Cuffed

I come upon the scene with no context. I’m out for a walk on Tuesday night, really enjoying the delicious spring weather. I get to the corner of the block that my apartment building rests on and there they are. Two police cars on the curb, lights rotating. Three officers are milling about. Two male and two female suspects are on the ground, handcuffed. The blonde guy starts saying something about how he doesn’t know one of the others. One of the girls just sits there demurely, like this is normal for a Tuesday night. The other is face down in some grass, squirming around and trying to get the attention of one of the officers. It’s a bizarre scene, one that is probably a hair away from a “Cops” episode save the fact that these four people are white. I decide to stop and watch the scene unfold a bit more. I ask one of the Policemen what happened and he refuses to comment. A paddywagon pulls up a short while later and the hooligans (presumably they are hooligans, but who knows?) are corralled into the truck with cuffed wrists behind their backs. Overall, I am surprised by the calmness of the scene. No struggling, no abusive prisoners, no chase scenes through inner city neighborhoods. The whole thing has a very “Canadian” feel to it. Everybody is nice and even pleasant about the arrest and the kurfuffle that it has caused along this genteel strip of E-Town houses. After half an hour or so, the scene clears up and I make my way to my building. Just before I enter my home, I notice a large flock of Canadian Geese honking overhead. I watch them pass over the city, oblivious to it’s goings on. They honk and fade into the fluffy pink of the northern sky.