Had a freaky-weird experience last night…

I happened to glance out the window while Beth and I were tucking Zoe in bed and I saw a duck in the street. The duck was just standing there, a few feet out from the curb, just loitering in the intersection. I recognized it as our neighbor’s duck (there’s a story for another entry there), but it was still weird to see a duck in the road.

Weirder still, there was a car stopped next to it. Not really parked, more like it was just … stopped … sort of halfway through the intersection. At first I thought the driver side had been caved in in an accident, but then I realized that it was just the driver door standing wide open. So that was double weird: a duck in the road, and parked next to it a car with the door open but no driver.

I looked out the window to see what was going on. Not much, really: just a duck standing around in the street and an empty car stopped partway into the intersection with the driver side door open. Oh, and a grey cat walking by, also in the street. It was surreal. Something was just not right about this situation (obviously), so I went outside to investigate.

I opened the front door and stepped out to find a disheveled middle-aged man on my front lawn, sneaking up on Zoe’s cat Sparkle, who was sitting calmly at the foot of the front steps. My What The Fuck meter pegged itself in the red.

Let me digress for a moment and try to impress upon you just how surreal this scene was.

First, the car stopped in the street. That was just weird. It was just there, parked partway through the intersection, as though someone were driving along and then just suddenly stopped for no reason and got out, leaving the door open. I had the visceral impression that the driver had just disappeared, been called up by The Rapture or something. Weird.

Secondly, the duck. That was fucking weird. It wasn’t weird that there was a duck there in the first place, because our neighbors have ducks in their front yard wading pool (which is weird, but like I said, it’s a story for another entry), what was really weird was that A) the duck was outside their fence and standing in the street, and B) the fucking duck was just standing there in the street. It was standing about five feet away from the curb, on the other side of the car, and about five feet behind it. And it was just standing there, stock-still, almost at attention. Really weird.

Thirdly, the grey cat. Not mine, dunno whose it was, I’ve never seen it before. It ambled into view from behind the car, just sauntering its way across the street, paying no attention to the car or the duck, and the angle from which it appeared made it seem almost as though it had apparated into being in mid-stride. Really, really weird.

So I’ve got all this weirdness going on as I open the front door: Raptured car, at-attention duck, magic cat, all going on in the middle of the intersection in the harsh sodium glare of the streetlamp. And then I’ve got Freak Boy in my front yard.

I stepped out the door and in the same glance noted Sparkle sitting calmly on our walkway, and then Freak Boy on the lawn a few yards away sort of hunched over and creeping up on her.

What’s going on out here? I said.

I don’t remember his exact words, but they added to the surreality of the scene. He said that he lived “down the street,” that “the two black cats were playing with the bird” and that he was “trying to catch the black cat because I’m looking for a cat. I need a cat. Do you know if there are any stray cats around here? Do you know if anyone has any kittens?” I don’t remember his exact words but it was clear that he wanted a cat — why, I don’t know. And maybe don’t want to know.

My mental gears were already grinding from the duck and the car and cat and the surprise of finding this clown in my front yard, and this latest just made my brain short-circuit. My instinctive reaction should have been — under less confusing circumstances would have been — to run this weird motherfucker off with a quickness. I should have frog-marched his ass back to his car, tossed him into it, told him if I ever saw him again I would kick his ass, and that I would track him down if any of my cats ever went missing. Instead I sputtered something about “the black cat is mine, the duck belongs to the neighbors, and there aren’t any stray cats around here.”

He wandered back to his car while I stood there watching him. He got in, made a very sketchy U-turn, and drove slowly back down the street in the direction he’d said he lived. And that was the end of it. Or was it?

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that he didn’t just happen to drive by and stop at random.

Consider this: Let’s imagine he was legitimately driving by when he stopped, maybe he was going to 7-11 for cigarettes. Then he sees two cats “playing” with a duck in the street. He stops, gets out, skulks around and acts like a fucking weirdo until a homeowner confronts him. Busted, he gets back into this car to leave.

The key question: Which way does he go?

He’s getting cigarettes, remember? So wouldn’t he get back in the car, start it up, and continue driving the way he was going when he stopped, keep on going for his smokes? Why the fuck would he make a U-turn that requires him to reverse-drive-reverse-drive his way through a 5-point turn and then go back in the direction of “home”? That just don’t add up.

I think maybe he came to my corner specifically looking for a cat. I think I just happened to come outside and interrupted him in mid-catnap. I also think maybe he’ll be back.

So tonight, when I get home from work, I’m going driving through the neighborhood until I find this clown’s car. And when I do, we’re going to have us a little talk. He’s not going to want a cat when I’m finished with him. At all.