Wild Times

One.

“It’s a necessity of life,” he said,

“Something you have to do as a guy.

And you probably could have spit

in that gas tank and gotten enough gas.

But my timing was off and

I wasn’t quite quick enough

and…why? Why’d I do it?

My motorcycle needed gas.

The camper was just sitting there…

so it was obvious, I guess.

Well, my timing was off and

I wasn’t quite quick enough and

I swallowed a whole lot…

leaded gasoline.

For a week afterward—

a whole week,

my farts smelled like gasoline.

Burping hurt, too, it came

right up my nose and

burned as it went.

Did I do it again?

Course I did. Lots of times.

A motorcycle needs gas, after all.

It’s just a necessity of life.

Two.

“The ranch was across from Tall Oaks Restaurant.

I worked there when I was a kid—

The guy had fourteen lions and a

tiger. Two leopards. A black bear.

Must have kept him in the house—

never saw that bear much.

I went to feed the lions one day.

The door was low so I crawled through

after I poked the lion back

from the bars.

He looked at me hard and

sized me up.

I stared him down.

Well, he turned right around and

put his paws on the cage bars.

His side was facing me,

and to this day I’ve never really

figured it out,

but that lion turned and looked at me

and shot a stream of urine

about six feet

and hit me square in the face.

And to this day I still

haven’t figured out how he

managed to do that.

Three.

“Well, that tiger,” he tilted

back in his chair

and stared up at the ceiling tiles, “that tiger…

was two years old and

some two hundred and fifty pounds.

A strong cat.

We wanted to have fun one day,

just like boys will,

so we let him out of his cage.

We swatted him around

for a while. Jumped

and ran around in circles, but

then, then he started

to bite a little too hard.

The other guy ran—he ran away,

and that tiger was getting mean.

I turned and ran too, and I could

hear him behind me—those big

paws thumping against the ground.

I reached a wall of hay and turned and

he stopped.

That cat reared up and put his

paws on my shoulders—he was just

as tall as me—and opened his mouth.

He had a huge mouth and

big white teeth.

I pushed him away, off to the side,

and he bit down on my thumb,

and I turned and climbed up on those hay bales.

Climbed really fast, all the way up

to the top. Fast as I could.