eye of the elder tiger

Phil continued to peer out across the street at some hot young thing who happened to be jogging past jovially. He squinted with delight.

Mentally, 82-year old Phil was still on the prowl. Physically, Phil’s catlike eyes were the only remaining attribute from an earlier life where he would have eagerly pounced on the young female jogger as if she were the red dot projected from a laser pointer.

“Liked that one, didn’t you?” I asked him.

“Sure didn’t used to make them like they do nowadays, eh?” He chuckled and took a sip of ginger ale.

“She had gold digger written all over her,” I remarked, “but judging by how much you pay me to mow your lawn, I’m guessing you could barely even afford a can of gold spray paint,” I stated matter of factly.

“Weh?” Phil contorted his face and held his hand up to his ear.

“You remember your first beer?” I repeated my original question.

“You remember the first time you suckled on your mothers teet?” He shot back, not missing a beat. Phil was fast, semi-automatic octogenarian fast. I thought to myself for a second, then shrugged. I had to have been like what, 4, 5 minutes old, tops?

“First beer I ever had, got no recollection of it, or that entire night for what it’s worth,” Phil reminisced. “What I do remember is waking up the next morning alone in my backyard with Betsy Stevenson’s poodle skit lying next to me.”

He held out his clenched, arthritis-laden hand. I tapped it gently with my fist. “You were quite the cool cat back then weren’t you.”

He chuckled and grinned and modestly started to prune the pot of geraniums that was positioned between the two of us.

“Had it easy back then, buddy. All my competition was overseas, roughin’ up them goddamn Krauts.” It was a noble confession from a noble man, justified by the 8 months he had served fighting in Vietnam shortly thereafter.

“Phil, how about you hit me with some grandfatherly advice," I beckoned. If hindsight was 20/20, I figured this witty oldtimer’s was at least 20/10. Maybe even better.

He removed his hands from the geraniums and leaned back in his chair, his eyes keenly surveying the street, left, right, left again. The coast was clear. He turned to me and pointed to his face with two fingers.

“You see these, son?” He directed my attention to his eyes. They were fierce and abounding with eagerness. “To succeed in this world, you gotta have the eyes of a tiger.”

I instantly understood the theme song from Rocky.

“These fellas are your desire to succeed. The first thing somebody feels when they see ya, the last thing they remember as you walk away. I don’t care if you’re talking to your boss, or pushing your grocery cart full of Hot Pockets past some pretty face wearing those spandex pants in the produce aisle.”

I remembered the time when Phil tried to pay me in Hot Pockets for mowing the lawn. 

He wasn’t done yet. “Boy, it don’t matter if you’re talking to your teacher after class, or you just trying to have an intelligent conversation with your babysitter, you ALWAYS gotta have them tiger eyes in. That’s how you get things done in this world, and that’s how you let people know that you intend on getting things done in this world.”

I made a mental checkmark in my head. I nodded slowly. “Phil, let me ask you a question- who did that poodle skirt belong to again?”

Quick to respond, Phil repeated the girls name. “Belonged to Ms. Betsy Stevenson, yesiree it sure did.”

“And who was this Betsy Stevenson may I ask?”

Phil proudly chewed on my question for a few moments before answering with a senile smirk. “Sunday school teacher.”

Just then the female jogger jogged back into Phil’s peripheral after having looped around the backstreets. Phil smiled and reached into his breast pocket. He took out a crisp 5-dollar bill and handed it to me. “Go give this to Long Legs and tell her I said to keep up the good work.” As he said this his elderly tiger eyes were ablaze with excitement. I took what was presumably my lawn-mowing money and obediently did as I was told.

Phil’s tiger eyes followed me across the street and barely moved as the jogger slapped me in the face and sprinted off.

Phil shook his head. “Tiger cub’s got a lot to learn” he growled humorously to himself.