Elephants don't know the alphabet.

There's an elephant standing on its hind legs at the opening of a wooded lot behind my house. His tusks are covered in dirt and his trunk rises and falls when the wind starts to blow. I'm sitting in an enclosed porch, drinking tea from a Super Bowl XX mug. Dad is listening to Frank Sinatra on an old boom box while grilling pork chops.

The elephant doesn't know English. I know this because I'm talking loud on purpose, trying to get his attention and he rips leaves and bark from the trees, stuffing them into his mouth. Despite the communication barrier, I'd imagine an elephant would be a good listener. Their eyes are deep and brown, and their ears sink to mid-thigh. He's off his hind legs now, taking swift steps towards me. He covers half a football field in two or three breaths. 

Things don't start getting weird until the elephant gets close to the porch. Dad packed his pipe with Prince Albert tobacco and blew rings with lazy lips through the screen. The elephant tucked its head under a branch and dropped his trunk to the ground. There's only a small patch of dead grass between a large oak tree and a tall pole holding up phone lines, so the elephant sits in between the plooms of smoke. He starts to sink into the yard.

Frank Sinatra stops singing. The tobacco runs out in Dad's pipe. He says something about burning the pork chops. I notice the bottom of my mug is dirty. When I tip it upside down to scrape the scrum from the bottom of my drink, the elephant puts his trunk on the screen and snorts inward. The elephant made a loud noise, his way of being unpredictable.