Excerpt Four from Letters to Elisha Hamilton

Today looks bright outdoors. It is trying to trick me, I know, because I saw a mosquito out there earlier, shivering and begging to be let in.

We gave David your old cell phone. I just took his first call for the day. Your little brother is sitting on the couch in the living room, telling me that he is sitting on the couch in the living room while getting Buddy T. Dog ready to go for a walk up to the graveyard.

I just got another call shortly after that one; this time, from a block away.

He remembered that he had forgot to tell me he was walking out the front door.

After he got back, he told me how it went. Buddy had lunged at some huge black dog, one wearing a ferocious-looking spiked collar.

“He was hard to hold back, too. He is strong like you would not believe.”

“Where was the other dog?”

“Behind a fence. You should have heard it whine, dad, and you should have heard the way Buddy growled at him!”

He imitated the sound then, which made Buddy look nervous.

The hummingbird must have took off, since I haven’t seen him flitting around the feeder lately. Probably going down to visit its kin at the Hummingbird Hostel, which is being illegally run by your piddle-man cousin James (who I doubt bothered to obtain a license).

Your mom went out in the back to twist a new corkscrew into the ground, close to the sandbox. Then David took the wire door off the dog’s cage. He used two of those square patio blocks as a base, so now B. T. has a nifty dog house which sits under the garage overhang.

(I forgot to tell you that his collar has the words Cat Killer inscribed on it. I might have more news about that later.)

Ned stopped by last night, so me and him sat around and watched a few Youtubes, and later on, traded a few licks.

On the guitar.

You knew what I meant.

David is taking new “classes” now. One is a 3-story rock/wall-climbing course, which he seems to like. In involves straps and ropes (who would not get excited about that?).

I asked him how it went later, and if anyone had died. He struck a thoughtful pose and said, “Well, I don’t remember Reggie being on the bus on the way back…”

Another thing he signed up for is an outdoor photography clinic. They meet at the park at noon today, and then go out to Marengo ridge for a shoot.

(Above is a hippo he found, plus the tree shadow).