His beard is long, hiding his neck. His hair is shaggy, un-kept, and wire-y, It hangs down, meeting his bushy eyebrows. It is the beard of an old man in a winter hibernation but his eyes tell me he is young. They glisten. They are un-mistakingly green. They are piercing looking out from under his shaggy head of hair. Not a sharp piercing, but a piercing that makes you want to know him. I don’t want to know him, I want to be related to him. A guy of this stature gives you bragging rights if you can tell people he is your second cousin, or better yet boyfriend. This guy gives you status. Status that not even a house in the Hampton or a vintage Bentley can give you. This status is more endearing too because he doesn’t know where the Hamptons are and if you mention the word Bentley around him he gets quite and sad remembering his childhood dog that got hit by a car in Georgia.
His childhood dog was named Bentley; a cute little mutt that he got from his childhood neighbor when their dog jumped the fence and came back knocked up. That kind of thing always happened in Georgia. Dogs were always jumping fences and coming back knocked up. In Georgia, dogs do what they want… and they don’t look back neither. He liked it because it was black, brown, and white. He loved it because it always brought back the sticks he threw, even if it was up in a tree, even if it was at the bottom of a pond, even if was dark outside and he had been throwing the stick since breakfast. (Let me cut in and clarify that when I say it I am referring to Bentley, and Bentley is a he. This clarification is important because this guy would not appreciate me, or really anyone, referring to his dead best friend as it. And he is right, I should work on my compassion. My mom side of the family lacks compassion but my dads side has it down to an art. I look like my mom. I act like my mom. Not my best attribute but my strongest without a doubt.)
Bentley always brought back the sticks.
(One more thing, in the second part of the sentence about the stick, when I refer to it I am referring to the stick, not Bentley. Bentley was not thrown up in the tree or to the bottom of a pond, but I guess he did have to go there to get it… it as in the stick.)
Bentley always brought back the sticks. Except for the time Walker threw the stick too far, right into the oncoming traffic on the old town road. Bentley ran out, eager to fetch and bring it back. The car got there just before Bentley got out of there. Really, the car got there just in the nick of time.
I made that up. That didn’t happen.
Well actually it might have happened, I have no idea how Bentley got hit by the car, but I can bet that he didn’t see it happen, and I can double bet that it wasn’t his fault Bentley got hit by this douche bag, stupid, ugly, incredibly guilty car. This guy looks calm. This guy is calm. People who see their best friend get hit by a car (the best friend is Bentley, stick with me), knowing that it was their fault because if they weren’t so idiotic they wouldn’t have thrown the stick into the road…
“God damnit I am a fuck tard, I am a murderer, a fucking dog murder, I am unworthy of love and anything good and fun and tasty.” Tasty? People in Georgia are rewarded with food. It works for their dogs too … I think…
are not calm. I don’t know how Bentley got hit by the car, but shotty-not-it on asking.
