Lady

Terry

I woke up that Saturday to one familiar thing and one strange one.

The familiar thing was the same thing I woke up to every Saturday, the smell of salty fried bacon. I still remember the order that my senses woke up that morning. The smell was so strong that my taste buds woke up next. My mouth started watering and I felt my stomach grumbling and churning.

In that moment - the moment before my hearing kicked in - all of my senses agreed it was a regular Saturday. I could have lived in that instant for the rest of my life - it was what I was used to, the same comfortable moment I had spent my entire adult life in.

It was my hearing that shattered the Saturday stereotype and delivered the sensory seasoning that I least expected to go along with bacon - screaming.

I guess, before I go on, I should give you an idea of how all this came about. My name is Terrance Lyall Tkachuk and I'm a poet and a pig farmer.

I left the farm to make something of myself, to become a great poet, to learn the ways of the world. Growing up everyone called me "Terry", then I went to college; I made everyone call me "Terrance" because I thought it would make me seem like less of a hick. Surrounded by the chaos of the city I learned the joys of simplicity. I was lifted up and broken down in that city. I drank and partied and did all the things I had dreamed of while growing up on the farm.

I found love - I lost love. When the city was done with me I left with my sorrow, an English degree, and a son.

Lucinda

I remember exactly how Terry and I met.

I had lived in a sparse one bedroom house,provided by the research company, on the edge of town for a year. When I first moved to town I had made an effort not to decorate or personalize the house in any way; I didn't want it to feel like home. My career was too important to fall into the small town trap. I hadn't even bought a television set - I stopped at the town book store on the way home on Fridays.

I hadn't made any effort to get to know the locals. I spent my weekends alone. I wasn't there to make friends, I was there to get a job done. My schedule was tight and my time valuable. My only indulgence was once a week when I allowed myself an hour at the local bar to have a Caesar and unwind.

It had been a rough day. My project was going nowhere, and we had been expecting a shipment of new lab animals for testing that never arrived. I was tired, frustrated, and being a total bitch. I had no time for relationships; I certainly had no time for assholes. I had been sitting at the bar for almost ten minutes without so much as a glance from the bartender when the prick beside me started shouting.

He was sitting directly to my left, close enough to bump elbows, and his voice thundered into his cell phone. I snapped at him, "shut the hell up and go outside!" He didn't pause, he didn't even look at me, he just finished his sentence – at full volume – and then shut his phone with a clap. He turned to look me square in the eyes and said, “looks like we're both having a crappy day, let's get drunk.”

He raised his hand, flashed two fingers at the bartender, then swept them down toward the counter to indicate exactly where the drinks should land. I left the bar stumbling and didn't even know his name. The next week he was waiting for me and we introduced ourselves.

Over the next few weeks we became great friends but it was difficult for us to get close; Terry had a lot of baggage. Terry had made his peace with the life of a single father. His son, Ben, had been raised without a mother and was distrustful of any sort of feminine intrusion in his life.