Uncle frank

I was raised by my great uncle Frank. He was the last of the great Handshake-Dealmakers. His word was his bond and if you found yourself on the receiving end of that handshake, you could be assured that death himself would find it nearly impossible to stave the inevitable! He was tall and strong with a reddish beard that never seemed less that six inches long and he had a pair of suspenders for each day of the month! He wore thick rimmed glasses and a plastic pocket protector stuffed to ridiculousness with logo-ed pens from every motel he'd ever patronized. He sold things but I wouldn't say he was a Salesman. More of a barterer, I guess.

His barrel-chest and round belly strained the oft re-sewed buttons on the blue, short sleeved, collard shirts he frequently wore to bed. But he was not fat, just round. His hands were like levee-dredgers and his smile could loosen the bun on a librarian's hair! He drove an old Ford pickup, the same color as his shirts and filled the ashtray daily with Pall Malls. Uncle Frank was a blue eyed collection of desirable human traits packed into one hundred and ninety pounds of churning enthusiasm and he finished nearly every sentence with the same phrase, "You with me now?"

Uncle Frank was by no means a perfect man nor a perfect caretaker. As I've said, he smoked. He also drank too much and, though he had two kids of his own, he could never keep a relationship with a lady for more than a week. It just wasn't Frank's style! And then there was me. I took to Frank like a moth to headlights and he took to me.... eventually.

There was nothing particularly dreadful that happened to my parents. They just stopped being my parents one summer. They stopped being husband and wife. They just stopped going to church. Honestly, I think they would have been happy cutting the trailer in two and living separate lives across a five-foot valley. People spend years in therapy to discover the same thing I knew from a very young age. Couples are either annoyingly in love, habitually tolerant or statistically doomed. As a child, you figure what your living with and work from there but you do not, under any circumstances try to change people to fit your needs. Nor do you change yourself in hopes of creating a peace that will never exist. You can stay. You can go. Don't confuse either with a solution, only a chosen path.

So I chose Uncle Frank and his travelling road show of trinkets, inventions, side-deals and roadside repairs! The man could fix any machine invented but specialized in American convertible luxury cars. The kind driven by wealthy soon-to-be divorcees! Many of them tried to change uncle Frank. They all failed! And yet, to the best of my knowledge not a one ever held a grudge against him. We often visited his exes on long trips for meals or a place to stay. And I can tell you this with certainty. Frank never slept on the couch!

The road stretched out endlessly and strait before us as we crossed the god forgotten desert between Oregon and Idaho! Uncle Frank sat stalwart behind the steering wheel as a half dozen bobble heads nodded agreement, stuck hard to the dash by an elixir created by himself. I occupied myself with Jules Verne's Around The World In 80 Days. It seemed an impossible journey when compared to this hot Jaunt! Skinny animals suicided into the tar road before us. The sun carved a slow arc in the sky, uninterested in humanity and its tight limits on survival.

"What part are you at?" he inquired with grammatic license.

"They just saved the Parsee woman from being burned next to her dead husband." I replied without looking up from my by book.

"I've never understood that part of the story. I know it moves the plot forward but Fogg never expresses empathy other than that. And he doesn't even try to score!"

"Uncle Frank, is that all you got from this story?" I retorted.

There was a silence as I assumed he was thinking about his answer. And then he spoke again, perhaps jilted by my criticism. Perhaps finally learning a life lesson about the importance of stopping for a reason other than opportunity.

He continued in complete misunderstanding of the question. "Don't get me wrong. It was the right thing to do but why wouldn't he stay true to his nature? If you're going to do the right thing, you might as well get..... FUUUUUCK!"

And the old Ford swerved left, and then right and back and forth until I had to look!

"FUUUUCK!" I returned! The wheels nearly left the road as I grabbed the lap-belt in hopes to not be thrown into space! A giraffe limped off the road and penguins righted themselves like Weeble Wobbles impossibly left upon the pavement! Hyenas laughed nervously in recession and some yellow, striped creature slunk into the tumbleweeds as the western sun completed its dive into the Pacific Ocean somewhere beyond the desert horizon!

We careened unfortunate, killing or sparing zoological specimens at the will of chance until finally the Ford came to a sputtering stop, presented with the explanation of such a strange moment! A zoo! A carnival! Some travelling attraction had overturned, spreading its living cargo across the road and further!

