The Old Man and the Sheets

The early sun burns over the horizon in the flawless azure sky, a sun already lurid molten iron. The day would be hot. The bush would be quiet, the flies torpid. I sense that today will be important. The season was that inderminant time between spring breakup and summer drought.

I will do laundry. A man does not need to be told when to do laundry . A man can sense when the time is right.

First, one must heat water. To heat water, one must burn wood, and to burn wood, one must kill trees. But killing trees is a righteous thing, a thing a man knows how to do. I had killed many trees last winter.

I start a goodly fire, a fire to match the lurid sun. Above the fire, I hang the iron cauldron that so recently held a hearty stew of venison and earthy vegetables, and tomatoes. But now the great pot holds water, clear as the flawless sky.

Secondly, one must have soap. I have soap. Last Christmas, a silver icon had spoken to me in the men’s room at the racetrack. Enraged, I had killed it, then captured its green life-blood in a whiskey bottle.

The water is heating, and I have found the soap. I strap on my side-arm. It is old-fashioned – a 1911 Colt .45 replica, fashioned from a piece of armor plate in the arms bazaar of Peshawar. Ali had given it to me that haunted night in Kabul. He had not wanted to give it to me, not when the Soviets were searching door-to-door. But Ali was a friend, and died like a friend, and then I had the gun. I am ready to take the dirty laundry.

Continued . . .

Copyright 1993