Not the real bird

Night had fallen on my friends and I. I was the only one who could drive and had a car, but we were on foot tonight. We were rowdy and pushy. Spirits were high and we had the kind of energy which leads to both fun and trouble.

For a while the group of us had taken to fake flipping each other off in school. With a cleverness which was apparent to only us, we would slip a balled hand out and extend our ring finger upwards. The idea was to shock the person who had hast been fake flipped, but of course, we all knew what was going on. Something about that edge of doing something wrong was so attractive.

As you might imagine, in our goofiness walking through the neighborhood there was no shortage of this fake gesture, made even more convincing the the dim light. One subtle bird became two with hands held high. From there we were fake flipping off every neighbor who had we perceived had ever wronged us, might have wronged us, or had a foreign car. We laughed and talked in competing voices.

We could hear the truck before we could see it. It was Dukes of Hazard orange and lifted up on giant tire. Maybe a poor man's versions of Bigfoot. It came from behind us flashing it's brights so we would clear out of the street where we were walking. Even though we couldn't see the driver, I could imaging the overly cool, too cool for us, driver who would be behind the wheel.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one because as soon as it passed us, we rolled back into the street behind him and one of us, I think Scott, flipped him a fake bird. Our laughs were cut short when the truck slammed on the breaks and then into reverse. As the engine picked up speed, we scattered. I was convinced we were all going to get beat up.

Three of us scattered in the same direction. We ran through a yard and hid in a bush. We watched as the truck chased the other, larger group. I didn't even know where I was, but I didn't want to move. We needed to remain stealthy. We couldn't seem to slow our breathing.

Eventually, we decided to move out. We needed to find the other group and head home. We didn't even get close to the sidewalk, the shadows cast by the houses around us were our friends. We tried to keep as low of a profile as possible. I thought for sure we would hear the truck if it got close, but I wasn't going to risk it.

A the corner we ran to get in and out of the street light. Half way across two things happened. First, we located the rest of our friends, Second we heard the familiar sound of the truck breaking and turning towards us from a few blocks away. We ran. The sound of the ridiculous engine swallowed us. I was pretty sure Scott had gotten us all killed. If they were mad before, they had to be real mad now.

I didn't dare look, but I could tell the gap was closing. We made it into a larger yard by the main road. Well got the other side of a big pine tree. There were too many of us to completely hide, but it was a good spot to plan our next move.

We watched through the branches as our oversized enemy waited at the corner revving his engine. It was terrifying. Then, I guess with his point made, the truck made a left a drove off. There was silence as we considered if it was a trick. Then we laughed. Then, as we made our way home, we talked about how we could have taken him.