What Louise sees through her kitchen window so startles her that she drops her cell phone into a sink full of dirty dishes. She steps back, away from the window where she can’t be seen from outside.

Lamont, her next door neighbor, is hopping around on his rooftop, dressed in a black jumpsuit and wearing camouflage face-paint. He’s trying to look like a Navy Seal on a covert mission. Lamont positions himself for a kill-shot of a hapless victim in his back yard.

No, Lamont isn’t really going to kill anybody. He is, of course, just a "pretend" mercenary on a self-appointed training mission. Lamont’s weapon of choice — a crossbow.

Louise is afraid for her four-year-old son, Teddy, who likes to climb trees in the back yard. Neighbors have asked Lamont repeatedly to quit his rooftop antics. Twice deputies have made trips to Lamont’s house. Always the man promises to take his hunting toys deep into the woods, far away from the neighborhood.

But every few weeks, here’s Lamont out stalking imaginary bad guys with this ancient weapon. Today the prey is a full-sized, vinyl, inflatable woman, wearing a bikini.

She’d be a goner too, except that just as Lamont takes aim, his foot slips on the steep roofline. Seconds later he’s tumbling onto a wooden deck 12 feet below.

The erstwhile warrior dislocates a shoulder and suffers a career-ending wound. During Lamont’s fall the weapon fires, imbedding a barbed metal arrowpoint into his ankle. The incident makes the 11 o’clock news as a reporter tries in vain to keep a straight face while referring to a "local William Tell who shot himself in the foot."

For weeks after the crossbow incident, Lamont gets crank calls teasing him about the "William Tell incident." And that’s the last anybody in this neighborhood hears about Lamont. One weekend he packs up and leaves for parts unknown. Neighboring families have a cookout to celebrate Lamont’s departure.