Pribek

Yesterday afternoon…I was driving back from town…on the phone with my Sis…down the hill to my turn and…there was a tomato stand! I saw it the day before and made a mental note but, didn’t think of it again until I passed it.

These stands pop up at random places, when the tomatoes are ready. There used to be more of them it seems.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a meager three dollars. Three dollars won’t get you far in this old world but. it will serve you well at the tomato stand. I hung up with Sis and made a U-turn.

$1.00 a pound! the young man told me. So. I handed him my three bucks and made my choices (a fun game and an art unto itself) until I had a sack full…three pounds! (a little over, actually)…

Off the county road and down the gravel road and I pulled up on my solitary neighbor’s place. Now, the neighbor and my landlord have a long history of ill will…some pretty crazy stuff that seems to keep accumulating on both sides…lots of pressure there and I don’t want to stick a needle in the balloon, you know? I got no beef with the guy. He may have been erratic with others but, just a good old boy with me. Kind of guy I’ve been around my whole life. I always slow way down when I pass his place; it’s just something you do. He’s out in the yard, overalls and no shirt, leaning against his work truck.

“Ya’ liking this cool weather Jack?”

“Yeah, I’m digging it”.

“Won’t last. What ya’ up to?”

“Just stopped up the road and got a sack full of tomatoes”.

“Good sh*t man! Home grown. Enjoy ‘em Brother.”

And just like that, he was grinning ear to ear, and I rolled off slowly toward the end of the road.

I showed my prize with pride as I walked in to the apartment and said; “home grown…from up the road”. She’s a Tennessee girl and she smiled in acknowledgment…delight.

The power went out. Just like that.

First time that’s happened in this new place.

I checked the fuse box and checked the other fuse box in the adjacent shop building. She dialed the co-op, a little frantic, and we heard the recorded message that said we were smack dab in the middle of an outage and, it would be restored as soon as possible.

I sat in this old, worn yet comfortable, faux leather office chair in the middle of the living room. There are no curtains in there and we’ve decided we want to keep it that way. Windows on two sides and surrounded by the trees.

“What would the pioneers, the settlers do?”

I got up and sliced a big tomato. Arranged it on a plate and reached for the salt and pepper.

“No salt for me please…”

Another plate and it messed with the presentation but, no worries.

We sat on the couch, powerless, as we ate.

“Good, yes?”

“Hmmm…good.”

When the power came back, we heated left over chicken Alfredo with diced, fresh tomatoes. Like little prizes scattered amongst the pasta that was still worthy but couldn’t hide the fact that it had already peaked.

Later, around 10:30, after Blue Bunny ice cream, while watching a movie (“Benny And Joon”) streaming on the web…there was a “shave and a haircut” knock on the front door. It was unsettling because, I did NOT see any movement outside and did NOT hear the tires on the gravel and I was already real close to padding off to bed.

A songwriter friend, creeping silent through the night. High on weed and manic, preaching, proselytizing, stomping and rhyming. He went on…venting, throwing jabs at the universe, right hooks at the cosmos.

I saw an opening and said; “If two have the power to turn 2,000…then the two must think they are right and the 2,000 are wrong…right?”

That got his back up. It was an irritation, a fly in the ointment at the worst possible time as he was on the cusp of tying it all together, answering the unanswered questions and solving all the problems of the world. I mean, this was the big one and he was on…it…Man!!! And, I wasn’t seeing it.

I could tell he was running out of gas and I smiled and interrupted a half-hearted new volley; “You got groceries out there. If you got ice cream, it’s going to melt, Brother.” That hit the mark and pulled him back. He was up from the chair, smiling, “thanks for letting me ramble”, all in a motion headed for the door.

“Hold on a sec…” I got up, went to the table and looked in the sack. Three tomatoes left and one was the biggest of the batch. She looked over…silent disapproval morphing in an split second to “oh yeah, that’s the right thing to do”…all unsaid, all instantly understood without hesitation.

When I handed him that cat daddy tomato, he held it, clutched it with both hands, and said; “really”?

Strange thing to say but, what do you do?

“Yeah, really.”