Lonnie's Ride...

Moving to a new location as a boy, always meant the meeting of new friends, which leads to explorations that become the base for our healthy adulthood, never mind the lingering laughs that fade only when the tracks of the pass are no more seen thus remembered. The new boy, gets the sexy girl, until another new face comes and swipes her from his clutches. New and improve ways to do wrong or bad, interesting ways to steal or borrow, laughter form someone else fright becomes priceless, except when you are the brunt of the laugh. So when I met Lonnie, a little short boy with a big laugh, I was the taller of the two both in years and experience up to a point, but this pistol Pete, was more then meet for both his size and his laugh.
     Moving in a new location, to spend time with a Mother all but lost to my childhood, I stumbled in at the end of the line. The furthest point east that Bermuda had to offer, in the oldest Hospital Bermuda could remember, now turned apartments, amid county kids with bright eyes and bushy tails. I was a city bumpkin, with a bushman heart. I was suppose to be visiting my Mother i had not seen in years for one week and then returning to the orphanage to give my sister her turn. But in my rough heart, I had no plans on going back to the orphanage and no one esle was going to make me. I was with my Momma, and her peas and rice and cold slaw spoke of home like nothing else, and I was as good as home as a boy my age could ever be. Never mind my mother was living with a man who was a born player and she was barely living with him there herself. I staked out a bed amid others, living on borrowed time, and made my presence known. Out in the hall of the old Hospital, was a stairwell that gave entrance to  three other home dwellings. Across from me on the lower level lay a family of four children with Mom and Dad that ruled with love and grace, a firm hand and a neck for using their eyes to call checkmate. Upstairs above me was an Elderly lady who lived alone, and who had a grand daughter that came to visit who became the love of my life and the terror of my heart. Across from her lived Lonnie, and his family. No matter who lived in that house or who was in charge, there was no dispute, that Lonnie both lived there and all knew when he was home.     
     Apart from the dynamics not related to this part of the story, there were other events and people that made up a rich life for me in the old Hospital, and but for Lonnie, the other pieces to this story are way too personal to magnify or convey, and for me, that is saying a lot. Throwing empty paint spy cans in the fire to watch folks jump, girlfriends with lesson a city boy should have already been apprised off and the like.  Flanking the Barracks, of this old Hospital for soldiers,  was a stable for both cows and horses. These two different animals seems to favor one another in such a way it made their distinction easy to set them apart. Now and again, i would notice a head bubbling and weaving amid the brush and away from the horses, and on my close inspection, it was Lonnie with loot he had stolen from the RA club just beyond the pasture. Out of breath but giggling, he offered me one of his bottles of sprite, my favorite I might add, and we sipped till he brought me up to date on what was what to have a successful haul. Turns out that Lonnie was afraid of the horses, but I think the cows too, but we will not go there. Up to that point I had already mastered the streets at an early age, but what I had not mastered was the ins and outs and in between that roughness like Lonnie had to teach me had to that point been out of reach. Who needed cigarettes, Lonnie help himself to a straw chair, lit one end and puff till he was satisfied. I looked on in amazement, and coughed when I tried to handle a puff or two, only to hear the siren laugh of Lonnie go off and clearly give away our position and sport. 
     But what would go down in history about Lonnie for me would be his art of thievery when it came to the vegetable-man.  A Portuguese-man came to our little village home to sell his fruit and vegetable from the back of his truck. His calmness and charm made him and his job a delightful pair. When all the house wholes would have brought all the goods they would purchase the seller would simply jump into his truck and head to the next stop several miles away. This gave Lonnie enough time to hope on back of the man's truck and because he was so little, the man could look clearly out of his rear view mirror and see nothing but the road, while Lonnie help himself till sick from all the fruit he ate and helped himself to for later.  What amazed me more, was how Lonnie was able to get off the man's truck without being notice, and how he was able to pick anyplace at will to jump at. I watched him do it for weeks before he was able to talk me into coming. Lonnie seemed able to talk me into anything simply because he was so little and I thought if he could do it without regard what was my problem. So I gave it a go.
     Before I knew it, the man had given the children this and that, and Lonnie had eaten his as a precursor of things to come, and there he was sitting on the back of that man's truck with his legs crossed as if he own the thing and the fruit was in agreement. Waving me on and me trying to use what little breath i had to catch a truck and then hold on to ride it. Well I got on, and had no more ability to hike any of the goods, I thought saving my wherewithal for the dismount was all I could stand, and when we got off without a hitch, I felt somewhat embarrassed, as the man and his fruit had disappeared in the smoke trail he left behind without notice of what was missing. Of course Lonnie's belly was full, notwithstanding the jump which didn't seem to effect him any, and with his famous giggle, he shared his take with a nervous dude willing to be stupid that day. From the fruit truck to the RA club and back, we ate like bandit thieves, and Lonnie did not like sharing his take, with the smaller kids, for he was dead set against copy cats.
      From the tears of heart break, to the movements of time's changes, life took my friend Lonnie away from me, and gave him a wife in marriage and possibly children of his own, I have no clue what happen to him beyond the years of yesterday, but those smiles i gathered from a youth built on the back of his know how and sharing, no matter how mundane and worldly, became the Catullus for a bushman turn christian. Those bygone years as a boy, still holds a fading smile, for what becomes of time when it's flavor can still ring for what was, also showcases what we are but for God's grace...nj