The Parade

Yesterday was the official start of tourist season in Periwinkle County, what is called The P3 Trail, The Pursuit of the Perfect Persimmon. It's not on the calendar. They just wait until the first good Saturday, and when they see the P3 tourists showing up, they get together and have a parade. It sort of snuck up, since everyone had just gotten back from the county vacation, and no one expected tourists so early.

It's not hard to put a parade together in PC, though, especially in an election year. You only have to get five signatures on your petition to run for office, so there were 19 candidates for sheriff in the parade, each handing out hard candies molded into the image of the candidate. Sheriff is a very lucrative position, because you are paid per deim meal money for each inmate, and it's okay to arrest family members on a per deim basis. Not only were there Democrats and Republicans running for sheriff, but also candidates from the Whig, Tory, Likud, Labour, Hamas, Tea, Coffee, Kill a Commie for Christ, and Bull Moose parties.

Also in the parade were the ladder trucks and tanker trucks and ambulances and chief cars of the VFDs of the 11 townships of PC, including Fruitvail, which is always surprising, because it's easy to forget that anyone actually lives in Fruitvail.

The bands of both high schools, The Volvo River "Marching Swedish Automobiles" and The North East Central South West "Marching In All Directions" Class 16 state champions.

Every organization in the county had marchers, including the Leak Creek Bug Lovers. No one is sure what they do, but the name gave impetus to many suggestions by the parade watchers.

The Hott Street Hussies, a Gospel singing group, also marched, in feather boas and high heels, and invited the good looking men along the route to follow them. Randall Nathan was trying to struggle up out of the deep bottom of his portable parade-watching chair to do it until Claire said, "They mean on their blog, idiot." "I'll blog 'em," said Jake Newland, just before Jenny accidentally dropped his walker on his head again.

It was an especially noisy parade, what with the cop cars and fire trucks and Hussies and candidates and bands. The bands always try to outdo each other in volume since their directors were once married to each other.

The parade was so loud that at first everyone thought that the fire alarm was just Ben "Seymour" Bottoms' cell phone. He uses "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" as his ring tone, which is also what the automatic fire alert system plays from the belfry of St. John the Catholic Baptist Church to call the volunteer fire fighters to action. Kate Bates, Seymour's wife, knew however that it could not be, because he never remembers to take his phone or his glasses with him, so it was actually Kate who spread the alarm, by shouting "Limbaugh! Limbaugh" When those around her heard her calling out The Universal Distress Signal, they took up the cry, until it had spread up and down the parade route.

All went quiet as every ear tilted toward the St. John the Catholic belfry to hear the location of the conflagration. Tourists, of course, did not understand that PC residents know in which township the fire is located by the key in which the automatic system plays "Hot Time." But the key was Middle C, which stood for... No one could remember, until three-year-old Clara Wembley blurted out "Hot damn!" Clara is not allowed to say such words, of course, but it was so quiet, she thought it would be a good time to say what she had heard her grandpa gasping last night when they were having supper at "Juanita's Cantina and Curry Palace."

Hearing "damn," every PC resident immediately remembered GD, the Government District, the little trapezoidal shaped point of land just south of town where government does or does not take place. It is not a part of any township, and so does not have any fire protection of its own. And so the race was on. Most of the VFDs haven't fought a fire in years, and each was eager to distinguish itself by extinguishing the fire and thus qualifying for more grants to buy more equipment for driving in parades. The sheriff candidates went with them, each one trying to take charge, and so did the bands, to outdo each other in providing musical inspiration to the fire fighters, and so did the Hussies, because they perform a lot in the GD and were afraid they might lose gigs if there were a real disaster.

That, of course, left a complete void for the tourists and residents along the parade route. Until Mr. Kowalski showed up with his Lemonade Party car and his untrained dogs. No one knows his real name, but he looks remarkably like Kowalski of "The Penguins of Madagascar" cartoon show. He lives out beyond the electron mines and ion caves, with his dogs, and hardly ever comes to Memphjus, the county seat. But there he was, driving his rusted-out old Packard, with his pack of scrufty dogs jumping out of the windows, bottles of lemonade in their mouths, which they delivered to one or another parade watcher, and then dashed back to get another bottle for another watcher. Well, Phydeaux and Bluster did not dash. Phydeaux trotted very primly back and forth, and Bluster meandered quite lugubriously, but they got the job done, as a voice that sounded remarkably like Lady Gaga on Prozac lilted out of the loud speakers on top of the Packard: "Relax in the shade. Vote Lemonade. Cool it."

Last night Periwinklians and tourists alike wondered about many things. Why did the fire alarm sound for the GD when there was really no fire? Is there really a Lemonade Party? Does playing louder than the other bands mean your band is better? What happened to Clara when she got home? Will Phydeaux and Bluster get married?

Claire Nathan thought to herslf: There are questions which will never have good answers. Life is full of mysteries. It's best to walk into the mysteries and enjoy being there.