99 Stories of God

56. Giraffe

We were in the bar after golf and this acquaintance of mine says, “My gardener said the damnedest thing to me today.”

And I say, “Yeah, well, gardeners.”

“He’s from Czechoslovakia. He was somehow involved in the shooting of all those giraffes back in the seventies. Forty-nine giraffes. It was the largest captive herd in the world at the time.”

What can you possibly say in response to something like that? I said nothing.

“But he’s been my gardener for years, and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about lawns and trees. But he’s getting on. The crew he hires to help him are assholes.”

“I see,” I said.

“So he fires them almost as soon as he hires them, because they’re ignorant, they don’t want to work, but he works ceaselessly, he never stops moving. It makes me nervous just watching him sometimes.”

“Not good,” I say.

“So he’s working all by himself today, running around, going from one thing to another, and he tells me he feels God at his elbow. All morning he tries to ignore this feeling of God at his elbow, because he knew God had some questions, he knew God wanted to initiate a dialogue with him and he was frightened. But finally he stopped what he was doing and faced God and God said to him, I want to give you something.”

End of story.

“That’s the damnedest thing,” I said, wondering if it would turn out the old guy died on the spot or something.