Either side of the freeway was a steep pitch down to a small river or creek. Uncle Frank jumped from the dusty Ford and ran to the upturned semi truck that had mysteriously jack-knifed! Unfamiliar animals squawked or brayed depending on their place of origin! I exited the truck and Frank warned me to stay behind but I couldn't! I was too excited and curious! The smell of leaded fuel permeated the atmosphere, being both menacing and comfortingly familiar. Primates, lemur and chimp, gorilla and bush-baby scattered, like shattered ice on a frying pan! And from the cab of the ill-fated truck? No thing for a child to witness!

Fingers, separate from hands, are like crops without farm-houses. strange and un-owned. Heads without bodies are much the same!

"Don't look!" demanded uncle Frank.

"Too late!" I screamed from inches behind him, holding my mouth as if to stop a flood with a paper cup! And I puked hard onto the hot road, disturbing a handful of slow moving but rather giant tortoises!

The purple blush of last light dowsed the scene and we were left alone with the strange scurrying sounds of the menagerie! My great uncle grabbed my hand and pulled me back to the Ford, which refused to start and, being too dark for repairs, we sat in the bench-seat in silence.

"Do you think that was a tiger?" I finally asked.

Frank was no such person to mince words. "I'm thinking so. Also, I think I saw a rhinoceros. Or a hippo.... or both."

"What should we do?" I begged.

"I think we're doing it." And he pushed in the cigarette lighter for its duration and lit up with the window rolled down just enough as to not asphyxiate us both!

In my deep concern and fatigue, I fell asleep to the Serengeti, jungle, prairie cacophony.

I dreamed....

....I was in a parade! I was dressed in lion-tamer's clothes and held a chair as a shield. The crowd hissed at my presence as I whipped my charges. The ground beneath me changed, swirled and bucked as if slammed upon by some terrible dinosaur! I felt sweat soak through my shirt as fear sunk into my bones! My name was called over and over but I dared not answer for fear to the T-Rex! The chair became toy-like compared to the threat. Who could really hold back nature with a simple chair? The earth shook, and shook again! And again! Someone was calling my name! Someone.... uncle Frank was calling my name! The earth, no the truck, was shaking under some attack!

And it was my uncle's voice that woke me. "That's definitely a Rhino, and he's PISSED!"

The truck upended slightly, then more! "He's gonna kill us, Bobby! We've got to hide!" and uncle Frank produced a road flare from the glove compartment, lit it from the cigarette lighter and flung it far from the truck! The Rhino took the bait and we exited from the passenger door and ran into the night! The roadside fell steeply toward the creek and we tumbled with it, rolling head over heels as the sound of the Ford being destroyed filled the night!

We found refuge under the bridge. The night passed slowly as bats flew, bears lumbered and cockatoos shaded the full moon like Pteranodons! I shivered under my great uncle's grip, afraid of every sound or sight!

Perhaps I slept, perhaps not. Whether true or not, I remember that the tiger returned and lusted after my easy flesh. My uncle crushed it with his levee-dredging hands and brushed my hair back with those same fingers!

Morning came and a massive crew of dog-catchers, wildlife videographers, sheriffs and reporters descended upon the scene! We emerged, the two of us, my great uncle Frank and I. The poor giraffe was chained neck to feet. The Rhino was shot dead and the tiger lay dead as hyenas paced and laughed in the cab!

The local news station had sent a lovely, young lady to catch the human part of the story. She asked a few questions of me and then, eyelashes fluttering, engaged my great uncle Frank.

"Leslie Lashua live at the scene of last nights horrible circus-bus crash talking to two witnesses who barely escaped with their lives. I'd like to introduce someone who prefers to simply be called 'Uncle Frank'. Uncle Frank, what was it like to be trapped overnight with so many dangerous animals? Especially while trying to protect your family?"

"Listen, Leslie. I'm not one to shy away from responsibility. You with me now? I do what I have to and I take care of my own! You with me now? Thank God my great nephew is ok and also my cargo of irreplaceable inventions! A man can only lose so much in a lifetime, you with me now? This boy is my pride and joy! I feel sorry for that tiger who thought he could take him."

"You with me now?"