DOCTOR, DOCTOR

No Patience With Patients
            He bit his lower lip in pain and stared at me with nearly hate-filled eyes. His assistant, not quite hiding her amusement, handed him a wet towel to soak up some of the blood that ran from his forearm.
            “Looks like ten to fourteen stitches to me,” she said, barely controlling her grin. “You probably ought to sit down. You look a little pale. I’ll sew it up when your blood pressure stabilizes.”

            Jessica crouched on the stainless steel table and purred.

            Jessica was my cat, a bobcat to be exact. She was about six months old, and I had brought her to the veterinarian’s office for routine shots. Bobcats need them, just as housecats do. The veterinarian was Delmar Dawe. Well, that’s not exactly right. At best, Delmar was a vetinary. Primarily a large animal vet, Delmar also had an office for his small animal practice just off the highway in almost-Arkansas, Missouri. He wasn’t much of a vet, but he was the only game in town. He was the only game for over thirty miles in any direction, and he was an authority on handling all kinds of animals. He’d tell you so.

            When I’d arrived at his office, the receptionist/assistant, a lovely young woman named Etta, was fascinated by the bobcat. She cooed and petted, stroked and purred at Jessica, and Jess returned the attention, a real hound for affection. Delmar was unimpressed at dealing with a bobcat. “A cat’s a cat,” he said, as he prepared the shot.

 

           “Etta, I’ll stretch her, you give her the injection.”

 

            I spoke up, mentioning the possibility of a squeeze cage, trying to impress Delmar with the fact that bobcats, even half-grown ones, were wild animals, capable of extreme feats in time of stress. He ignored my advice, grabbed Jessica by the fur on top her butt, and the hair behind her head, and pulled her out to her full length. She rotated inside her skin, sunk her fangs three quarters of an inch into his left wrist, and opened up two six-inch tears in Delmar’s right forearm with her rear claws. He screamed and released her. She crouched, eyeing him coldly while she waiting for his next move.

            Bobcats one, Delmar nothing. 

            Delmar came to the ranch on one occasion to float the wolf-teeth on a four year-old gelding. Floating wolf-teeth is a brutal procedure that requires using a wood rasp to file down a set of teeth to keep them from interfering with the bit when it is in a horse’s mouth. Horses are bigger than most of us and are prone to resists this treatment. To maintain control, a “twitch” is used. A twitch is a two-foot length of quarter-inch nylon rope secured to the end of an eighteen-inch dowel. The rope is slipped over the horse’s upper lip, the stick is spun, tightening the loop of line about a bulge of muzzle, and the horse is thus restrained, while the vet reaches into his mouth, and files down, or knocks out, the teeth in question.

            Observing Delmar casually perform the application of the twitch one afternoon, I watched as he forgot to remain at arm’s length during the procedure. The horse found the twitch to be unpleasant, threw is head violently upward jerking the dowel from Delmar’s grasp, causing it to strike him briskly on the nose. The crack of the blow could be heard throughout the barn, leaving Delmar sitting in the hay attempting to staunch significant blood flow from his broken beak.

            Horses one, Delmar zip. 

            Then there was the good-natured German shepherd who became so outraged at Delmar’s cavalier insertion of a rectal thermometer that he whirled on the table and delivered a massive bite to Delmar’s left wrist. Delmar suffered no injury from the attack, but his brand-new Rolex wristwatch, in spite of its three thousand dollar price tag and its solid stainless steel case, could not resist the crunch of the doggy’s massive jaws. As Delmar sat holding pieces of the watch in his hand, Etta had to leave the room to laugh. Jobs were scarce in almost-Arkansas, Missouri.

            German shepherds one, Delmar zilch. 

