Gift-a-lee part 3

Inside his home he was surrounded by the pictures of Clay Biffley and it would have been hard for sloughians blame him if he spent a considerable portion of the rest of his life thinking of his friend stowed away on Dinner Plate Island. He leaned back in his chair when Coloru began to bark. He could not will himself to shut his dog up.

There were so many pictures and they seemed to form an inconsistent wallpaper pattern. Another dream that was so real it had created photographs all over his wall. Had life with Clay Biffley been only a wonderful “restin’ da peeps” or was it more? In the dark milieu that could that man have possibly mean to Garry Perry. As he closed his eyes he imagined his photographs and they moved click after click, growing in to a movie that kept repeating.

Dark, gloomy light peered through his front window and painted over the wall with shadows from the slough. His eyes followed tree branches that reached from the bedroom door to the framed picture of Garry Perry, Clay Biffley and Coloru taken on a fishing trip up the Fraser River in 2002. That was the day Clay Biffley found Garry Perry’s Gone Fishin’ hat at a flea market in one of those copycat Fraser Valley farming towns. Clay Biffley told Garry Perry that the lady who sold him the hat promised that the person who wore the hat would have very good luck that day. However, Clay Biffley spent all day wearing the hat and didn’t catch as much as a summer breeze but Garry Perry, who was starting the long march to cue ball/Mr Clean status at that time, was catching fish like they wanted out of the water. Upon seeing Garry Perry’s day end total, Clay Biffley handed Garry Perry the hat and told him the story of the lady at the flea market.

“Bud a ya no catch a thing,” said Garry Perry.

“Tis not a thing to catch, but you had-a luck tis day, no? Id be no more dan slough-doo to keep id,” reasoned Clay Biffley.

Clay Biffley told Garry Perry that he wasn’t surprised Garry Perry hadn’t noticed his catch count because it seemed like he was lost in some paradise located who knows where, just no one could tell, but wherever it was, there wasn’t a flight that ever seemed to get him back on time.

“Fo shu, ho can dat be Clay Biffley,” wondered Garry Perry.

“Surely dunno but to be da safe I tell you a gift-a-lee, yeah? When you feel buzzy to da dream pinchy-da-nut sack three times. Da dream over den,” explained Clay Biffley, making slow pinching movements with his fingers.

He looked up at Clay Biffley’s hands and witnessed them dive in like gophers on a golf course, rummaging and purging until they unearthed something. Clay Biffley’s face became something fierce, scrunching three times real hard. He then pulled out his hand and smiled confidently he had shared a deeper understanding.

Upon the example, Garry Perry plunged his hand down deep and began to squeeze his testicles a little too tight, each squeeze getting tighter until the last squeeze made him yelp in pain as a scalded dog would after being kicked in the ribs by his master.

“Wada ya do Garry Perry,” laughed ferociously Clay Biffley. “You take a gift-a-lee and make it a gim-a-now.”

“Gim-a-now?” wondered Garry Perry.

“In livey we got two things: gift-a-lees and gim-a-nows. Gift-a-lees are good-ah things, given to you. Gim-a-nows be a bad thing that trickees give you but is no gift-a-lee but instead work. You think it s gift-a-lee, the giver belees id a gift-a-lee but id be just yet more work.”

Garry Perry nodded his head and pinched again and again and again…

“Wooo.. Waooo!” Coloru barked from the porch. Garry Perry had been a sleep for a few minutes, or was it hours, he could not tell but his testicles hurt something bad.

“Eeeuugh, Coloru, wada ya do today, boya?” Garry Perry got up and walked to the door – BANG! BANG! BANG! “Coloru?”

It wasn't Coloru at all. It was Billy Bulkley and by some measure of elaborate slough-doo he was already sitting on Gary Perry's couch.