Ben C. O. Grimm

Bought me a hippie recently. I keep him in the toolshed. I'm not sure why I bought him. I was walking down the street. I saw him sitting there. On the curb. His long shiny hair was moving slowly in the wind. At first, I passed him by. When I had crossed the street I looked over my shoulder. A peaceful glow caught my eye. A tranquil radius. He would probably call it 'aura', but we were not on speaking terms at that exact moment. I had some money in my pocket, and it was going nowhere fast. I did need a chainsaw to scare the neighbors shitless, but they would be there for a while. As they had been for six remarkably vocal years. So I stood there. A strange fear entered my mind. Cars were passing by between me and him, and I thought "What if a car were to pass by .. and he would suddenly disappear from sight?". I'm not a very possessive person. What I have is not holy. What I want is not mandatory. If I have money to buy something, I buy it. If I have something and it bothers me, I throw it away. But this was different. I realised I was fingering the bank notes in my pockets. A blind inventory. Another string of cars blocked the view. Fumes. Honks. Nervous faces. I felt uneasy, so I crossed the road. I barely managed to find a hole between the bumpers. I nearly fell over him. "Hey man, hey," he said. "He's real," I thought. I hesitated for a minute. Did I want him to stand, or did he want me to sit down? He ran his hand through his hair, but didn't show any sign of moving. So I sat down beside him and looked him over. A cheap metal peace sign dangled in front of his groin. His eyes were focused on it. He looked hypnotized. He was slowly circling his head, causing the peace sign to move in slightly bigger circles. A particularly filthy car stopped in front of me. The fumes were thick. I felt dizzy. The peace sign was getting to me. The hippie did not acknowledge my presence at all. I cleared my throat. "Nice day," I said. "Mice day," he replied, "mice are the essence of what we're all about." "Holy shit," I thought, but I didn't say it. I didn't want any scatological or theological theories from him. But the silent sitting wasn't getting me anywhere. Still, the options were hard to come by. How the hell do you speak to a hippie, let alone buy one? Buy one? I straightened my back and stared to the other side of the street. What was that? Buy one? Where did that come from? The hippie moaned. "What's the matter?", I asked before I could think twice. "Matter is quintessential to the subconscious cosmos." I suppressed my "Amen!". Damn. I felt tears. Just a few days before, I had lost my pet rabbit, Gus. I realized I missed him like crazy. He needed substitution. And the pieces matched. Right then and there. "Listen," I said, "I would like to buy you." Somehow, that didn't sound too strange. The answer took me by surprise. "How much?" Wait a minute. Money took precedence over quintessential cosmic mice? In a hippie? I asked him to look me in the eyes. He turned his head slowly. A different time frame, perhaps. His eyes looked normal enough, but I couldn't help asking: "What are you on?". "The curb, man." And you know? He was right. And it raised his market value. A pet rabbit could never do that. And the hippie looked like he would like lettuce too. "Look," I said, "I have never bought a hippie, so I'm not sure about the price. Any suggestions?" He went straight back to his former position. The peace sign was circling again. I was getting sick of the cars. OK. Deep breath. Wrong decision. Casual voice. "I have two hundred dollars in my pocket. Pockets." "That's cool, man." Ah. Interpretation time. Or: what the hell did he mean by that? Before I could ask, he said: "That's it then. Where do we go?". I told him we should first settle the matter. "Who owns you?", I asked. "My parents," he said, "or so they keep telling me. You know." So where could I find his parents? He wasn't sure. It seemed they had moved away and had forgotten to pack him. These things happen in a rural community. I proposed to lease him, but withdrew that proposal straight away. Who would do the maintenance? "Enough," I said. "We'll look at the details later." I got up, and he followed me. He was slow. I looked over my shoulder from time to time. Maybe I didn't technically own him, but I didn't want to lose him straight away. I'm not possessive, but I like to know where my things are. He seemed to like the toolshed, but he didn't say a word when I pointed out an old chair to him. "Do you thinks it's ... er ... groovy?", I asked. Was that a sparkle in his eyes? He smiled. I felt happy. One thing bothered me, though. He was too big for the cage. So I threw the cage out. I decided to turn the entire toolshed into a large cage. I took a hammer and shattered the small window. "Whoa, violence!", he muttered. "No, no, man," I said, "Peace." "Yeeaaah", he sighed. A few minutes later I had wired the open hole. It looked absolutely authentic. When I looked at the toolshed form the outside, I could just see his long hair behind the wires. He looked at me and said: "This is decimal, man." I couldn't, and still can't follow, but he seemed at ease. That evening, I had a few friends over. I wanted to show him off. So we sat there, in front of the toolshed. We fed him carrots and lettuce. And when the sun set, we were all cheerful and happy. That's worth two hundred dollars, I think.

© Ben C. O. Grimm