Theo

Theo's the small quiet man, mid-seventies or so, who lives next door with his wife Sue. As I drove up this evening he was tending his lawn. The state of his lawn is the topic we discuss most often. Despite the fact that he over-fertilized and burnt a man-sized patch in it last year, it still looks better than most lawns on our street and puts my dessicated green to shame.

"How do you like your new car?" he asks. "Runs good?"

"It's great. It's fine. No complaints," I say.

"Boy, you were lucky you weren't hurt. Did he side-swipe you?" He adjusts the dusty straw hat he wears while gardening. He keeps a nicer version of the hat for golfing.

I thought Theo was naturally bald until I saw him without the hat one day. I'd stopped at his house to drop off mail I'd collected while he was on vacation. He came to the door reluctantly, not recognizing me at first, shirt off due to the hot weather. His head was creased with scars and a deep impression--what might have been a substantial divot fifty years ago--sunk into the left side of his skull. I handed him the mail and remembered him telling me how his disability pension was enough to pay someone to mow his grass every week in the summer.

"No actually. I hit him. We both walked away from it, so it could've been a lot worse."

"The car was totalled?"

"Yeah, a complete write off. But it turned out alright."

"Car accidents, any sort of accident..." he shudders as if remembering something. "You were lucky you weren't hurt. I don't know if I told you but I flew for the air force," he says and then pauses. "Accidents... spent eight months in the hospital."

And with that Theo smiles at me and goes back to watering his lawn.