The Fisherman

We have a neighbor. He has a horse, a half-full piscine teeming with this season's tadpoles, laundry hanging from trees and a small charcoal grill. He cooks on it when it's a pretty day; starting the fire early enough to fill the air with delicious smells come time for dejeuner. He whistles like a bird. I like him.

He wears the same hat every day and one of very few plaid shirts, the others hang from trees awaiting their turn in the rotation. A few weeks ago he and Mon Mari were leaving at the same time. I wish I'd been there to hear the conversation…Bonjour, ça va was the extent of Mon Mari's side of it. But l'homme told him much more. All smiles and nodding, Mon Mari said all he got from it was that his name was 'Fisherman'. Of course this can't be true but that's how he's known to us—the fisherman.

He honks and waves at the kids and tries to avoid looking when we see him from our bathroom window. This morning as I looked out of said window, I noticed something new in his garden…a huge bus painted like a milk cow, white with black spots. It made me think of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Now the fisherman is out there on a ladder, scrubbing and washing the cow bus. I don't know what to make of it so I'm offering no explanation here. It's just another interesting part of my life. Horses, roosters, frogs, strangely painted buses. C'est normal, no?