Chapter 9 #2
“You made the walkway so nice. I’m going to have to do something nice over here, too.”
We walked with our arms around each other, and I couldn’t believe how natural it felt to be so close to him.
“I can’t wait for Kimo and Lani to get here,” I said. “The fence is going to be so cool. And hearing Kimo’s Kendall stories will be fun.”
He chuckled and squeezed my arm. “I’ll bet. I can’t thank you enough for offering him the workspace.”
“Why not? I’ve got plenty of room, and he’s doing us a favor with this fence. He even said he’s open to perhaps having open studio time or even teaching lessons. Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it?”
He kissed the side of my head and sighed. “I know there’s already a St. Francis, but you’re quickly becoming the patron saint of lost artists, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think anyone can accuse me of being a saint, but I am on a mission here, and when things come together like they have, you have to go with it. You can’t mess with fate. I feel like I’m really doing the right thing.”
“You are.” He gave me one more squeeze as we reached what looked like a metal plate between two stacks of rough concrete.
“The only thing I tell folks is to always wear closed-toe shoes in here, and don’t stick your fingers in their faces.
They may see fleshy appendages as snacks.
Otherwise, just be aware of your surroundings. Are you ready?”
He was so nonchalant about it, but then, safety was kind of his business.
I’d known a lot of firefighters over the years.
For some reason, every bar I tended to frequent happened to be a firefighter bar.
At Berkeley, when I’d go to Davis to visit my cousins, and even the bar near my old office in Menlo Park was close to a fire station, and the crew would come over after work.
My two close girlfriends loved it when I’d come along because they felt safer—not sure why—and my tendency to be the evening’s entertainment usually landed them a few hot guys.
Those fire boys in Silicon Valley, however, were not the most safety conscious I’d ever met. They were into extracurricular activities that made them prone to injuries.
From what I’d seen of Kendall, he was assuredly a safety-first kinda guy, though one might question keeping pets that liked to snack on your appendages.
He pulled the large metal panel aside, and there they were. Six giant tortoises huddled around a water hole in the dusk. If you hadn’t known they were living creatures, you might think Kendall had a sculpture garden.
One of them turned his head as we came in and began a slow shuffle toward Kendall.
“That’s Marlon Brando. He’s the most dramatic of the three. He’s quite talkative, aren’t you, buddy?”
The enormous tortoise stopped two feet from Kendall, stretched out his long neck and let out a grumbly growl.
Kendall crouched down beside the grumpy guy and began scratching his neck.
“He loves this, and some days he pulls a Gandalf and won’t let me pass unless I give him neck scritches, won’t you, buddy? ”
Marlon Brando opened his mouth wide and sighed like an old man rolling over in bed. Then he meandered away to the watering hole once more.
“Let me grab some snacks for them. I just got a bunch of nopales cactus… here we go.” He took the lid off a bucket, reached inside, and tossed a few pieces in the middle of the huddle.
Two smaller tortoises, with shells that were a little different, turned toward him and moved faster than I thought possible.
“Ah, Greta Garbo and Mae West want theirs from the hand, don’t you, girls?”
He bent and held on so the ladies could take dainty bites—well, they started out as dainty, then they chowed, green slime globules forming around their mouths.
“Want to try?”
He held out a piece of the cactus to me, and I took it, ready to test my big boy skills tonight.
“Just watch your fingers—yeah, that’s it—and when they get a few inches away, let them have it.”
“So these two are from the Galapagos, right? I tried to look up the differences in case, you know, one came to visit me.”
I elbowed Kendall, and he chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah, one time an escapee comes to your door, and I’ll pay for it forever.”
I licked my lips and smiled. I could have given him a trademark saucy comeback, but I was fascinated watching the tortoises. One of the bigger ones came to investigate, and I took another piece from Kendall to hold in my other hand.
“John Wayne likes you,” he said. “He doesn’t usually approach new people. He’s a little standoffish.”
“Well, I’m not a new person, isn’t that right? I won him over with my bananas.”
Kendall cracked up. “How could I forget?”
When the pieces of cactus were gone, he pulled out a couple more and tossed them away from the path that led to the next pass-through.
“Through here are the little guys, my radiated tortoises, aka the Rat Pack. Watch out for Frank Sinatra there,” he said, pointing to the largest one that was charging toward us.
