Rusty Pliers

When Valentino and I have finished our day-for-night gymnastic routine, I remove the welding helmet, the one I always wear for this particular scene because it blinds me to all save for the red-hot glow of the branding poker my jolly Muscle Rancher flaunts with his right hand while his left hand does the actual dirty work.

We mop up the beer and walk hand-in-hand across the soggy particle board deck, which on this warm morning seems to be practically spritzing us with its innermoist secrets. Squish and squirt! Squish and squirt! As if our dank shenanigans had not been hydrating enough, a fresh rainstorm has passed in the night, leaving the now buckled boards underfoot with all the texture, charm and Consumer Reports' rating of microwave oatmeal left in for a minute too long.

Clearly, there are many thoughts rushing through my head at the moment: Will we fall nineteen stories and splatter on the gravel below where the sidewalk should be? Is this why the building required no last month's rent but such an exorbitant cleaning deposit? Am I still named as Valentino's beneficiary?

Obvious stuff. But since you are here, I will tell you what stands out most is the observation you make each year when accompanying me on the trip to the cabin. What is it you always say, that few things are more honest than the smell of wet pressed wood? Well, I think I finally understand what you mean. Sort of.

Valentino takes a deep breath and notes in that vivified and wide-awake tone of his, "Would you look at that — the sun is coming up again."

He is hard to read, but I think what he means is either the deck will dry and, just like at Easter, things will be better after a few days' sleep, or that it is time for him to go.

Either way, his flight leaves in a couple hours, and he looks sad. He is weeping. I know goodbyes are hard for him.

In part to snap him out of it, but mostly to disguise my amusement, I begin to sing a song:

All men, all men are liars
Their words ain't worth no more than worn-out tires.
Hey girls, bring rusty pliers
To pull this tooth
All men are liars and that's the truth.

It works. He likes it! He sniffles and smiles and I tell him I will get his things together while he finishes collecting his thoughts.

Just then, a flock of doves or sparrows— I cannot be certain which, as my eye doctor has once again botched my lasik and I cannot find my eyeglasses— scatters overhead as the sound of gunfire echoes first off of the headstones over at the cemetery and then from the new townhouses across the freeway. We embrace, once again experiencing the tingly sensation we have always shared whenever hunting season begins.