 The
Lar Gibbon - Issue
Thirty-Seven |
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A Traffic Stop Where No One Was Shot by Donal Mahoney An old friend lost an old friend the other day. Jim
said they were both getting up in years and he just happened to outlast
Herman. Jim was black and Herman was white but that had never mattered
in a town where some thought it should.
Herman had been mayor of their small town for 24 years. He was not only the mayor. He was Jim's dentist and his good friend. Jim was a teacher and taught Herman's children. Jim also worked with Herman on different social projects to make life better for the poor in the community. There were quite a few poor people in town. Some had jobs and others were unemployed. Jim and Herman worked together to make life better for all of them, as much as the donations they collected would allow. One night Jim had a chance to test his friendship with Herman. He had been to the hospital visiting Mrs. Carmichael, a widow Jim and Herman had come to know through their efforts to help the poor. Mrs. Carmichael was in the process of dying a slow death and the thought of her impending death bothered Jim a great deal. They had known each other for years. Jim came out of the hospital that evening thinking about Mrs. Carmichael, got in his car and remembered he had a book he needed to return to the library. He drove out of the parking lot but failed to notice a traffic island he knew full well was there. He swerved to miss it and did but when he turned left to go to the library, a policeman drove up behind him, lights flashing. Jim pulled over to the side, put both of his hands on the steering wheel and waited. The policeman asked for his license. Jim kept one hand on the steering wheel and put the other in his back pocket. He took out his wallet, opened it and pulled out his license. The cop looked at it and said, "Mr. Jackson, have you been drinking?" Jim said, "I don't drink." The cop shone his flashlight in Jim's face with the high beam directly in his eyes. Jim blinked from the light and said, "Sir, I have spastic optic nerves. My eyes will jump all over the place." The cop said, "Get out of the car." Jim said, "If you think I've been drinking, take me to the station." The cop said, "Walk that line." Cars were passing and blowing their horns. Jim was mortified. He knew the cop had called in his name, and people all over town were hearing it on their scanners. Listening to a police scanner is something some people in towns and big cities do even while watching television. Jim successfully walked the line, placed his finger on his nose with both index fingers and recited his ABCs. About that time another police car drove up. The new cop rolled down the window and hollered to his colleague, "You had better let him go; he's the mayor's friend." Jim was livid. The policeman looked at Jim and said, "You know I could arrest you." Jim replied, "If you think I've been drinking, take me to the station!" The cop turned and walked off leaving Jim standing there. When Jim got home, he phoned his friend Herman, the mayor. He told him what had happened and what the two officers did. He told Herman that he had neither expected nor wanted any special favors and that his cousin Jimmy Joe had been killed some years back by a drunk driver. Herman spoke calmly to Jim. "If you had been drinking and were arrested, Jim, I wouldn't get the police to pull your ticket. You're my friend, but I don't know why they think I would cover for you. I'll get to the bottom of this." Jim found out that Herman had a meeting the next day with the police chief and the two officers involved in the incident. Herman let all three know that no matter who broke the law, they were to be treated with courtesy but without favor. And that was especially true if someone was a friend of the mayor. Jim respected Herman even more for doing what he did. He was a true public servant, Jim said, and there aren't enough of those around now. He said the town has had some good mayors since Herman retired, but even in death that man stands tall as one of a kind.
One of many nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had poetry and fiction appear in various publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html |
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The Lar Gibbon is found in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar
and Thailand, although their range historically extended from southwest
China to Thailand and Burma south to the whole Malay Peninsula and
Sumatra. They are usually found in dipterocarp forest, including
primary lowland and submontane rainforest, mixed deciduous bamboo
forest, and seasonal evergreen forest. They are mostly frugivorous
with fruit constituting fifty percent of their diet, but leaves,
insects and flowers form the remainder. Their fur varies from black
and dark-brown to light-brown, sandy colors. The hands and feet
are white-colored, likewise a ring of white hair surrounds the black
face. They are usually active for an average of eight hours per
day, leaving their sleeping sites right around sunrise and entering
sleeping trees an average of three hours before sunset. They spend
their days feeding, resting, traveling, in social activities, vocalizing,
and in intergroup encounters. True brachiators, they propel themselves
through the forest by swinging under the branches using their arms.
With their hooked hands, they can move swiftly with great momentum,
swinging from the branches. Although they rarely come to the ground
naturally, while there, they walk bipedally with arms raised above
their heads for balance. Their social organization is dominated
by monogamous family pairs, with one breeding male and one female
along with their offspring. Family groups inhabit a firm territory,
and each morning, the family gathers on the edge of its territory
and begins a "great call", a duet between the breeding pair. Each
species has a typified call and each breeding pair has unique variations
on that theme. Recent studies indicate that gibbon song have evolved
to communicate conflict in terms of predation. In the presence of
Asiatic tiger, clouded leopard, crested serpent eagle and reticulated
python songs were more likely to contain sharp wow elements than
normal duets. Sexually, they are similar to other gibbons. Mating
occurs in every month of the year, but most conceptions occur during
the dry season in March, with a peak in births during the late rainy
season, in October. On average, females reproduce for the first
time at about eleven years of age. Gestation is six months long
on average, and pregnancies are usually of a single young. Young
are nursed for approximately two years, and full maturity comes
at about eight years. On average they live to be twenty-five years
old. They are threatened in various ways: they are sometimes hunted
for their meat, sometimes a parent is killed to capture young animals
for pets, but perhaps the most pervasive is the loss of habitat.
Their habitats are threatened by forest clearance for the construction
of roads, agriculture, ecotourism, domesticated cattle and elephants,
forest fires, subsistence logging, illegal logging, new village
settlement, and palm oil plantations.