            A five hundred pound Charolais heifer is one of the waspiest animals on the planet. They have the speed of a leopard, the kick of an ostrich, and the mind-set of an L. A. Banger. We had fifty-six of them to vaccinate and called Delmar. The heifers, penned in a small corral, were driven down a chute and into a headgate for treatment. Delmar became dissatisfied with the way we were handling the cattle and jumped into the pen to show us how it should be done. He rapidly approached the nearest heifer, who lashed out with the speed of a striking snake and kicked him squarely in the crotch. The poor man folded like a pair of deuces into the muck at the bottom of the pen amid raucous laughter from all of us on hand. I took compassion on him and led the bent and broken man from the corral and eased him to the ground.

            Heifers one, Delmar nada. 

            He sipped from a cup of water I brought him and regarded me through bloodshot eyes.

            “Ya know,” he winced, “I was gonna be a doctor for a while. A human doctor.”

            “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

            “Aw, hell,” he grunted. “I just can’t stand people. I really like animals, though.”

            Humans one, Delmar. . .well, you get the drift.

 

 

CLOUD

Day of the Dummy

 

I have spent some time of my life on top of horses. Current aches and pains would indicate too much time, but I wouldn’t change anything. In the late 1970’s I made my living now and then on horseback, working on ranches in terrain too extreme for gasoline powered vehicles. To “cowboy” is a romantic dream that reads significantly better than it lives. Twenty dollars and two meals for a fourteen-hour day, while using horses owned by the cattle company, isn’t the easiest way to make a paycheck.

Stock horses are a mixed bunch, the best of which are usually snapped up by the full-time hands for semi-permanent use. The dregs are used by the “day hands,” misguided fools like me hired as needed for roundups, calving season, and the like. The selection of horses inflicted on us constituted a mixed bag of quirks and bad habits.

Dottie was a small chestnut mare of easy temperament and generally good attitude. From time to time, however, Dottie’s tiny mind would compel her to walk into an available stock pond and lie down. Her rider’s protests and efforts to the contrary would go unheeded, leaving the cowboy soaked to the skin in drenched clothing and water-filled boots. This was an unpleasant experience, especially shortly after dawn on a forty-five degree March morning. (Dottie’s motivation remains unclear.)

Curly was a wise bay gelding with quick feet and good cow sense who stood quietly when mounted, never threatened violence, and did not bite at knees or buck. Curley’s specialty was to wait until his rider was most vulnerable. At the moment the cowboy was lulled into a false sense of security - arms behind his back while removing a jacket that had become too hot for the day, or reins slack while he was absorbed in rolling a cigarette - Curly would dart to one side of the trail or the other, with the speed of a mother-in-law’s tongue, and leave the rider sitting atop five feet of nothing but his aspirations. The resulting crash was humiliating, but Curley was not without compassion. Once the deed was done, he would not repeat it for the balance of the day.

Then, there was Cloud. Cloud was a leopard Appaloosa of a little over sixteen hands and nearly twelve hundred pounds. Snow white and covered with a plethora of dark blue silver dollar sized spots, Cloud was beautiful. Cloud was Majestic. Cloud was slow. Cloud was dumb. The briefest glance his way convinced the novice observer that this was a wonderful steed. Five minutes on his back gave the exact opposite impression.

One cool morning, he and I went bushwacking, searching for calves in hard to reach places. The sky was totally clear. Post oaks and cedars whispered in the tingling breeze as a distant hawk or buzzard poised artfully against the blue for best effect. But I had little time to enjoy such things. I was riding Cloud. Left to his devices, Cloud would wander off the trail or stumble over his own feet or walk under a low-hanging limb or just stop. He had no evil intent. There was not a nasty bone in his huge body. He was merely unsuited for this reality and paid almost no attention to it. A horse that is unaware of his surroundings is maddening to his rider and a danger to both of them. When aboard Cloud, I could never relax. I tried to keep my mind in the middle and protect both of us.

