ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 5, 1996 TAG: 9608060040
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
When the water pump on the Cherokee failed and somewhat symbolically left a puddle of antifreeze in the bank parking lot, I started writing like Papa Hemingway again:
The summer is dying, the old man thought. That is the way it is. All the seasons are longer when one is young.
Soon, he thought, we will hear the honking of the geese and see their melancholy vees in the sky.
The old man had never seen a vee of geese or heard their honking, but he had a picturesque mind.
He had never had a glass of calvados, either, but his brain told him it was good.
"See how swiftly moves el verano," he said to the woman. "It is always in the summer when the antifreeze boils and leaks onto an unfeeling pavement.
"And see also, vida mia, how misfortune clings to us even as the racing years bring us closer to extinction. Just the other day la mujer de los horoscopos advised me that an 'upbeat mood is contagious.' I wish her water pump might break and we would see about this matter of the upbeat mood."
"Esposo pobre," the woman said. "Dost thou look always to the blackness? Perhaps la mujer de los horoscopos is correct. Perhaps you should, as they say in the music of the Americanos, put some happiness in your face."
"It is not an easy thing to do, this happiness of the face," the old man said. "A man can know no greater sorrow than the moment he watches a vital fluid leaking from his faithful car."
"Is it not true, querido," the woman said, "that we are not promised a garden of roses in this existence?"
"Corazon," the old man said, "I honor thee above all women, but you are driving me loco with these references to the music of the Americanos."
"Is it not also true," the woman said, "that that which does not slay us makes us stronger? Wilt thou sing perhaps 'La Cucaracha' in Espanol?"
"I feel like singing in no language," the old man said. "La mujer de los horoscopos said it might be of benefit if I rearranged the furniture to make nuestra casa seem larger. This is idiocy, mujer. Of what good is a larger casa when one's Cherokee is bleeding?
"Una dia, I will find la mujer de los horoscopos and she will answer for the hurt she has done me."
The woman shrugged and left the room.
When she had gone, the old man tried hard to put some happiness in his face, but his smile was a thing to be pitied.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB