ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
After the water heater went bad and doomed us to either cold morning showers or smelling sharply, I began to write like Papa Hemingway again:
The old man had seen it before on safari when the bearers did not build the fires promptly - the old madness caused by a lack of hot water.
The memsahibs, who are vain about their hair and yet too timid to bathe in cold water, feel this madness more than hombres.
The old man did not take a cold shower. He felt he was protected by this marvelous roll-on deodorant that claimed one could skip a day and still not give offense.
"Caramba," the old man said to the woman. "What are we becoming that the lack of a bit of hot water should make us so nervioso and fearful that out bodies are unclean?
"When I was a nino, we did not have the hot water so conveniently as we do today. One washed in a huge tub, and one did not do this every day. That was a time of many odors, but also a time of great happiness, felicity and inspiration, and we were all odorous together."
"Just call the hombres who cure the heaters of the water and spare me twice-told tales of thy youth," the woman said.
And the old man saw the hardness and madness in the woman and he called the curers of the heaters of the water.
And he thought of how appliances had betrayed him over the years. Of how they fail and mock a man and how much dinero they cost.
Surely, he thought, the appliance bell tolled for him.
The curer hombre came and his work was good and hot water soon came from the faucets.
"Aiyee," the old man said to the woman. "We have agua caliente again. At what price I know not, but it now flows freely."
"Bueno," the woman said. "And shall we get out a great tub and let thee bathe in it as thee did as a nino? For the sake of the old times, eh, esposo mio?"
"I think not, mujer," he said. "Tubs have remained the same size while I have flourished in the body. But I have much fear that soon we must spend many pesos for a new heater of the water.
"The curer probed the insides of this one with a coat hanger and much loathsome material came out. Truly, it now must feel the breath of the hyena."
"Whatever," the woman said and she went to wash her hair.
The old man poured a glass of calvados. "It is the way it is," he said. "Una senora who needs to wash her hair does not fear the breath of the hyena."
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB