Sammy and Me

There's a new bartender, and Jack can't remember her name. She doesn't know about Sammy, although she probably knows about his kind. She gapes at the short, chunky, balding Jack and the short, stocky, extra hairy Sammy as they sit down at the bar. Jack smiles back.

"Lemme get a Pabst and a splash of tangerine vodka in soda for Sammy," he says. Realization flits through her head, and she hustles away. Sammy smiles. The drinks here make him feel good. They let him put the hard part of the day out of his head. Jack has told him why he does what he does a number of times, but it's hard for Sammy to remember what Jack tells him for more than a few months.

"Orange drink?" Sammy says, his voice guttural out of his simian throat, lower than what one might expect for such a small body.

Jack nods, "Orange drink Sammy, your favorite," he replies.

Sammy bounces up and down on the bar stool as Rebecca, that's her name Jack thinks, sets the drinks down in front of them.

Stacy another regular comes in with Tom, her boyfriend of the month. She pats Sammy on the head as she walks over and sits down next to him. Tom doesn't like Sammy. Jack can't for the life of him figure out why. Sammy is nothing but 120 pounds of friendly, enhanced chimpanzee. Best Jack could figure was that Tom doesn't like the way Stacy is playing with Sammy's hair. Sammy doesn't mind the attention at all, he's used to being stared at, patted, stroked. Jack takes another sip of his beer. It bothers him that she drags Sammy into her silly relationship drama like this. He nods at Stacy. "How you doing tonight hun?" he says, trying to draw her attention away from Sammy's fuzzy head.

"Been better," she replies. "Tom got laid off at the plant."

"Bunch of fucking chimps took our jobs," Tom says. Jack looks over at Tom. Most everybody in the bar is looking at Tom since he just about shouted; he isn't drunk yet, but his eyes are bleary with undirected rage. Why the hell did she bring Tom here when she knew Sammy and me come here every day after work, Jack thinks.

Jack looks at Sammy since he can kinda understand most words. Sammy is just sitting there sipping his drink, a pleased, oblivious expression on his face. Jack turns back to Tom who is walking towards the bar.

"Hey, no," he manages to get out before Tom hits Sammy over the head with a beer bottle. It smashes, splattering Stacy and Jack with skunky beer. Rebecca is hollering and dialing the cops on her cell as she runs over with a bat, Stacy is beginning to scream, Jack is leaning over to where Sammy had fallen but wasn't, Sammy is launching himself from the top of the bar, fangs bared.

He slams into Tom full force with his legs straight out behind him. Jack is pulling himself off the bar stool. He flicks beer out of his eyes, and Tom is, Sammy is screaming, and Jack is trying to find the two of them in mess of tumbled chairs.

There's no blood. Sammy isn't biting, he's pounding Tom's head against the floor, and then he leaps off and runs to the other side of the room. The few other patrons have cleared the floor, and are giving him a wide berth. Jack stops to check Tom's pulse, still there.

Sammy is muttering something over and over again. Stacy is screaming and crying blubbering Tom's name, and pushes Jack out of the way as she rushes to him. Jack slowly walks over to Sammy with his hands up and his eyes down at the ground like the naturalization rep taught him.

"Sammy?" Jack whispers as he risks a glance at Sammy's face.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Sammy murmurs over and over again.

"It's OK, Sammy, it wasn't your fault." He checks back. Tom is still lying on the floor, and Jack can see a little blood pool beginning to stain his pale hair. Stacy is crouching over him crying. Everyone in the bar except Rebecca, Stacy and the unconscious Tom have hurried out. Rebecca is still on the phone, waving her hands as she talks. Jack turns back to Sammy, who is still whispering and shaking.

There's a back door, a gravel path, the parking lot; Jack holding the whimpering Sammy's hand as he opens his truck.. Jack knows what happens to enhanced chimps that are violent, and he doesn't want that to happen to Sammy.

"Get down on the floor Sammy, and put this over you," Jack says, handing Sammy the blanket that every real pickup has.

Sammy complies as Jack eases the gas, and heads out of the lot. There's a long stretch of country road that runs behind the bar and parallel to the interstate for thirty or so miles, twists south towards Mexico, and peters out as a dirt road a few miles shy of the border.

There's a small town just over the border he partied in when he was a young buck. Two bars, a few small hotels. The cops were dollar-friendly... Jack revs the engine bouncing over a cattle grate, and glances at Sammy.

Sammy is looking back. "I'm sorry," he says for what had to be the fortieth or fiftieth time, his face earnest.

Jack wipes his eyes.

"I'm sorry too Sammy, really, I am." He slows down as the blue and white lights start flashing in his mirrors.

Chuck Close

I have a special affinity for the pop artist. His work, now easily reproduced with the digital medium, is nonetheless stunning in person. Much as some musicians need to be seen in concert to be appreciated, Chuck Close's art must be seen up close (heh) to be truly understood.

Here is a man, nearly paralyzed, who creates photo-realistic paintings logarithmically bigger than the subject matter. From a distance each work seems to be nothing more than a well done oil painting, but as one approaches the truth can be seen. Whether an attempt to recreate our finely crafted biological optics, or representative of the mechanics of photography, his art is surreal yet precise.

My personal connection? As a child abruptly saddled with the necessity of glasses, I was amused by the ease in which I could stand quite close to his paintings and by simply removing my glasses see up close what others had to stand far back to observe.