Rumble in the 'hood

It is the hora de cristal (This is the term for what one of our Mexican friends called the cocktail hour) so we are on the terraza with glasses of wine looking out over the city. Suddenly below us is shouting and yelling and squealing of tires and banging of metal on metal. We look down and there is a pickup truck going down our street with one guy in the back throwing bottles and anything else he can find back towards the street in front of our house and our nextdoor neighbor and his 19 year old son are chasing the truck throwing big rocks at the truck. The daughter is screaming at them to stop. After the Dad makes a good hit on the back window of the truck, just missing the head of guy in the bed of the truck, the truck takes off as fast as you can take off on a rough cobblestone street.

The Dad has a cell phone from somewhere and we hear him calling the police and he is describing the truck and giving them the license number. By this time neighbors all up and down the street are standing outside and the boys on the street are gathering outside our house. Within minutes we are an occupied territory. Police trucks, mounted policemen, motorcycle police, police with rifles are in the street. Emotions are high. The neighbor and his son are ready to defend their territory. We are partially blocked by trees and can't see all that is happening but the police are trying to calm them down. The green pickup truck has circled the block and is down in the intersection where all the police cars are. There are more police on the ground there.

Gradually things seem to calm down and one by one the police leave but the boys on the street are still gathered outside. We can see that some of them have picked up something to defend themselves in case they have the opportunity to participate in anything else that might happened. Male testosterone!

Now the neighbor is standing on the sidewalk so Ned goes down to talk to him because we have no idea what started all this excitement. He said that the boys in the pickup were drunk and they first sideswiped the barber's red Explorer and knocked the mirror off. Then they threw a beer bottle and hit his son who was working on his truck in front of the house. He said the police didn't arrest anyone because the police are friends of the grandfather of the boys in the pickup truck. Ahh, Mexico.

Everything seems back to normal now but I'm not sure it is over. As Calypso says, "Stay tuned."