I was riding along the rim of a rocky gulch, rocks that Cloud stumbled over from time to time, when I noticed a splash of black among the stones about forty feet down the steep slope. I got down among scattered prickly pear and new polk salad to investigate. When I dropped the reins, Cloud was instantly ground-tied, sinking deeply into his own horsey thoughts, as far away from the mundane world as possible. Clattering down the steep slope I encountered a calf, a two-day old indigo bundle of cute. I wrapped him around my neck, holding his feet in both hands, and struggled back up the slope on an easier route, emerging at the top of the draw about sixty feet from where Cloud stood in deep meditation. I eased the little calf to the ground and was admiring him when his mommy, a thousand pounds of outraged motherhood, came boiling out of the brush, bawling straight for me.

I was in big trouble. Standing on that lacerated and rocky ground wearing cowboy boots, I was about as mobile as an inverted turtle. The best I could hope for was that the end would come quickly. The cow, sporting four-point independent suspension on a variable wheelbase and driven by one full cowpower of motherly love, had me totally at her mercy. There were no trees to climb, and no big boulders to dive behind. I was without defense. She charged. When she was less than fifteen feet away, wonder of wonders, Cloud blew by me and slammed into her. Momma fell flat, and he to his knees. When the cow lurched back to her feet, that marvelous horse stayed between she and I, squealing and biting until I could move away from the calf and clamber into the saddle. As she turned her attention to Junior, Cloud and I retreated to the tree line and watched their tearful reunion.

I was astounded! For one brief and shining moment, Cloud, that equine monument to “Duh,” had soared so high above his usual shortcomings as to render them insignificant. The same horse that could not be depended on to do anything even remotely correctly, had saved me from serious injury, possibly death, and he had done it with style. I never told any of the other hands about Cloud’s accomplishment, for I would not have been believed, but from that moment on I used that stumble-footed steed as often as I could. I found myself more tolerant of his shortcomings. Even months later as he and I tripped and slipped along the trails, Cloud, for all his bumbling ineptitude, was still my favorite. Not for what he was, but for what I knew he could be.

 

 

BEST FRIENDS

 

          When I was very young, my dog Judy was my closest friend. She remained more than dear to me until her death when I was fourteen, the best listener I have ever known, ever willing to lay on the floor in front of the stove while I told her about my life. When I was about five, however, she stopped answering me. She was still more than willing to listen, but the conversations became one-sided. I needed more than that. My grandparents were too far removed from my five-year-old world to relate to me on that level. No, I needed a friend. His name turned out to be Mike Duke.

Mike’s grandmother, Mrs. Hale, owned the house and land just east of her home and, when I was five, her daughter, her daughter’s husband and their family came to my small town to live in that house, right across the highway from me. Mike, who may have been an accident, had two older brothers who went to the high school at the other end of town. There was nobody in his family close to his age either. He and I were a mortal lock.

Called “Stinky” by his father, a mechanic with a shop behind their residence, Mike was an individual of non-conformity. Summer and winter, for instance, unless he was to be immersed in water, he wore a sock cap pulled down over his ears. To the best of my knowledge it never came off. At least I, his best friend, never saw him without it. Even in the rigorous confines and regimented surroundings of first grade, the cap stayed on. I sometimes wonder if, because he was never without that maroon and gray sock cap, our teacher, Fanny Marie Hopeshell Jervis, simply assumed it was part of his head.

When the rest of us were finally old enough for big bicycles, Mike got a little one, with small wheels. It was nimble and quick, easily out performing my Huffy Heavyweight on corners and curves, stops and starts. Oh, he couldn’t keep up on level straightaways, or match its frightening speed down Pridemore’s hill, but when it came to jumping curbs or tearing through alleys, he smoked me.  Twenty years later, similar bicycles painted bright colors and fixed with “banana” seats became the rage. Stinky had the original.

