We Thought He Was a Terrorist
by Joey Goebel

Ever since September ‘leventh, we haven’t been taking loud noises lightly ’round here. What some might hear as fireworks, we’re liable to interpret as gunshots. I reckon my thoughts tend to frown as much as anyone’s. Just the other day when my lady and I saw cars lined up and down both sides of my street, she said, “Someone must be having a party,” to which I replied, “Either that or a death in the family.”

So naturally it caused a stir within my own head and all heads neighboring when we heard a plane flying what sounded to be inordinately close to our homes. My mom’s China cabinets began rattling, and I hurried outside, as most of my neighbors were also doing. We all rushed out of our houses worried as could be, all looking up at the afternoon sky. Our alarm was justified when we saw that the noisy plane was a behemoth of military machinery, getting lower and lower, casting a shadow on our street.

But before I could examine this military plane more thoroughly, I noticed that some pinkish white things were falling from the sky. I looked around and found that these little items had been dropped on everyone’s lawn, including my own, and upon closer examination, I saw that they were shrimp.

The dark green plane landed on a nearby cornfield on the outskirts of our neighborhood. At this point, every resident within earshot was outside. Mothers were telling their children, “Don’t you eat that shrimp. It might be poisonous.” I, too, immediately expected that the shrimp was intended to be an innocent exterior for anthrax-delivering vessels. But whatever that pilot had in mind wasn’t working, because we weren’t even going to touch that shrimp, even if it was already peeled for us.

We were all exchanging nervous looks when we saw a man heading our way from the cornfield. He was white, about the age of fifty-seven, had dark, parted hair, and appeared to be well-groomed. As he came closer, I saw that he made a handsome older man, and his face was kind. He wore khakis and a plaid button-up shirt. He had a big button pinned to his shirt, and he was carrying what appeared to be some pamphlets of some kind. He seemed to be heading for my house.

“Well, that’s old Jack Wilson,” said my mom.

“Who’s that?”

“It’s your cousin.”

Jack Wilson smiled as he approached our front porch.

“Hey, Peggy,” he said to my mom as he hugged her.

“Why, Jack Wilson, I should’ve known that was you making all that noise, you crazy thing,” said my mom. “What are you doing, flying that plane so low to our homes and dropping shrimps everywhere?”

“I’m campaigning,” he replied. “I’m runnin’ for state senate, and I was hoping to get all you good people’s votes.” With the entire neighborhood already congregated around our front porch, Jack began distributing his propaganda pamphlets.

“That sure is a dumb way to campaign,” I said. “I thought you were a terrorist.”

Jack stopped his pamphleteering and turned to me.

“What made you think I was a terrorist? I was campaigning.”

“You were flying that military plane way too close to our houses,” I said. “And throwing that shrimp everywhere. That’s no way to campaign.”

“But I peeled the shrimp.”

“Yeah, Jack,” said my mom. “It was pretty dumb of you.”

“Well, I think anyone could’ve seen that I was campaigning.”

“No,” I said. “I think pretty much everybody thought you were a terrorist. In fact, how many of y’all thought that he was a terrorist? Show of hands.”

Every single person in the crowd raised his or her hand.

“See?” I said. “You scared us.”

“Ah, heck,” said Jack Wilson. “I’m sorry. I envisioned all of y’all catching the shrimp with your shirts turned up like baskets, and I could see the youngins catching ’em in their mouths. I peeled ’em. And everyone would be chowin’ down like it was a blessing from the sky, and I’d stroll in and do my pamphleteering while everyone was enjoying themselves eating shrimp off the ground. I sure am sorry I scared y’all.”

The crowd mumbled, “That’s okay.”

“But seeing as how you’re all here, you oughtta eat some of that shrimp.”

But the crowd wasn’t interested, and they just kind of wondered off and went back to their homes. Mom and Jack Wilson and I had all the shrimp to ourselves and ate it off the ground ’til the sun went down.