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Lucky Little

Southside of Houston 2013 continued...

He leaned back to the right in his chair on the heavily cushioned armrest thinking through the question as though the answer would soon appear, and his job was to catch it out of the air, with his mind. When he leaned over to the left, just a little bit, jolts of pain ran from the middle of his back down through his legs to his knees past his ankles before the shock went out through his toes. At the same time the pain grinded through his back, neck and arms, giving him a short but intensely pounding headache. You never knew when one of those could flat out ‘send you to stroke town’ as he would say. The wise man. At least in his eyes. I had yet to find out. He painstakingly regained his composure as he would have to throughout the rest of a long night since he had already taken the day’s allotted dosage of medications. He lifted his head up and looked me right in the eyes. Deep look. As if to relay something to me through with telepathy or something. I was a little freaked out but at the same time I was fine to hear anything he had to say. Any one individual that you come across in your life could say something to you that makes you look at life in a different way, hopefully a better way. This guy was far from what most people would consider successful but he knew just to have his health at his age was like gold. Heck, he has kids in their 40s and 50s that aren’t in as good of shape as he is, with the exception of this latest back issue. The smallest hint of a smile was being held back on his lips but you could see a smile and more in his eyes, they were pouring out a smile and everything that seeing a smile makes you feel. All of a sudden all the wrinkles surrounding his eyes, the lines on his forehead, the cracks at the corners of his nose, and at the edges of his lips, lips that had spoken hundreds of thousands of words in his 80 plus years of life. Wrinkles that were so often unnoticed at the least. I was about to get something large or at least extremely laughable. I was okay either way. My clients are like family members. I saw his chest heave as he took in a deep breath. Finally! He cracks a full smile and gives a slight head nod, three times specifically, only moving his head about a half inch each quick nod. “Bob”, he says lightly, “Serve Your Best Interest”. I’m running that through my mind knowing there was a caveat. I could just tell! I know my senior citizens, and there’s a catch. Serve your best interest. Or did he say it like ‘Serve, Your, Best, Purpose’? That’s how it sounded. Just that slight miss of a beat when he spoke it. Yes, that was it. Serve comma, your comma, best comma, purpose. I keep my mouth shut and lean in to him to receive the ‘rest’. I don’t want to miss it if he doesn’t speak it loud enough or clear enough. The last thing I want to do to break up the vibe is to have to ask the old man to repeat something. That would send him off into left field, God love him. I want to hear it clear even if it means getting up in his face so I lean in close. His smiley face goes to ‘business with the devil’ smirk and he whispers, “pick 3”. My mind wasn’t blown but I sure the hell was stoked. The old wise man did go and get deep on me. Serve, your, best, purpose. Pick 3. That was his answer to finding a fulfilled life. I start thinking okay, what are my options? Serve your best. Or serve your purpose, or your best purpose? My 30 minute scheduled would last 15 minutes and our conversation would last another 2 hours.