My first camping trip was with Mike. Huddled in a tiny canvas pup tent in my back yard, we stayed awake all night, fearful of lions and tigers and bears, oh my, until the sun began to rise, and we could actually settle down enough to get some sleep. We swam in the river together, wading out on sandbars until the water was up to our necks, never telling the big people about it, because we knew they would make us stop. We played Tarzan in the woods during summer, swinging on grapevines from tree to tree, looking for Tantor and Cheetah, fearful of Bolgani, the gorilla. We discovered girls together and decided we didn’t like them, built a tree house that fell out of the tree, engaged in B-B gun battles, successfully hiding the welts from our folks, built snow forts together in the winter, rushed to each other houses immediately after opening our presents on Christmas morning, watched the Mouseketeers at his house because his TV could get Disney, played with the dog at my house, because I had a dog. We sat on porches, bounced on inner tubes, crashed on ice skates, rolled in the grass, walked the river, and a thousand other things, because we were best friends. Then he moved away.

When we were nine, after being together since we were five, a long, long time, Mike announced his family was moving to a place called California that was so far away, it would take almost four days to drive there. And they did. Without asking either of us if they could, they did. He and I tried to say goodbye, but didn’t know how. We had never had to say goodbye before. It was awful. We knew we would never see one another again.

A few days after my best friend left, I was riding my bike listlessly up and down the river road, something that was no fun at all without Stinky, and I looked up the road into the setting sun. There, casting an endless shadow in my direction, silhouetted against the glare, was an apparition. I actually thought it was a ghost. Mike came walking down the road. His grandmother had taken suddenly ill, and he and his mother had flown back on a big plane called a Constellation. He was back for a week. We made the most of it. And then he left again.

Eight years later, when we were seventeen, his grandmother died, and again he and his mother flew back. I couldn’t wait to see him. We had not spoken since we were nine. When he arrived on our front porch, we were both suddenly shy. We got in my grandad’s car, and drove to the lake to tool around and stop at the Tastee-Freeze. He wasn’t Mike anymore. He was a teen-ager from California and we had virtually nothing in common. Even the sock cap was gone. It was too uncomfortable for both of us and, even though he was in town for several days, we didn’t hang out. It was just too hard. But, to this day, he remains the best friend I have ever had, the first human being to ever share the intimacy of my fears and hopes. I still see him sometimes, walking out of the setting sun, a sock cap pulled down over his ears…and I am young again, back to the days when a puddle could be a mystery, when dandelions made a beautiful bouquet, and when an RC Cola on the porch swing with my best friend Stinky, was as good as anything needed to be.

ol' LEWIS LIVE

 

 

 Yes, Boys and Girls, the unthinkable is about to happen! On October 21^st at 1:00 PM CMT and 2:00 PM CST, ol’ Lewis is going to crawl from his dusty warren and actually appear in public...sort of. Krista Kendrick has been kind enough to ask me to appear on her webcast, A NOVEL IDEA LIVE to discuss writing, books, and writing books. There will be shameless self-promotion and free books galore. Join Krista and me, jump in on the chat box and be part of the program, or just hang out...but don’t miss it. Something like this may never happen again. (and probably shouldn’t)

 

That’s Sunday October 21^st at 2:00 PM CST,

A NOVEL IDEA LIVE.

 

Check out the promo and author page at

http://www.anovelidealive.com/guide-view/october-21-david-r-lewis

 

Join the live program on October 21st at 2:00 PM, CST

http://www.anovelidealive.com/live

JACKPINE JOLLY

 Too Tall, Big Fall 

            His name was Roger Brooks, but we just called him Jolly. We called him Jolly partially because of “Jolly Roger”, partially because the Jolly Green Giant was popular in those days and Jolly was a little over six feet seven inches tall, and partially because everybody had nicknames in our little, insular, motorcycle-motivated society. My best friend for instance, Lee Walter “The Duck” Griesheimer. Duck was five feet four. Looking at Jolly and Duck as they stood side by side could make you dizzy.

            All of us were very cool, except Jolly. We were so cool, we kept Jolly around because he wasn’t. Due to his extreme height and the natural awkwardness of youth, Jolly was always good for a little light relief. Whether bumping his head on something that normal people would have to jump to reach, or tripping over his own size seventeen boots, or banging an elbow because his arms were nine feet long, Jolly was ever entertaining. Besides that, we liked him in an overgrown little brother sort of way, and we were all he had.

