26 - Off Kilter

     "A bear?!?" He said as I sat down at the little table.
     "A bear."
     "Jesus.  You know that there are people in this area that have never even seen bears and you hit one." 
     "Yep."  It was early evening.  We had been playing phone tag all day.  Through a series of messages decided to meet at the usual spot for some drinks.  The warm November wind was somewhat deceiving.  I usually avoided going out this late in the season but the beautiful weather was still callin' me.  The machines were quietly humming away processing the events of the past day.
     "Pineapple juice, no ice, right?" asked the older yet attractive brunette waitress.  I just smiled and nodded.
     "It's warm as all hell you know?"
     "I know." She walked away shaking her head.  I lit an American Spirit and took a deep drag.
     "You couldn't hit a deer or a skunk or a rabbit or something like that, you had to hit a bear?!?  And to think you hid that car behind your house so nothing would happen to it Halloween night."
     "How's my ass feel?  Oh well the guys from Sharon Auto Body are going to take care of me so I'm not worried about it."
     For those of you who don't know I've known Stotler for about 30 years.  We're like polar opposites.  He's the tall, thin, white guy.  I'm the short, stocky, black guy.  He's married to a wonderfully forgiving wife (hey she let's him hang out with me) and I'm the ultimate single guy.  He teaches and influences Americas youth.  I'm interested in the over 21 aspect of Americas female youth.
     "I figure that's the way that my life goes.  If things weren't just a bit off kilter how much fun would that be?"  I took another deep drag of the spirit and slowly let a piece of my soul out with the escaping smoke.
     We had a silent pact.  Through him I would live vicariously as the married guy and he would live through whatever mishaps I happened to live through.  It seemed to be working out good so far.  Never a dull moment.
     "Maybe I should just chill out, get a real job, find a nice girl, get married, buy a house and have my two little daughters.  Think about it," I said inhaling another deep drag while the machines began to work into a steady whir, "let's say my life weren't off kilter and everything were dead on, I may have hit that bear dead on and COMPLETELY destroyed my car!  Better yet I could have been killed"
     "Understandable," he said taking a good swig of of his beer. "But if you take the point of view that everything would was dead on isn't it possible that you might not even be here?  Maybe you would have been married, or maybe you would be in a different area? Maybe being off kilter is what's holding you back."
     Sometimes the answer is so simple. This is what long time friends are for, getting straight to the point.  If they are good friends they make no bones about the truth and they don't let you hide behind yourself.  My friend Heather Anne is like that too. They both keep it simple. They stick with the bare necessities.
     "Who knows maybe I'm wrong," he said rethinking his answer. "I can't really picture you without that edge.  A bear?!?"
     "A bear," I said letting another piece of my soul escape.

That Beautiful Black Man