Planet Curt

Last night, I met Ronny at the coffee shop.

I think Ronny might be a good friend for me. He talks a lot. No awkward silences.

The chess wasn't very good--you should have seen him try to properly order the pieces on the board--so I just asked him a lot of questions. Maybe eventually I'll try to help him with his chess game.

I asked him if he spent a lot of time in cemeteries. He said that he had, ever since he was a kid. His Dad was the caretaker for a cemetery in West Lafayette, Indiana. He says that he used to go out there at night with his best friend, and they would climb a tree that grew next to a big mausoleum, and then jump over onto the mausoleum's roof. There, they would talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. Back then, when Ronny grew up he wanted to play French Horn for Leonard Bernstein in the New York Philharmonic. I told about my early aspirations to be a concert pianist. He asked me if I wanted to get together and play some tunes sometime. When I told him I didn't really play anymore, he said he didn't either.

One day, when they were a little older, he and his friend were drinking and his friend fell off the mausoleum and lost the use of the lower half of his body. Apparently he died not too much later, and Ronny never really understood why. I almost told him what had happened between my best friend and I. I didn't though. I worried that I could send our blooming friendship right down the crapper.

He says he thinks that incident is why he never became a great Horn player. His friend's dream was to go to West Point and become a famous general, which his father was. Rather, I guess his father wasn't famous, but thought he should be. Anyways, out of what you might call guilt, Ronny joined the Army.

I asked Ronny if he ever got back on the mausoleum.

"Curt," he said, "what do you think?"

I didn't know what to think.

Ronny is building an urban garden. He told me he needed to buy 1000 pounds of dirt and get it on top of his garage. He called me early this morning.

"I'm an old man, Curt," he said. "Want to give me a hand?"

We went to Home Depot. Ronny has a beat up old Chevy truck. He bought 1000 pounds of dirt. It was in bags, and we had pushed it on flatbed carts up to the checkout area.

"I'll be damned. You guys got enough dirt to make a whole planet!" the checkout man said.

"A planet!" I said. "Huh."

"What's your name, son?" the checkout man said.

I told him.

"Planet Curt," he said. "I like that."

"Planet Curt," Ronny said. "Not bad."

When we got to Ronny's house, I realized what I had gotten myself into. I'm no "spring chicken" myself, and I ended up doing most of the work. It wasn't particularly far to carry the stuff, but the bags of dirt weighed 60 pounds!

Tired and sweating, and huffing a little bit, I told Ronny when he gets his garden going he owes me some fresh vegetables.

He told me his thumb was greener than the Jolly Green Giant's.

I can almost taste the butters now!