Facelift

  Chapter 17

  You can get awfully tired trying to compensate for never having been loved by a

  dog or taught by a horse.

  I had a horse when I was a kid. I named her “Queenie.” Naturally my dog was “King.” The Royal Court was a corral just down the hill behind our house. King, had the run of the range, but the queen was kept captive. While the king would be out on some adventure, the queen would be stuck in her little castle. I don’t think Queenie liked the arrangement because she was always figuring ways out of the corral. She was the Einstein of horses. For that matter, she didn’t like being ridden either. She’d duck under any low hanging obstacle in an effort to scrape any human burden from off her back. Clotheslines were her favorite allies. I was clothes-lined more than any NFL back, and this was long before I ever played football. As I sat in the little room that held me captive I found myself missing those simple, pleasant times. I closed my eyes and imagined my childhood home. I could almost smell the musty coat of Queenie, the earthy fragrance of the corral, and hear the yapping of the king. For the life of me, at that moment , I couldn’t think of anything more important than retrieving an errant horse or flinging a stick for a goofy king of a dog.

  “What’s wrong with these people?” I heard myself utter. I answered the question in my mind, “They probably are trying to compensate for never having been loved by dog or taught by a horse.”

  If that cocky little horse could escape from an escape proof pen, then I should be able to get out of a crappy little hotel room or whatever it was. I’d watched enough MacGyver to know that no room was escape proof. All I had to do was take the contents of the wastebasket, build a bomb and blow the door down. Nothing to it. I looked around the room. No wastebasket. Apparently my captors had watched too much television! I rolled over onto my back, adjusted the pillow, and began to ponder my escape. As I reclined on the bed, I realized I was exhausted. That was my last thought before I escaped into a fitful sleep.