The Incredible Hunk

What’s on my mind? I’ll call him Baby X. I have a hunch he wouldn’t want me to use his name. I’ve known and loved him since the day he was born. He’s seven weeks older than Roger, my son. Here he is in the photo below, dressed as a chicken. Don’t ask: I haven’t got a clue. 

Somewhere, I have a black and white photo of him and Roger, each noodling on the keyboard of a toy piano. They were two years old, at the time. 

I remember him as blond-haired Toddler X, running starkers in six different directions, insistent that “I want a tun tan!”  

I remember the Incredible Hunk X at 35, with the movie-star looks he still has at 50. His mother and I have been best buds nearly 60 years. She’s unwell. She will not recover. It hurts to lose someone you love.

Hunk X works in the movies, but where and doing what, I won’t say. I won’t say because I was desperately disappointed in him this week, as in “How could you do such a thing???” 

And now he’s dressed head-to-toe as a chicken, his Hunk X movie-star looks disguised, and I’m laughing and all is forgiven. 

What happened? Several years ago, Hunk X adopted a rescue dog - a beautiful animal who became his best pal and traveling companion. She had a weak heart, and died far too soon, her short life a joy to him and to her. He didn’t replace her with another dog - I’m guessing because it hurts to lose someone you love. 

And so, on his 50th birthday, he asked for just one thing: Donations to a dog rescue society via the PayPal Giving Fund. His friends stepped up, and so did I, but now it’s tax time. When I noticed my tax receipt hadn’t arrived, I chased after it - first casually, and then with a slavering vigor even I will admit was out-of-proportion to my modest donation.

As it turned out, the PayPal Giving Fund directed my tax receipt to an email address I’d had before the Romans built the Colosseum. I hope it arrives today. 

In navigating the maze of PayPal Giving’s online documents, I came across a sentence that left me in shock: It said Hunk X would be receiving partial proceeds from my donation - and, I assumed, from everyone else’s. That’s when I thought Hunk X must be desperate to wear that chicken costume, especially because my donation was chicken feed. 

It was only when I read the phrase for the 100th time that I realized I’d misinterpreted the words: “The amount you donated will be shared with Hunk X.” An ambiguous sentence if ever there was one. The sentence didn’t mean Hunk X would be snaffling some of my donation … It meant Hunk X would know how much I’d sent the dog rescue society. 

If his mother were well, we might have shared a good laugh about that. As it is, we won’t. It hurts to lose someone you love.

© Nicole Parton, 2021