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August 17, 2002 a little proposition I was sitting on the front porch, sweating and reading Paul Bowles when I heard rustling in the thick lantana growing in the long tile planter's box that separates my porch from the yard.  I looked up and saw nothing but gentle evening.  My neck was stiff, my mind soggy with opiate fiction.  I stood and stretched and noticed, for the first time, that I had not yet died from West Nile Virus.  There are things one fails to notice and not being dead is one of them.  Just before I settled back into the rocking chair, I heard the foliage rustle again.  This time, a green lizard emerged from the lantana and, cocking his head to one side said, "Hey, pal.  I got a little proposition for you." Another of those things one takes for granted:  Green garden lizards do not speak.  So I am not sure how nonchalant I appeared when I replied, "You talking to me?  Are you talking to me?"  I sounded like Joe Pesci, possibly a reaction to the lizard's ominous tone, narrowed eyes, and DeNiro-like head tilt. "Yeah, I'm talking to you.  Who do ya think I'm talking to?  Ya Mudda?" "Leave my Mudda...  I mean, leave my Mother out of this.  What do you have in mind?" The lizard stepped back into the shadows as a car passed on the street.  He recovered quickly, shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, "I'm gonna make ya an offer ya can't refuse."  Before I could laugh at his theatrics, the lizard added, "Have ya noticed how you ain't died of a certain mosquito-borne virus?" The lizard copped a smug snout as though he'd been reading my mind.  "Maybe," I said, "What's your point?" "What do lizards eat, ya wiseguy?  Mosquitos, that's what.  And what do ya think would happen if we 'accidently' change our diet to, say, granola?  You'd have mosquitos out the ass, that's what.  I'm offering the kinda protection you've grown accustomed to." He wasn't bluffing.  I know a reptilian four-flusher when I see one.  This guy meant business.   *...........................*...........................* It was another steamy night.  The lantana had grown bushy and needed pruning.  I was starting a paperback thriller and held the book in front of me with my left hand.  With my right, I mindlessly stroked a lizard sleeping in my lap.

©  2002 by the beastmaster