Red Weather F'13

out:

“Excuse me!”

But no one seemed to hear him. He repeated himself, more loudly this time.

“Excuse me, sir!”

Still no one seemed to hear the officer. Not even one set of eyes turned to see where the voice had come from. The man on the milk crate continued to preach, accompanying his words with a few wild, pugnacious hand gestures.

“Excuse me, folks, I’m afraid you’re all going to have to clear out...”

The officer faltered. “You’re loitering and causing a public disturbance…I’m sorry, but you’ll all have to go home…”

But the group gave no ostensible response. Two of the other officers went over to the mass of people and began tapping certain individuals on the shoulder and decorously informing them that they would have to move their meeting somewhere else. But even then no member of the crowd seemed to notice the presence of the officers. Their eyes remained fixed on the man who was speaking on top of the milk crate. They nodded and smiled when they agreed with what he said, they made that unfamiliar sign on their chests whenever he said that particular word (“Simple”? “Sample”?), but they would not respond when one of the police officers tapped them on the shoulder.

The officers stepped back from the group and stood with their hands on their belts for a minute or so. Then they walked back to their squad cars and drove away.

The police never returned, and no further attempts were made by the city to respond to the urgent complaints of its citizens.

IV.

On the twenty-eighth day of November, two extraordinary things happened—extraordinary in that even to this day they lack a proper explanation.

To understand the first and less tragic event, the reader must first recognize the realities of Amos’ unfortunate geographical location. Although extremely isolated and surrounded by desert plains on all four sides, the city still sees a reasonable amount of commercial traffic, as Highway 89A offers the state’s northwestern quarter its only access to the capitol city. On an average day one might see between ten and fifteen 18-wheelers roll down 48