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May 4, 2002 the edge It is hot.  It is humid.  It is that time in Louisiana when a man's thoughts turn to the uncomfortable, familiar stickiness between scrotum and thigh.  A time for bath powder.  I have emerged from the shower and I sit before my large rear window, lounging.  I lounge in loungewear, my balls and armpits powdered to a fare-thee-well.  My hair is wet and slicked back.  My eyes narrow as I raise a cold, green bottle of Perrier to my lips.  God, I wish I could take the edge off. I swallow and think about things unconnected.  I fantasize a meteor is discovered in deep, dark space.  But not too deep and not too dark because I want to hear Tom Brokaw tell us it's hurtling toward Earth, a bull's-eye on my roof.  I want to see Stephen Hawking's assistant help him execute a shoulder shrug while Hawking laughs, electronically, and calculates the meteor's arrival one year hence.  Then, while other earthlings panic, I calmly pour myself a scotch. My eyes had closed, but now they open at the sound of gas-powered lawn equipment.  I see in my backyard my yardman, Warren.  Warren is a short, powerfully-built, black man.  He wears a blue rectangular sponge fastened against his forehead by an elastic band encircling his head.  The sponge absorbs honest sweat. Drops of condensation roll down the Perrier bottle.  I close my eyes again to consider the integrity of my own sweat.  Thoughts swirl and stop on Cecilia, my housekeeper.  I love her on some level, though I've seen her only once.  She comes to my house every second week, but she arrives after I have gone to work and she is gone when I return.  But we are intimate in ways known only to strangers.  Occasionally, she leaves me a note warning "we" are in peril of running out of Pledge or some other cleaning product.  Her penmanship, like her housework, is art.  I heed her warnings with an earnestness reserved for matters of grave importance.  She knows me through my habits and preferences.  My neatness must speak volumes.  I know Cecilia through her work.  She is thorough.  She has an eye for detail.  She is trustworthy.  She respects pain and privacy.

©  2002 by the beastmaster