            We rode motorcycles. Not the loud, low slung drive-in profilers, or the bulbous, chromed highway cruisers. No Harleys, Thriumphs, BSAs, or Nortons for us, we rode for purpose, not effect. Bultacos, Montessas, Osas…we were enduro riders, and we worked at it, conditioning ourselves, training ourselves, trying to be the best we could be.

            An enduro is a cross-country race, run in various classes according to motor size. The object is to get from the beginning to the end of the course, often over 100 miles, and maintain an average speed of 24 milers per hour. Not very fast until you consider that the terrain can consist of dry creek beds, streams, rocky hillsides, swamps, sand pits and the like, and the ride can continue until well after dark.

            The rider is given a fixed number of points at the beginning of the race and encounters several checkpoints along the way where his time on the course is examined by judges. Points are deducted for going too fast or too slow on each segment of the course. The competitor carries a map, a compass, and the enduro rider’s official medallion, a stopwatch. The bike is equipped with lights, knobby tires and two odometers, one to measure the total distance traveled, one re-set at each checkpoint. In many respects, enduro is the most physically challenging and mentally demanding of all motorcycle sports. We rode as many as we could. We practiced on weekends. On weeknights we’d hone our skills and speed at changing tires, replacing chains, changing spark plugs, figuring exactly what we had to carry for emergencies and still keep the bike’s weight as low as possible. The question was never if we would break down, but how many times, and how badly. All of this effort, practice and preparation was for one race, the ultimate challenge, the enduro rider’s enduro…Jack Pine. A two-day, five-hundred mile slice of hell through the wilds of Michigan that drew competitors from all over the world. It was the Holy Grail of the sport and, in 1964, we went. Jolly came too.

            A couple of months before, Jolly had purchased a brand new Honda 305 Scrambler, a motorcycle as tall, ungainly, and ill-suited for enduro as he was. Together, they were a disaster. Obstacles that left the rest of us undaunted, would utterly defeat Jolly and his Honda. He had to work much harder than any of us just to keep up when we were playing, and could not begin to compete when we were serious, but he never quit.

            We arrived at the grounds in Michigan in the late evening after a fourteen-hour drive, on the night before the day of the race. Walking to check in, the six of us marveled at the number of motorcycles and competitors. Over 600 riders were competing in five classes, and we drew numbers to determine where we would start. I was number 77 in a class of nearly two hundred, my friend Duck, number 56. In his class of around 150 riders, Jolly was number 5. Riders were started at thirty-second intervals. Jolly would take to the trail very early the next morning. We worked on our bikes until late in the night, too nervous to sleep, and finally collapsed for two hours or so in the back of the vans, only to rise again and continue to prepare at dawn. This was Jack Pine, the biggest of the big, and we were there.

            The starting line was over fifty yards long, on top of a low hill. Arranged behind it, in loose starting order, grouped in the various classes, was the multitude of bikes and riders. We walked to the line to watch the first riders take off. There, sweating profusely in the early morning cool, regarding a stop watch that he’d accidentally stepped on and broken the night before, sat the very tall Jolly aboard his very tall Honda. He was head and shoulders above the throng, nervously peering about. When he saw us, he grinned a “thumbs up”.

            His number was called, and he moved forward to the starting line. Before him stretched 200 yards of a slight, grass covered slope terminating in woods. In the middle of the slope stood a single tree. Jolly leaned over the handlebars, revved his engine and waited. The flag dropped, he released the clutch, the big Honda tore off down the hill throwing mud and grass in a rooster tail behind it. Then Jolly rode directly into that one and only tree. A 500 mile two day race. Jolly lasted less than 10 seconds and 100 yards.

            When it was all over and we had returned home, we took up a collection and bought him a new stopwatch. The back was engraved, “Jolly Rodger, first to crash and burn, Jack Pine, 1964.”

