bear report

"Hello? Remember me?" I was trying to wedge my whirligig—a thingy I bit on on the Internet here that doesn't work that well—into the grill on my porch, in my underwear. I put on my robe and yelled to him to come up. Well, Bear (another Randy) hadn't spoken to me for like a decade, since he threw my keys on the table and said, "I quit." And I said, "Aren't we still friends?" I mean, after all he came over most every day to eat. And he said, "I guess not." He believed I was controlling his behavior with my computer. He has issues, typically in the summer, when he tends to go on walkabout, living in his vehicle by the river someplace. 

   That was before the flood, when his house across the street and car was swept away. He has a "new" truck now. And is drinking again, obv, though he says only on weekends since he works for the contractor who works for the rich folk here in T'ville.

 

When his house was (more) ruined by the flood, the owner for the cafe next door traded him his plot, now the site of a pergola, for a piece of land and a barn up the hill. He had a trailer given him after the flood, and it is parked in the barn now. He says it even has a "hydrant," by which he means an outdoor faucet, which his old house did not have. It had a hand pump out back. He says it is supposed to be two-and-a-half acres, but he thinks it's more. And he says he is living there now, though at first he wouldn't, and was moving from one relative's house to another. With eleven older siblings, he has a lot of relatives. 

   So then he invited me to his nephew's house for dinner. It was casual. He had told them I was coming. When we arrived, Brandi and Michael (who turns out to be my next-door neighbor Jason's best friend) had finished—smoked pork chops and cabbage and beans and baked potatoes. with bacon. Yum. Bear served me. And it turned out that he had been at Randy's funeral as well, though I did not see him, and he did not see me or Carly, who he was sweet on years ago. (And maybe on me,,as well as the lady who thanked him when he opened the laundromat door for her and anybody else who smiled at him.)

So then Bear came by the Goose after work and ate chicken salad and kale. Or rather gummed it, since he told me, "I done lost all my teeth—even the roots." He explained to me that he pressed his minced food against his top gum with his tongue. I told him to never stop by before eleven ayem, and he did not show up last night. However there's some soup for him in the fridge when (if) he comes back.