A Gift for Your Weird Uncle

He lives at the far edge of town, in a single wide trailer from 1978. He has a “three season porch” which is really a wood stairway that he wrapped plastic insulation around, and called it good. By the front door is a sign that says, “it’s 4:20 somewhere.” (If you try to correct him on this point, because it’s not always twenty after the hour, he’ll give you a blank stare.) You wish he would just get a washing machine, because every time he goes to the laundromat, he has to tell people about how the Clinton’s had those people killed in the ’90’s, and Hillary is in a coven- “She’s an honest to God witch! No shame about it, neither,” and Benghazi. Just, you know, Benghazi. Then he lights up a smoke and gazes into the distance in that weird way he has.

No one knows how he makes his money, or what happened to his cat. But he does have money, because sometimes, when you were a kid, he would just slip you a hundred dollar bill, just like that. And also there’s these women who hang out at the trailer, and drive him around a lot, because he doesn’t have a car. “It’d get me into too much trouble,” he says.  So, what to get him for Christmas?

On a lark, you get him this book about going cross-country on the Greyhound– because you know he’s done it, a few times. (He doesn’t believe in flying because they check your ID. And that’s how they get you, you know. The ID.) And also, it’s a short book, and it has pictures. A few weeks later, he’s all over the Facebook talking about this book he got. His friends all have the same reaction:

“I didn’t know you could read!”

“Yeah,” he says, “I don’t normally, but this one’s got pictures!”