked behind his car parked in the driveway. Two went to the porch to pound on the front door. One scampered one more house up the street and covered the front door with a big-ass rifle from behind a light pole. I decided there was something serious going down and called the dogs inside. And got Sara's ass on the phone.
"Where are you?" (I whispered so as not to tip Gary off that there were cops outside his house).
"I'm almost there! Sorry!"
"K, when you get here, park in front and then RUN to the side door. Hurry! There's cops surrounding my neighbor's house!" (I was yelling now, realizing that Gary couldn't hear me from way over here. That and the cops were knocking really loudly on his door and yelling for him to come out and it was very exciting). "Duck and cover! Hurry!"
"What the hell's going on?"
"I don't know, but it's some serious shit!"
I had no idea how serious it would get.

Sara pulled up and parked crookedly, almost like a movie-car stop. She scurried inside and she and I watched the half-dozen police officers give up trying to get someone to come out of Gary's house. They stood down, signaled to each other and then commenced closing the streets of the T. No one could get in, or out. So we poured a couple of extra dirty 'tinis and settled ourselves in my dining room so we could see out the big front windows and I could chop salsa. A while later, three enormous motorhomes and a bevy of cop cars flooded the bottom of the T. "Mobile Command Unit" said one motorhome. One was painted black. From that one, what looked like Army guys came flooding out. They positioned themselves in scary sniper-type places including the roof of a garage and behind some hedges. After about an hour, there was a small flurry of excitement, and the Army guys surrounded someone on the sidewalk. It was *dun dun dun* Creepy Gary himself. Looking scared and weak and like a crazy pedophile who has been in a stand-off with the cops should look. Wild-grizzled-hair-and-beard crazy. He's a cliche, really. They handcuff him and hustle him off toward the command center.

So we thought at that point it might be over. Wrong! Information about what was going on started trickling in from friends calling and texting. Apparently, Creepy Gary's latest boy toy was in a peck of trouble. He'd killed a young woman that morning; his girlfriend. And was now holed up in Creepy Gary's house with an unknown quantity of guns. Yep. These are the people Creepy Gary is bringing to this sweet quiet neighborhood.

Now I was getting worried. It was almost time to start thinking about children that would need to be picked up from school and there was no indication that the police were going to let Sara or I leave. Not that we wanted to, really, it was just getting interesting. So we made arrangements for our respective children, poured another drink and decided to watch more. But first we went out to the back yard for a minute. You know, for some fresh air.
I live on a corner. So my back yard is exposed to the cross-bar of the T of streets. The up-down part of the T starts at my front yard. This visual will help, trust me.
So Sara and I are in the back yard and can't really see what's going on, but we figure since my house is between us and Creepy Gary's house we're safe. As we're chatting about our current situation, I look up just in time to see a line of Army guys (turns out, they're SWAT team. I didn't know they wear camo) at my front gate. My front gate is locked with a carabiner to keep dogs in and small children out, and the lead SWAT guy can't get it open what with all the big-ass guns he's holding. So--BAM--he kicks in the gate and the whole team just files through my front yard, along the side, through the back yard and out the back gate. Would have been really sexy had I not just about peed myself. As they passed us one of them yelled at us to get inside and into the basement. Really? Yeah...No. We're not about to miss this action. But we nod and thank them for being awesome. Then we run back inside and duck down to watch through the front door and big front window.
Another hour or so goes by. There are little flurries of activity. Someone brings the SWAT guys hunkered around Gary's car a drink. Various official people go by my house, ducking behind Sara's car and using it as a shield which doesn't make Sara happy. A K-9 officer hunkers down behind of her car too. My dogs decide to bark at him, at which point I have to remind them that that dog has a JOB and they should just pipe down. My husband calls for an update and is righteously pissed that they cops kicked in our gate. Were they going to fix it? Pay for it? What the hell?
I gently reminded him that his beloved wife was trapped in the house surrounded by an alarmingly large arsenal of guns and nobody knew how much deadly weaponry was at the house across the street, potentially being tended by a wack-job who had already committed murder today.
"They just better fix our gate."
I feel cherished. Really.
(To give him credit, he called right back and apologized and said he loves me and hoped everything would be okay).

And finally, it was okay. The SWAT team brought out their door-basher-inner and some shield thingies and put on gas-masks. Oo! It's about to go down! They holler on the bullhorn for whomever is in the house to either answer the phone or come out or they're coming in. After some noises and more flurry, they're wrestling with someone on the front lawn. Five of them are dragging him away, right past my house to the command center.

He looks about 15. He's crying and looks like he's the one who peed his pants.

He's a boy. A lost sad boy who killed a girl and holed up with a crazy perv and nearly got himself shot by a sniper.

And it's over. The SWAT guys high-five each other, the cops in plain clothes pat each other on the back. Sara and I hug and laugh nervously and she leaves to get her kid. Cars being held back flood into the T. We neighbors gather in small groups and discuss.

And, to my utter indignant astonishment, Creepy Gary shuffles up the street. Free to go.

Part 3 soon. Must go do real world type stuff.