Harvard Tom

  I ran into Harvard Tom. I sent him an email about a man in a maroon Sports Utility Vehicle that was parking on the hill. The man just sat in his car for hours, and he was doing it every night for a couple of weeks. I thought it was odd.
                 Harvard Tom is a National Rifle Association member. I was hoping he’d dust off his gun and show his metal, or at least show an interest. He didn’t. He didn’t even reply to my email.

  Tom and I were talking. I was explaining my email to him. He seemed interested. Then, a good-looking woman walked by. Tom craned his neck toward her mid-sentence to get a better look. He lost his train of thought and the conversation was interrupted while he gawked.

  “Wow! The neighborhood is really picking up,” he said. Have you seen the lady down the street?

  “No.
                  “She lives next door to the plumber. She’s gorgeous.”

             A couple of days later I was walking down the hill when I passed the house Tom had mentioned. There was a young woman in her twenties walking down the driveway. She was a heavier woman. It looked like she was working on her second chin. That's Tom's girl I figured. I tried to slim her down in my mind, to trick myself to her beauty. It didn't work. I guess Harvard Tom likes them big I gathered. Real big.