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  THE EVENING AIR
    by Buzz Mauro
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    Gone on this October night were the old brown boots that 
  had callused his heels and given him corns; abandoned were 
  the shirts his wife had labored to press, the blue jeans he 
  would wear for weeks on end until she screamed at him to let 
  her wash them, the undershirt he had taken that morning from 
  the high clean pile; dispensed with were the Christmas present 
  socks and the boxers with the faintest of brown stains. Mr. 
  Swallows was seventy-nine, the night was cold and fresh, and 
  he had left his clothes at home.
          
    This was a birth, the newness of the gritty walk beneath his 
  feet, this undiscovered wealth of sensation, merely to take a 
  step and let the air unfold about the flesh. It had been too 
  long since he'd been born; he had forgotten it. This emergence 
  might have been his very first. The yellow light of street 
  lamps glittered on the hairs of his chest and his skin contracted 
  with the cold, pulling him ever more tightly into himself until 
  he felt separate from the oldness of the world: insulated and 
  even warm. He stretched his limbs as he walked, kicked and splayed, 
  hopped and galloped, bounced his genitals freely through the night 
  and gazed with interest on the woman coming toward him with a 
  quart of milk.
          
    This was Mrs. Dewey who lived next door and often helped 
  him up the steps, not in a silly self-important way but really 
  only to be helpful. She was no toddler herself, past sixty at 
  least, and so what if she thought him feeble and in need of 
  assistance? He was, after all. And should he care if she thought 
  him inappropriately exposed? He was that, too. He restrained his 
  limbs to some extent under her wide eyes, but continued his 
  progress. "And now she will come and be my wife," he thought. It 
  was late and he was tired, and that is what he thought.
          
    When he reached her he paused and tipped an imaginary hat. 
  He thought himself quite funny and knew she would be charmed.
          
    Mrs. Dewey did not laugh, but she did not speak either, and 
  he felt this was a good sign. She knew him well and understood.
  
    "He is sad . . .  a frightened old man and he needs me now," 
  thought Mrs. Dewey. And Mr. Swallows was not surprised when she 
  took his hand and turned around and set down her quart of milk by 
  a tree. They walked down their deserted street and further into 
  town, where people stayed awake a greater portion of their lives. 
  They passed a young couple near the fire station and a man with 
  beer in a bag on the steps of Mr. Swallows' church, and many other
  people neither of them knew or cared to know.
  
    And so Mr. Swallows spent the night of his wife's death in jail
  with Mrs.Dewey by his naked side, and felt he had been compensated.
  
                                 (DREAM)       
  
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  Buzz is an actor/acting teacher in Washington, DC, and also teaches
  high school math part-time. Co-author of "The Interview Rehearsal 
  Book," which teaches acting techniques to improve self-presentation
  in job interviews and will be published by Piccolo Press in the
  spring. Email: bugsy22312@aol.com
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