TIMBER

True, he hadn’t been out of the woods since they changed the face on the two-dollar bills—of which now there were none—and  he’d had a rustic dust-coated memory of what women still looked like, starting with lipstick.  No trouble there!

And there they were.

“Women,” said he. “Talk about your  Farmer’s Market!”

One thing he didn’t count on was  the shouting. And—a lot of it—pretty much in his direction.  “Some popular!” Although the name-calling was different. Confused him only for a second, but didn’t  stop him.

Swung in step with anyone  whose legs were  poking out from under their coat—promising her nothing but bad breath—took her by the wrist of the same hand that made him bleed, and left him even more speechless than was his habit. Not exactly what he’d remembered. What had he known? Chopping down trees for the paper mill . . . since the Korean war, he’d missed the headlines completely. This was frightening! They were all mad as hell at someone. Couldn’t have been him.

Good Lord,  sure, what was the first thing he did when he was born? He lay down and let a woman  change him, wash him, wipe him, turn him over and slap his arse. Pretty much what he went looking for on the Saturday night of the long day that the ladies of the town took to their equality march. “Well, there wasn’t much of anything fair about that,” said he, and  back he went to the bush to commiserate with his half-sawn tree, in time to hear “TIMBER” once, and his name, not at all.

What a life.