With all their groaning, what do dogs dream?

It was a relief that I saw coming a quarter of a mile away. His right hand was stretched straight out, perpendicular to his body, his torso pointed plaintively at the oncoming traffic. Every time I'd seen a hitch-hiker for the last several years they had always thrust their thumbs out too late and there had always been a row of cars behind me that'd hinder me from stopping so abruptly. This time was setting up to be the one, though, since he'd given me plenty of time to slow down. Besides, I was the only one driving at the time on that part of the two-lane highway that meandered through those orchards and farmlands. I pressed my boot down on the brake pedal and fumbled for the hazard lights button as I veered to a wide spot in the shoulder ten feet beyond the old man. One look at him scurrying my way through my rear-view mirror told me that this was a break that this fellow needed.

"Ed, I'll have to call you back." He sounded confused as I rushed him off the phone since I had already begun talking to my new friend who was jabbering something incoherent to himself as he opened the door of my truck. I hung up the phone and slid it into my pocket, taking time to absorb the character that I was about to meet and would probably never forget. The first thing that struck me was the stick. He had been waving it around with the hand not projecting his thumb when he hailed me. Now that I had an up close view of it I found myself having some questions that I knew I wouldn't be asking. It was a wooden walking stick of some kind that appeared to have originally been something else, perhaps a fishing pole. Bits of bright plastic were attached to the center portion and rotting shreds of twine were rapped around various sections. He clutched it firmly in his old bony knuckles as he took his sweet time climbing up into the passenger seat of my pick-up. I watched with horror as he jabbed his stick skyward and stopped just millimeters short of the fabric lining the ceiling of my new truck. Even if he'd punctured it I wouldn't have said much, however. It's a general rule not to threaten a man who carries a stick such as his. Women and children should probably avoid men who carry strange devices like said multipurpose mystery stick, but I was not afraid, being a six-foot two-forty construction worker and all. "Howdy," I said in a tone amiable enough to show good will while firm enough to express my willingness to make it home alive.

"It's just a ways up the road," the old man muttered from somewhere inside his deeply wrinkled face covered with a dense layer of white stubble. His anxious response to a question I hadn't even asked yet suggested that he'd been through this before and knew the routine. Suddenly I felt bad for worrying about his crazy-person stick.

"Not a problem. Buckle up, though. That beeping won't stop for awhile unless you do. Damn technology." He complied, or tried to, but apparently didn't understand my intentions. Pulling the seat belt over his shoulder and tucking it under his arm, he turned and faced me for the first time. "Yeah, that cop who hides up ahead is a jerk. Short, pudgy little guy. Real bastard." It didn't click in his head that the ticket was not what concerned me. I wasn't about to argue the point. "Aren't they all, though?" I asked, adding a forced laugh afterwards. "I'm Al," the stranger said, staring me in the face with his piercing baby blues. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd already gathered this information through my skills of inductive reasoning, or just the white tag with "Al" embroidered on it in red stitching that clung to the breast pocket of his haggard denim shirt by barely a thread. "Nice ta meetcha, Al" I replied as I turned off my hazards, put the truck in gear, and pulled back onto the highway. "I'm Dave." And sure enough, that beeping stopped shortly after.

It wasn't long before I came to the conclusion that Al was out of his mind, or at least did an Oscar-worthy performance pretending to be. I tried guiding the conversation in a logical direction but good ol' Al kept reverting back to that pesky cop that hides around the bend with his radar gun. His vehement hatred for this speed trap seemed funny since Al had probably not driven in quite a few years, which was probably for the best since I could smell it on him. The beer permeated through his pores and filled the cab of my truck with that unique scent of copper and bananas that only an old alcoholic can produce. He didn't appear drunk and didn't smell like alcohol itself, but barley and hops had definitely become their own food groups in Al's diet over the years, which in turn probably led to his need to hitch rides. I knew he didn't have his license because I'd seen him walking that road before many a time over my years of traveling it. The more I thought about it the more I found it surprising that this was the first time I'd actually seen him ask for a ride. My mind settled on the fact that his caving in this time must've had something to do with the ominous rain clouds rolling in over the hill and his lack of an umbrella, and then I started listening again since he was done complaining about local law enforcement for the time being.

