Horsefly

On my return from Little Rock, I stopped in Cleveland to see my old buddy, Tom. Tom is a cussing, hard-drinking, bar-fighting, womanizing Irish-American bachelor (all the things I always wanted to be, I guess). For years he worked as a probation officer. He would do some office work in the mornings, then "go into the field" in the afternoons. "Going into the field" meant that he would go to a movie theater or go home and nap.

Anyway, Tom is a would-be horse owner or trainer. When I arrived at his condo, I found two of those play horses---the kind you find as rides in front of Walmart---each tied to his front porch with a rope. When I entered his living room, my eye caught his moving ceiling fan which had a dozen small toy horses tied to it like a carousel. Several paintings or photos of horses adorned the walls, and his tv constantly played reruns of Kentucky Derby races. After a few drinks of Kentucky bourbon with Tom, his laughter at my jokes turned into whinnies.

I then realized that Cleveland Tom had much in common with my neighbor, Seine Emory. It was time to leave.