Forever Fesbach

You know what Latigo Flint adores? Latigo Flint adores stories about unlikely friendships that develop between wild animals and lonesome young boys.

Especially poignant is the scene where the boy realizes his friend is in mortal danger if it stays, so the boy pretends he doesn't like the animal anymore and says cruel things and throws stones. Then there are lots of close-ups of sad, puzzled eyes and later the boy sobs bitterly when no one will see.

A really good one was the movie titled Forever Tugu, which was about the unlikely friendship that developed between a lonesome Kenyan boy and a hyena named Tugu Mankesi, which in Kenyan means My Always Smiling Friend.

I'm not ashamed to admit my vision went a little smudged and salty at the part where Tugu Mankesi stood over the boy and protected him from a vicious pride of hungry lions.

Perhaps the reason I'm so deeply affected by this particular storyline is that it touches so very close to events in my own life. I rarely speak of it, but a while back, I formed an unlikely friendship with an adolescent tiger shark named Fesbach. I kept him in my bathtub and fed him leftover pasta and box turtles.

But then one day came the letter from my apartment management company announcing they had scheduled a building-wide air vent and mold inspection. I knew Fesbach was in grave danger. We'd be reported and then the management company would surely confiscate Fesbach and sell him for purses and soup.

"Fesbach!" I pleaded as steady tears traced tracks through my man-mascara and down my stubbled jaw. "You have to go--it's not safe for you here anymore."

Fesbach took an abridged lap around the tub and grinned up at me. He enjoyed the attention and cared not the reason. I spent an hour trying to make my friend understand the peril, but to no avail. I knew then what had to be done, ruin my heart though it would.

"Fine Fesbach... I hate you!!! You know that? I hate you. I don't want to be your friend anymore Fesbach! You're a stupid tiger shark and I never want to see you again."

I didn't have stones to hand so instead pelted him with novelty soaps. Fesbach promptly ate all the ones shaped like box turtles and died horribly minutes later.

I spent years trying to learn how to smile again. And I've yet to take a shower without weeping.




(Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message Fesbach the Tiger Shark is dead.
Put crepe bows round the necks of public doves,
let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

Fesbach the Tiger Shark was my North, my South, my East and West,
my working week and my Sunday rest,
my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.)