"It sure is cold. Was beautiful today, cold now. Snuck up on me, this weather." I cracked a smile at my own sick pleasure with myself at having been right as to his decision to get a lift. It quickly faded after I remembered that pride is a deadly sin. "Yeah, it's supposed to rain tonight," I replied in conversational least common denominator fashion, but even my weather talk was not going to steer Al in any kind of predictable direction. This was a script that would play out according to how he wanted it to and the sooner I'd accept that the better of I'd be.

"Make a left here," he barked in a voice unlike the one he was using just moments before. It came as a surprise since it was his own fault I'd almost missed the turn and had to slam the brake and cut the wheel hard in order not to pass it. Al's demeanor instantly changed back to its happy-go-lucky and semi-insane self as soon as we were safely on his road. A broad grin smothered his face and a sparkle gleamed from the corner of his eye as he scanned the rolling green hills of farmland on which he'd probably spent a lot of time. This was home for him and it felt good. "Jackson Road," he blurted as if he was reading my mind. "Yeah, I've never been back here before. Sure is nice." I was about to attempt a question about the land when he shot his pointer finger out so rapidly and forcefully that it made a sound as it cut through the still air in the truck. "Deer! They're all over right now. People building homes, deer are all over." I imagined that Al had not legally held a weapon used in the sport for an even longer time than he hadn't operated a motor vehicle, so I didn't ask if he was a hunter. "Right, more construction forces them out of their habitat and the deer don't know what to do with themselves." It didn't click with him, though. He just kept staring blankly at the three does bounding through the field towards the forest. I didn't mind my inability to have a normal conversation anymore. There was comfort in giving up. Al was a strange duck alright, but I could relate to his solace in simple pleasures. The two of us watched the deer disappear in silence and I drove on, only more cautiously since I'd learned about Al's tendency to give directions at the last possible moment.

The barn seemed to rise up out of the ground itself. All of a sudden we came around a sharp bend and over a hill simultaneously and there it was, just as it probably had been for over a hundred years. The planks were in need of repair and it looked like it hadn't been painted in decades, but it was still standing, albeit at an angle that seemed to defy gravity. Just beyond that relic of architecture was a house in not as bad shape that relieved me for some reason. I slowed down in anticipation, but Al never gave me the cue to stop and I rode right by the ranch house. "Hundred and fifty cows here," he mumbled as he shifted his stick from one hand to the other. That was the first time that I saw the other thing he'd been carrying, a burlap sack. "Lots of cows but I can't ride one of them to the post office," he said in his attempt at humor. So that was where he'd gone? And what was with the empty sack? More and more questions flooded my brain as I continued to drive. It distracted me enough to almost miss the turn yet again when Al snapped "Right here!" as we almost passed a driveway leading to a shack. It was in not as bad condition as that barn, but not quite as new as the house. "This is my place," Al beamed with that same dreadful pride that had made me feel guilty before, only he didn't seem ashamed as I had over it. There was an innocence about him that I couldn't quite put a finger on, though it probably had something to do with humble years spent in solitude.

I pulled into the lot and put the truck in park since I figured it'd take him awhile to gather himself and get out of the truck. I was right. As he went to thank me I caught him off guard by asking a favor of him. "Can I use your restroom?" I had to urinate awfully bad and didn't want to have to wait until I'd reach my destination. "Sure, sure. Come on in," he replied as he hobbled away, his stick and sack now in the same hand in order to allow him to open the front door of his shanty. I could tell that he was talking to himself just by the motion of his jawbones that I saw from behind as I turned off my engine and stepped out onto the dirt. I didn't feel strange about asking anymore because it seemed to please him to be able to return the favor. Somehow Al and I had more in common than I'd first thought when he sat down next to me on the side of that highway, and part of me wanted to stretch out our encounter a bit longer if possible.

Al was about as big on formalities as he was on conversational etiquette. By the time I reached the door he was already inside and seated at a small table with only one chair. "Want some cider from the orchard?" he asked, throwing the stick and sack into a corner of the small room. "No thanks," but it almost didn't seem necessary since he had already started scribbling something down ferociously on a surprisingly pristine sheet of paper, his tongue sticking out of one corner of his mouth as the pen scratched the parchment hard. That cider was never a real option for me. In fact, that cider was probably still sitting down the road at the orchard. His offer was just a shallow gesture that his mother must've sowed in him when he was a child. I was OK with that.

