his name was andre and he was holding a stuffed heart when i made an illegal u-turn to pick him up.
i wonder about breaking the rules of the road while in plain view of a soon-to-be passenger because i don’t want them to think the ride will be dangerous, but i also want them to see that i value their time enough to flip a bitch, safely.
quickly i learned what the heart was all about.
had heart surgery recently, he told me.
OMG do i have questions, i said, adjusting my rear view mirror to get a good look at him. the wife of a very dear friend of mine just had a full blown heart transplant, i told him as we drove up PCH through venice on the way to the marina del rey freeway to the hood.
those are serious, and rare, he said, impressed.
they are? i asked. my buddy was playing it off like it was no big deal.
the hard part was finding the perfect donor for her.
but once a heart was secured, he said, it was like a pit crew installing new tires on an indy car: zoom zoom zoom.
oh no, dre said, i think your friend is just being brave. make sure you’re there for her. It’s an emotional rollercoaster.
well, i did tell him if things went south, i’d move in and help him raise the kids. incredible family.
mine was simply an aorta transplant.
simply?!? i said, and we both laughed. i guess you don’t get replacements for those, so how many miles does your used aorta have on it?
i was surprised to learn it’s man-made, he said, noting all the artificial materials that made up the thing that the body grafts to it over time like moss over a tree.
no shit?
no shit.
i gotta say my man, you look spectacular for a guy who just went through all that. is there anything you can’t do now that you miss?
yes, i can’t run as much as I did, and i can’t drink coffee.
andre was a college basketball player who told me he runs about fivemiles a day, five days a week. one day he felt like his ticker was skipping a beat, hiccupping. He immediately went to the hospital and they saved his life.
now that the weather is better, i really want to go backpacking with my friends, but my wife won’t let me in case i need to run away from a bear.
where the hell are you hiking where that’s going to happen? i asked, driving past the fox hills mall in south la. it was sunny, little traffic, beautiful. i had just dropped off some friends at LAX and figured why not make a few bucks on the way home.
we had a trip scheduled for banff and i have to bow out, he sighed, sweetly holding his stuffed heart next to his chest in the back seat.
in canada? i asked.
you know about it?
i’ve got some great friends in canada who have sent me pictures from there. that lake looks fake it’s so beautiful.
yes! that’s why we want to go. the only problem is in the US we can carry bear spray for our bears, but in canada they’ve got grizzlies. they found two hikers with empty bear spray canisters next to them, eaten by a bear who wanted to bulk up before hibernation.
holy!
so i was looking into what it takes to get a gun license up there because i wanted to get like a .44 in case we crossed paths with a giant grizzly and needed to protect ourselves, but i was sidetracked, he said, and tapped his stuffed heart.
you can’t yell at them?
yelling is like a mating call, he laughed.
sounds like my ex-wife, i joked, and did a rim shot on the steering wheel.
the only thing you can do is play dead, he said, or shoot him in the head.
you know, i’m pretty much anti-gun, but i guess in the wild like that it doesn’t hurt to have a weapon because who knows, you might meet some rednecks like in Deliverance and it wouldn’t hurt to be strapped.
nah, there’s no people where i like to hike usually. and if there are, you can negotiate with crazy people by giving them food or whisky or a joint. but in canada they have way stricter gun laws.
and that’s when i learned that women would rather meet a bear in the woods and men, even with a used aorta, think another man is safer. even if he’s crazy.