“He looks like he’s ready for battle. Look, his little eyes are slanted downward like a grouch. Maybe he should be Oscar.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right. Just step around him, yeah, he’s gotta keep the others in line, you know. He’s the boss.”
“Right, right. It’s so cute how you anthropomorphize them.”
“You spend as much time as I do with them, you can’t help it. They have indisputably distinct personalities. For example, you’re about to meet royalty.” He opened the door to the side of his big wooden barn and raised an eyebrow as he gestured for me to step inside.
“Oh! Your pond! Kendall, it’s fantastic!”
I’d been dying to get a look at his big project, but even spying from my balcony I couldn’t see what they’d been working on.
The pond had to be eight feet long and four feet across and took up most of the center of the large wooden barn.
There was a waterfall, gorgeous palms that bent over the water, lily pads, and stepping stones around the outside.
The waterfall sounds echoed through the space, making it sound like a rainforest, and it kept what probably was a pretty dry environment moist for the animals inside.
We’d come in through a small door, but there were large doors at the front and back that could be opened wide to bring in equipment.
“Pretty cool, huh? I’ve got a filtration system, and it’s heated. All of it is hooked up to solar. When I’m ready to get some more water creatures, they’ll be right at home in here.”
“You don’t have anything in there?”
“Not yet, just some goldfish. They help support the nutrient cycle and get rid of pests. I can’t decide if I just want to leave it open and put some turtles and frogs in there, or if I want to enclose it and get some water monitors.”
“Monitors? Aren’t those huge? Like Mrs. Kipling on Jessie?”
“Yes, like the character on the Disney show that lived in a penthouse.” He grinned. “They’re pretty amazing, aren’t they?”
I tried not to wince, but I was obviously unsuccessful when his smile fell. “They are. I’m just going to need to know what to feed it-slash-them when they come to visit.”
“All right, all right, I deserve that,” he said.
He wrapped his arms around me from behind and turned me to look at the other end of the barn.
“I’m still undecided what to do with that space.
I was thinking about putting an entertainment area over there, like to host parties, with a deck and chairs, even a bar…
or maybe a space to bring kids out for programs about the creatures, but then I thought about getting a hot tub—”
“You can use mine anytime you want—Oh! We should use mine! I haven’t even gone in it yet. That was one of the things I was most excited about, too. Although, hmm, maybe you should get one in here. Mine’s outdoors, and I do tend to get loud…”
“Francis,” he growled in my ear, squeezing me tight. He pressed into my back, and oh, the shivers I shivered. I couldn’t wait to feel his body against mine with a lot less clothes on.
“I’m sorry, I know, I should behave. We’re on a tour. We’re touring here. Back on track. Okay, who do I get to meet next?”
He took my hand and gave me a look that let me know, yes, I was going to be in so much trouble.
He walked me over to the opposite side of the barn, where he’d turned some of the stalls into habitats.
“Did they used to have horses in here?”
“Yeah, Grandpa had a couple horses, but mostly they had goats. The best part about this side is that there are stall doors to the outside as well, so I’m able to build indoor and outdoor spaces for the creatures over here. I’ve only built two so far, but I have room to expand.”
He led me over to the first one and made a grand gesture with a straight face.
“May I introduce you to Elizabeth Taylor?”
I immediately got what he meant about their personalities. This iguana was absolutely fabulous.
“Look at her, so regal. Aren’t you beautiful?”
The female iguana sat atop a branch with her head lifted proudly toward the heat lamp, looking just like the queen of her domain.
“Richard Burton is around here somewhere.”
“Burton? Any reason you picked that husband? Wasn’t she married, like, eight times?”
He snorted. “I surely wasn’t going to name him Larry Fortensky.
Nah, I picked Burton because just like their namesakes, these two had a tiff at one point, and I had to separate them, but then they kept looking for each other, so I put them back together, and it was like whatever their problem was, the absence made their hearts grow fonder. ”
“That’s sweet. You really are a romantic, Kendall. Don’t ever change.”
He shook his head and opened a box next to the iguana habitat. He pulled out a handful of somethings that were moving and opened the cage door.
“Let’s see if I can get—ah, there he is. They can’t resist these worms.”