            It became his most prized possession, proof that for one shining moment, he had ridden the legendary Jack Pine, just like the rest of us.

YARDWORK

Clipping and Flipping  

            There are those to whom mowing grass is a gas, but I find a lawn a yawn. Some feel that heaven is clipping a hedge, but I’d rather camp on a seventh story ledge. Many find flowers their cup of tea, but a dandelion can get the best of me. It shouldn’t be that way. I was raised by a man who took a well-groomed lawn very seriously; he mowed a lot, so did I. I even did a stint for a time as a groundsman on the campus of the University of Illinois, mowing for a living, until I screwed up my knee by falling off an eight-foot wall of a raised yard near the office of non-academic personnel. Employed in the lawn and garden department of a large store one spring, my job was to assemble lawnmowers for the unsuspecting public. Some of them actually worked. I know the difference between Kentucky Blue, Fescue and Zoysia. I know privet when I see it. I can easily determine between Northern Birch and the river variety…I am not ignorant…just ineffectual.

My first paying job was to cut old man Hale’s grass. I was only about seven years old, and he lived just across the street. He promised me two whole dollars for the deed if I would bring my own mower and gas. Reluctantly my grandfather agreed, and off I went, a workingman at last. The yard in question had not been mowed in some time. On the west side of the back yard the grass was over a foot tall, easily concealing the two dozen rare Japanese pine seedlings old man Hale had planted near the fence line. Straining and huffing, I mowed them and the grass down. Realizing my propensity for disaster, my grandfather didn’t press me to mow much after that. In gratitude, some years later I bought him a riding lawn mower. I can vividly remember him practicing wheel stands in the back yard.

            I grew older, got married, rented a duplex, and had a yard of my own. My neighbor, a terribly well organized veterinary-med student with a mousy wife and a thoroughly obnoxious three year old daughter, volunteered to mow the yard weekly if I would trim the hedge. How hard could it be? Then I saw the hedge. Extending around three sides of the back yard, it was an overgrown privet monstrosity. Ten to twelve feet tall and seven or eight feet wide at the top, it had not been clipped in years. I hedged on the hedge. He persisted. I weakened. He insisted. I caved.

            Two weeks later I journeyed to an equipment rental store and inquired about hedge clippers. The man behind the counter produced the average suburban-sized utensil.

            “Too small,” I said.

            He returned with another, a saw-toothed machine with wicked blades protruding from a nasty snout, gleaming with oil and possibilities.

            “There ya go,” he stated, dropping the device on the counter.

            “Not big enough,” I replied.

            He stared at me for a moment, then vanished into the rear of the emporium. Shortly he returned with a colossus of a clipper. A massive, well-worn, multi-fanged Goliath of a hedge trimmer. Its bar was fifty inches long, its incisors glowed with malice, it’s extension cord, only slightly smaller than a hay rope, coiled in bulging black loops. This demon of destruction could easily mow down parking meters.

            “Biggest one we got,” he said.

            “I’ll take it,” said I.

            Back at the duplex I plugged it in. Pulling the trigger for practice, the machine torqued to the right in my hands, it blades flashing in the sunlight, its power coursing through my forearms. My God! If William Wallace had had such an instrument, the Highlanders would have pushed Longshanks into the sea! This was not a hedge trimmer, it was a hedge slayer! A Claymore of a clipper! I scurried to the garage for my five-foot step ladder, climbed it, and set to work.

            Even balanced precariously on the top of the ladder, I found the hedge still to be above my head in places. I also found the clipper to be significantly hard to handle when held at arms length by only one hand. It was August. Sweat streaming in my eyes, displaced bugs sticking to my every pore, I worked, I strained, I endeavored to persevere, I cut privet. Slowly I worked my way down the side yard, slashing the hedge down to about eight feet in height, lurching under the weight of the clipper, reeling in the heat. At the corner, before I started on the segment between my back yard and the back yard of the duplex behind us, I stopped for a glass of tea on the rear stoop. To enter the kitchen in my condition would have been grounds for divorce. As it turned out, the inevitable was only prolonged.

