would you trust this man?

I had Bear over for a confab that turned into an eight-hour marathon. I gave him a haiku to read, but he couldn’t get the last word: tulip. He quoted Hank Williams—“I don’t think I’m gonna get out of this world alive”— and we loaded his Hank Williams CD onto my computer. I played Kathleen Mock. He wanted me to copy her CD for him.”I like her voice,” he said.
We had hummus and miso soup and Japanese crackers and lasagna. And drank up all my Heineken Light. I lectured him on flossing his teeth—he’s losing them to gum disease, but it’s probably too late. We bemoaned the fact that I was leaving right as the peonies (which he calls peOHnies) were about to bloom. He said I should set up a videocam so I could watch on my computer. I told him I was planting a hedge and not to mow it down. “It’s called privet,” I said. “Is that like in private?” he asked. He has a privy back of his house.
I’m leaving the Goose in Bear’s hands. He will mow and watch out for intruders. “I think you should get married to a cleaner,” I told him. “That way I’d have a full service outfit across the street.“
I said I had to check my tire pressure for the trip.
“I’ll do it right now,” he said.
“It’s dark out,” I said.
“Well I better get mah gun to shoot the varmints,” he said.
It took me a minute to realize that he was tweaking my perception of him.
We laughed.