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“And the top prize is to spend the day with a ventriloquist,” my mother told me,
Proudly.  She was the organizer of the carnival, and thought this up herself.
What the heck? I had bought fifty raffle tickets. I wanted a new car or rent money.
Certainly not a whole day with that old geezer.
The old geezer worked the church carnival like a new groom.
He was everywhere, charming everyone but me.
I was in pout mode.
And of course I won top prize.
He called me six times to make a date.
I finally relented, reluctantly.
Thinking what a horrible day it would be, a wasted Saturday.
Within minutes of meeting him I discovered something right away.
The ventriloquist looked old, but he was younger than me in attitude.
He was playful and fun, more like a twelve year old boy than a sixty-two-year-old grandpa.
I missed my twelve year olds, they had dumped me long ago.
Choosing their friends over their mother.
Within the first two hours, I had laughed harder than I had
Laughed in six or eight years.  
We did only the things I wanted to do.
He showed me how to throw my voice, but I was not any good.
We did not care.
He asked me what I wanted to do.
I wanted to go to a pawn shop. I had never been to one, and so we went.
We ate lunch at my favorite restaurant, and he insisted on paying.
In the afternoon when we said our goodbyes, I hugged him hard.
It was one of the best days of my life.
And the last day of his.
I think of this often, and
How glad I am that his cheerful playful spirit changed my hardened attitude.

Submitted to Anthony Slausen's Ventriloquist 
Contest
June 19, 2018

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