Posted on July 26, 2008 - by Hubba

At the Docs, Part 3

This will be the last installment of “At the Docs” until I get back I reckon…

It was early afternoon, and I was back to tilling trees.  The two weeks were nearly over, and I mostly tried to stay numb.  I had developed an uneasy truce with everything the Good Doctor still let me use, and I hadn’t made a serious blunder for a couple of days.  That actually made my apprehension worse.

But I was back on the little Kubota garden tractor with the little till behind me.  It had been fun the first day, until I tilled the trees.  I had always wanted to drive a cute little tractor like that, ’cause all we had were bigger ones.

But after I tilled and killed three trees, it had ceased to be fun immediately.  The Good Doctor had made me feel more or less worthless over it, and then a few days later had stuck me back on the thing.  In fairness, I had killed three trees, and I probably could have avoided it, but the corners were a little tricky.

Anyhow, I was back.  Doctor Kovarik had several shelterbelts, and there was work for the Kubota and me forever.  I had gotten decent at running the thing, but the novelty had worn off.  It was just a job.  To make it worse, it was hotter than the hubs of hell, and as the afternoon wore on, I got more and more lonely.  I was in the middle of nowhere, on a little bitty tractor, and the job I was doing had no definite end in sight.

I don’t know where I got the idea, but all of a sudden I started singing “Silent Night” under my breath.  It felt good.  I sang it over and over, louder and louder, until in the middle of July, I got the Christmas feeling.  The trees I was tilling began to appear decorated in my mind, and the air even seemed cooler.

I sang “Silent Night” until the bee-man showed up.  I have no idea exactly how many hours that was.  I had said hi to the bee-man before.  He looked something like Marty Raybon of the group Shenandoah, and he always had a big smile on his face.  And he chewed Copenhagen.

If you don’t have a tobacco habit, please do not acquire one.  I started chewing tobacco when I was nine years old, and by the time I was eleven, I was hooked.  At sixteen, the year I first worked for Doctor Kovarik, I chewed all the time.  Except that Doctor Kovarik, being the family doctor and all, frowned on tobacco use, so I hadn’t brought any.  I hadn’t had a chew for a week and a half, and I was having a fit every day.  That might have contributed to some of my mistakes.

I drove the Kubota as casually as I could up to the bee-man’s pickup.  He remembered me, and asked how I was doing.  Even if I didn’t get a chew, it was nice talking to him.  I hadn’t talked to anybody much except the Voice of God for a week.

But there is a pattern to “bumming” your nicotine off of someone else.  You can’t, or maybe won’t, ask until the very end of the conversation.  We chatted for quite a while, and finally he said that he should be getting to work.  I started the Kubota, and then asked very hesitantly if I could bum a chew.

“Sure thing,” he said and handed me the can.  I took a big one and handed it back to him with the most heartfelt thank you I had ever given anyone.  Me and the bee-man were awful good friends, whether he knew it or not.

That was the best chew I’ve ever had in my life.  I tilled trees for an extra hour just so I could enjoy it.