            Moving to the center of the next stretch, the place where the growth seemed to be the thickest and widest, I again climbed the ladder and went to work. Balancing on the top of the ladder and leaning as far forward as possible, I activated the trimmer. The torque pulled me forward toward the hedge. In mindless reflex, I stuck out my free hand to keep from falling, inserting my gloved thumb into the cutting bar. The near decapitation of my thumb caused me to turn to my left, bringing the still whirring bar into contact with the extension cord. The 110 volts surging through my body as the blades cut the cord caused me to launch forward onto the hedge. The spring effect of the foliage propelled me airborne into the rear of the yard behind our duplex and directly on top of the unsuspecting buxom young woman in the two-piece bathing suit who’d come outside to sun herself on a chaise lounge during the lull in the action while I was drinking tea. 

            Yard work? No thanks. Too dangerous.

ONCE UPON A TIME

Planting the Seed

            “Got a minute?” he asked.

I’d seen him around the area for the past few days. He was busy, landscaping mostly, installing water features, planting trees. He was a hard worker and so old that I couldn’t even guess at his age. It didn’t seem to affect him. He labored like a young man, full of energy, vital. He stretched his back out and walked over.

            “If you’re not busy, I have a job for you,” he continued, wincing a bit as he worked out some kinks. “It won’t be very difficult. I just need a little help to get some things started around here, and I think you’d be perfect. Once you get the ball rolling, it’ll be more of a supervisory position. Mostly just consultations.”

            His eyes seemed to look through me. Lying to this guy would be damned near impossible. I squirmed a little when he looked right at me, but his face was so kind it took the sting out of his gaze. And his voice was so warm it felt sorta like a blanket, ya know? I glanced around.

            “Great job you’ve done to this place,” I said. “Really beautiful.”

            “Hey, thanks,” he grinned. “This garden is the showplace of the whole project. It turned out even better than the sketches. There’s a lot more that you can’t see from here, miles and miles, but this is the highpoint.”

            “You do great work,” I said and smiled. “Seems like a lot of effort, though, for a man your age.”

            He chuckled. “I’ve been around a while, no doubt about that. I think it’s important to stay busy if you wanna stay young. Every now and then I get this creative urge and the years just slip away. Next thing you know, I’m back at it, working my tail off. I don’t know. I need it, I guess.”

            We sat in silence for a while. I could hear water rushing in the distance and the call of a Killdeer. A bumblebee droned by.

            “Well, how ‘bout it?” he asked, putting his hands on his knees and levering himself to his feet. “The job, I mean.”

            “Why not?” I replied. “This is wonderful. I’d love to be a part of it.”

            “Great!” he grinned. He had very white teeth. “But I’ve gotta be completely honest with you. Even though you will be vital to this project, history will judge you harshly, I’m afraid. Over the years you will be much maligned. They’ll probably even forget your real identity. Can you handle that?”

            I didn’t hesitate. “As long as you and I know the truth, who cares?”

            “Wonderful!” he beamed. “I’ve just got a couple of more things to attend to,” he went on, walking off toward the sound of the water. “I noticed some great clay on the riverbank. This won’t take very long at all. Thanks in advance for all your help. You and I won’t be seeing each other again.”

            “Hang on a minute,” I said. “What’s gonna happen?”

            “Oh, yeah,” he chuckled, reining in his enthusiasm a little. “I guess you’d like to know that. There’ll be a couple of people along shortly. I need you to spend some time with them.”

            “Okay, but where will you be?”

            A wistful look came into his eyes. “I’ll be around,” he replied a little sadly. “I just won’t be around.”

            As he headed off down the slope, I shouted. “Yeah, but what am I supposed to do with these people?”

            His yell carried up through the trees.

“Just offer them choices!”

