The Bark Without a Bite

Have you ever noticed that the loudest guy in the room often has the least to say? I’ve met enough folks in my time to know that volume and virtue don’t always ride in the same pickup truck.

Take ol’ Buck Prentiss. He worked the counter at the hardware store back when folks still paid in cash and counted their change.

Buck had a voice that could rattle the nails off a two-by-four and a disposition like an unhousebroken porcupine. Every time I’d go in for a box of screws or some light bulbs, I’d brace myself like I was stepping into a wind tunnel of sarcasm and unsolicited opinion.

“Didn’t peg you for the DIY type,” he barked as I placed a toilet flapper on the counter.

“Just trying to keep the ol’ throne from running away on me,” I said.

He grunted and rang it up, muttering something about armchair plumbers and the decline of Western civilization.

Now, folks said Buck had seen some things—Vietnam, a divorce or three, a stint living in his cousin’s chicken coop after one of those divorces went sideways—and I always figured life had just handed him a series of lemons and instead of making lemonade, he threw’em at passersby.

One Saturday morning, I was in line behind a young man with one of those neck tattoos that look like a barbed-wire fence had gotten tangled in cursive writing. The kid was trying to buy a replacement chainsaw blade, looking sheepish and thumbing through a crumpled handful of ones and quarters.

Buck looked him up and down like he was deciding whether or not to swat a fly.

“This the right blade?” the kid asked, holding it up.

“Nope,” Buck said without even glancing. “You’re off by a size. And probably a few IQ points.”

Now, I braced myself for trouble—figured the kid would swing or at least snap back. But instead, he just grinned and said, “Thanks, man,” then swapped it for the right one and paid up–quarters and all.

After the kid left, I said to Buck, “You ever think about being polite?”

He leaned in close like he was sharing a secret. “Politeness,” he said, “is a luxury for people who don’t need to be taken seriously.”

I looked him square in the eye. “No, Buck. Rudeness is just the weak man’s imagination of strength.”

That got him quiet. It was the first time I’d seen his jaw do anything but clench.

My words had no effect, and the following week, he still told a woman she didn’t look “mechanically inclined” when she asked where the socket wrenches were. But I’d like to think something might’ve landed in that crusty old brain of his.

Maybe not an entire lesson, but a seed. A seed of decency, just waiting for rain.

The truth is, real strength doesn’t need to shout. It doesn’t humiliate, mock, or bark orders. It listens. It helps. Sometimes, it even smiles.

Which reminds me—I need to fix our leaky toilet. Oh, and I stopped going to Buck’s store, and oddly enough, I sleep better knowing there’s one less bark in my day.

And as far as I’m concerned, that’s strength–quiet, steady, and not afraid to say “please.”