I glanced around the room awkwardly for a few seconds trying not to seem too curious, but finally gave in to better judgment. "So where is it?" I asked of an audience that had long since left me. "Where's what?" was my answer, and I chuckled at what I thought was another bad joke. "Oh, right. The crapper." He'd really forgotten why I was standing in his home-- no, he'd forgotten I was there at all. All that mattered to him was whatever he was writing down on that piece of paper. "It's the door on the left." There were only two doors adjacent to the room and I was glad that my options were limited since further assistance would not be easy to obtain. His voice had changed back to that harried one that had first reared its head when I almost missed the turn onto Jackson Road. I was in his domain now, impeding him from doing whatever it was that was so important to him, which had something to do with whatever that arthritic hand was jotting down.

I walked into the bathroom, did my business as quickly as possible, washed my hands, and strode back out into that open room where he sat at the table for one. That's when I noticed something strange. All along the wall where I had walked in through the front door was some kind of sorting system. It looked similar to something a post office would have to organize letters, only the grid system was different. Instead of having zones or streets, the X and Y axes were curiously labeled with the months of the year and years themselves, dating all the way back to the 1960s. Each box in the matrix had been stuffed to the brim with envelopes to the point where it was almost hard to tell where one box ended and the next began, the thin wood being nearly covered by the fanned out ends of the letters. This man was clearly some form of farmhand, not a postal worker, which was a good thing since he obviously would have been late with his deliveries. What was the meaning of this? My better judgment succumbed again for no excusable reason and it slipped out before I could catch it: "What is all that?" I was afraid I'd just opened a can I wouldn't be able to close, but it was too late to turn back.

Al stopped writing for the first time since I'd walked in three minutes ago. He looked up at me, then at the wall of envelopes, then back at me. His head cocked to one side a little as if my question was a silly one. The five longest seconds of my life crawled by and his head straightened out again. "Those? Those are my ideas. What's your name again, mister?" He smiled wide, revealing spots where several teeth were missing, though the ones he had left were as white as the perfect piece of paper lying flat on the table in front of him. "Ideas?" I asked, still utterly confused and blatantly ignoring his question as to my identity since I suddenly needed to know what was going on in that tiny bungalow in the middle of nowhere. Al put his pen down, slid his chair back from the table, rose to his feet and walked over to his masterpiece. Choosing a coordinate arbitrarily from the rack he plucked out an envelope and held it up in front of his chest with both hands. "See? See the postmark? Dated, official." He flipped it around and held it the same way. "See this? Sealed." I started to comprehend what he was getting at but didn't want to break the news that this archaic form of cheap copyrighting would never hold up in court. That was an old wives' tale perpetuated mostly by people who would never have an idea worthy of laying claim to in the first place. "Oh, I see..." and let the last word trail off as if to show appreciaton for the genius of the man standing before me. It was evident that Al loved that charade because that boyish smile shot across his face again and those baby blues deepened. He turned to return his idea from June 1973 back to its rightful place and I headed for the front door. By the time my hand reached the knob he was already back at his desk and hard at work. I turned to thank him, but didn't bother. I knew he wouldn't hear me anyway. Al had big things going on here, whatever they were. I was only in his way. I understood that finally.

My truck seemed further from the house than I'd thought. As I made my way back to it I pieced together the facts: the old man still bursting with thoughts deemed important enough to save after years of living in isolation; the walking stick that helped him get to the post office in his worthless attempt to copyright his ideas; the empty burlap sack that was used to transport his treasures back and forth; but mostly, and to my greatest dismay, the tragic truth that no one would ever know what it was he was trying to say in those letters to himself and that they'd probably wind up in a dump someday, unopened. It broke my heart for a split second.

The truck started up, but the engine hummed differently. The final oddity came as I pulled out of the driveway. Just at the end of it was a post with a large tin mailbox, "LeGORY" painted in black lettering on the side. At first it seemed unreasonable that an absurd old man who lived alone in a tiny servants' quarters on a forgotten farm would walk all the way to the post office when he could have just as easily put his letters in that mailbox and addressed them to himself. As long as the stamp was on it the postal delivery worker would've taken it to be processed and brought it back. Then it dawned on me that I wouldn't have risked losing my life's work either if I could have limited the distance it had to travel outside the safety of my hands. One can only trust oneself in this world unfortunately.

I started whistling a song whose melody I didn't know I knew and drove off over the hill that hid this place from the main thoroughfare. "Good luck, Mr. LeGory," I said to myself aloud, which no longer seemed odd to me. "I'll see you again."