            The ground was a little damp, so I climbed up into a tree to wait. The old man was right. In almost no time at all, a young couple came walking up the trail. I drew back into the branches so they couldn’t see me and watched them for a while. Great kids. Innocent, loving, fearless, happy, not a care in the world. I gotta confess, I was really tempted to just go on my way and leave them to hell alone, but I’d promised the old guy and, as they say, a promise is a promise. Pretty soon the young man wandered off. When the young woman passed under my tree, I eased out onto a branch where she could see me and rattled some leaves. She looked up.

            “How ya doin’?” I said.

            “Oh, hi!” she replied. “I haven’t seen you before.”

            “That’s because I was hiding.”

            “Why would you hide?” she asked.

The bumblebee returned and settled on her shoulder. She gently caressed its wings as it waddled around.

            “I didn’t want to make you self-conscious by openly watching you,” I said. “You’re not wearing any clothes.”

            “That’s okay,” she smiled. “I’m not cold.” The bee lifted off and bumbled away on the breeze.

            “Do you like the garden?” I asked.

            “A lot!” she gushed. “It’s very beautiful.”

            “It is, isn’t it?” I said. “That old guy did a great job.”

            “I love it here,” she said, turning in a circle and stretching, her skin dappled by sunshine through the trees.

            “What about outside the garden?” I asked.

            “Outside?”

            “Sure. There’s a whole world outside this garden. It’s huge. Much bigger than here. Maybe there’s a nicer place than this out there somewhere.”

            “How could there be?” she asked, looking a little pensive.

            “You never know,” I smiled.

            “No, I’m almost sure there isn’t,” she replied, biting her lip a little and glancing around. “This place is fine.”

A butterfly jittered by, circled her, and landed on her left breast.

            “Where’s your friend?” I asked.

            “Uh, I don’t know. He walked off somewhere, I guess.”

            “He left you? Wow.”

            “No, he didn’t leave me. He’s just not here right now.”

            “It’s probably for the best,” I assured her. “It gives us time for a little chat.” I smiled down at the girl. “After all, he doesn’t have to know everything you do. You’re entitled to a little privacy.”

            Her brow furrowed. “I guess,” she said, brushing the butterfly off her breast and swatting at it.

            “Maybe he’s off chatting with somebody else,” I went on. “Maybe he’s learning a lot of stuff you don’t know. I mean, he left you, didn’t he? He went off by himself, didn’t he?”

            “He’ll be back,” she said, peering into the trees.

            “Of course he will,” I smiled. “I can only speak for myself, but if I had someone as lovely as you are waiting for me, I’d certainly return.” I let my eyes briefly roam over her body.

            “Thank you,” she blushed. “Maybe if I put some flowers in my hair I’d be prettier, and he’d like me more.”

            “Now you’re catching on,” I said. I shook the branch on which I lay and a piece of fruit fell to the ground. “Why not have a snack before he gets back, and we’ll talk a while and get to know each other.”

            “Is it ripe?”

            “Oh, Darlin’, more than you know,” I replied.

            A few moments later, when she noticed me watching juice from the fruit as it dribbled across her chest, she covered herself with an arm and turned partially sideways.

            “This is really good,” she said. “It’s so sweet.”

            I gave her my best smile. “Yes, you are,” I said.

            “Thank you,” she giggled, and turned again to face me.

            “You’ll have to share the fruit with your friend when he comes back.”

            “Sure,” she said, “but before he does, we’re going to have that chat, right?”

            “Absolutely.”

            “And,” she continued, “maybe you could help choose some flowers for my hair.”

            I nodded. “That’s what it’s all about, Sweetheart. Choices.”

            It didn’t take long. Those kids were candy. Soon they were keeping secrets, doubting themselves and each other, struggling for power, helping one another be wrong, trying to find happiness in useless things. Hell, you know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean. It’s the same kind of nonsense you go through every day. I’m not particularly proud of it, but I did my job very well. And I’m still doing it. I have amazing job security.

Oh, by the way, I never did introduce myself. It’s very nice to meet you. 

My name is Ego.