I am supine, legs extended, the creaky rub of hammock fibers squeezing against the bark of two trees.
My mind is relaxed but I feel a smidge guilty about all the wings I ate. Carol is going to kill me for today’s historic breaking of my cholesterol numbers.
erhhhh—
The dome of sky angles westward, clear and beautiful, the sun dipping away.
urhhh…
Then the eastern sky would show, but really just a sideways view of the back portico, my wife, the girls, and grandbabies gabbing animatedly, eating their last plates of the remnants to the birthday BBQ.
erhhh—
It had been a good birthday, probably no different than all my others.
urhhh…
What had it been? How many years, days, week, hours, seconds, from long ago starting off as a Minnesota boy from the rough streets of an industrial town called Togen?
The hammock dips back toward the house, a perfect angle to his wife’s sun wrinkled face, ebullient and graceful as she had been since the afternoon he had met her some fifty years ago.
errhhh
The dog, Rookie, chews passionately into a toy in the part of the lawn farthest from the house.
“Good boy,”
And the dog gives a smile, the tongue drooling in slimy drops all over the toy.
And the hammock swings the other way.
urhh
The whistle of the truck.
Duoh- doooo
A frenetic image of all the neighborhoods children chasing the truck.
erhhh—
Oh, and the unbelievable delicious sight of the crème filled pastries.
Boy, were those pastries, good.
urh…
And there she stood like an angel from above, Carol, a green-yellow sundress, giddily staring amongst some friends.
“What are you lookin’ at?” I had said, rather defiantly, but of course, out of flirtation play.
erhhh…
Oh, and what she said still gives me the laughs...
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re supposed to be eating a Boston crème pie.”
My face had blanched red, my throat pasty and lost for words. My gang of friends looked at me like I was a Big Whimp for being talked like that by a girl.
My future wife was a real scrapper. She dug the knife deeper, “My mother says oinkers like you shouldn’t eat off the Helms truck. She says it only makes you fatter.
erhh..
And she had probably been right about that. My belly always stayed like the white Michelin guy… I sometimes still get nervous when I’m at the beach, or around any of her friends.
But after a certain point, surviving two major heart attacks… a triple bypass… I learned to embrace my body’s resilience to consume and still survive.
urhh.
Most of my suits I grew out of and had to give away to Goodwill. Over the years, my waist got bigger, and bigger, my confidence less and less…
But I’d always find time for my family—and my food.
erhh
I’m a pizza, potato chips, and beer kind of guy.
I like to keep it simple…
But Steak—
mhhhm..
A fresh simmered sirloin, a little onion and lemon juice on top.
urhhhh.
Talk about heaven.
erhh.
But no matter what, my real joy is my wife and children. I gave them everything. All my daughters had graduated college, found respectable husbands, and were prepared to raise their wonderful babies in the cruel twenty-first century world.
erhh..
My family.
erhh.
And the hammock arches, showing the western sky; the sun sits so low, red and purple, dropping, dipping until gone from sight.
urhhh.
And between half eyelids, Carol connects with his eyes resting back in the pouch of the hammock.
The dark barked silently.
ehrr,
And the sky looks like a portrait, painted of his life, an enormous cloud--fat like him—swelled into the maroon sky.
erhhh—
“CAROL.” He whispers.
Erhh—
The cloud moved with the last strengths of his eyes.
urhhh,
And his hand slumped over the hammock, Rookie peddling beside him and licking stiff fingers.
“Roo–f”
The dog licked away, the family guffawing, undertones of happiness and joy.
The cloud’s hues morphed maroon, to purple, to indigo, to finally pitch black.
….