"Oh pretty woman, she's the risin' sun..." Virgil was tooling down State Highway 106, watching the Alabama greenery flow by on either side of the road, listening to Albert King. It was mid-morning, not yet oven-hot, and the air conditioner was off; the windows were open, allowing the still-cool air to stream into the Dodge.
Virgil was on his way to a barbecue in a state park, being held to celebrate the end of the 2010 Census. Virgil had been employed as an office supervisor, and now that the census had concluded, Virgil and his former subordinates were set to go their separate ways. In three days, Virgil would say good-bye to Alabama, where he had lived his entire life, in order to start a new job in Georgia. But first, the supervisors had gotten together and organized this outdoor event, complete with numerous kegs of beer.
It was also Virgil's 40th birthday, although he was keeping that to himself. Most of the census workers were in their twenties, although the age of some employees probably went up to near 70. Virgil liked the young folks who worked for him, but he felt the generation gap whenever people were on break and they began to chatter about the films and pop groups that they liked. At those moments, it was as if he came from another planet. He fully expected a lot of this sort of thing today at the barbecue. But, he said to himself, that's why the good Lord invented beer.
Coming around a bend, Virgil spotted the sign for the state park and pulled off the road into the parking lot. He disembarked from the car and took a moment to stretch, getting the road kinks out of his lanky limbs. Virgil's hair was of a muted ruddy hue, cut almost short enough to be military. His skin was fair and his eyes olive in color. He paused to admire the way the sunlight filtered down between the pine trees in the silence of the country morning. Then he set off down the trail toward the creek. Soon he could hear voices in the distance.
In the creek, in a little inlet away from the current and downstream from where people were swimming, were three kegs of beer, lashed to some rocks there to keep them cold. A few paces further downstream sat Paula upon a rock, dangling her bare feet in the water.
Paula was from Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of W.A. Mozart. She was still living there a few years ago when she divorced Roland, her husband of 20 years. She was financially secure and her English was good, so, looking for a fresh start, she had rolled the dice and wound up in the USA. She had secured a job as a Field Operations Supervisor for the census in Fall of 2009, and stayed with it until the census ended in mid-summer.
The sun was now approaching its zenith, which is the point where it really begins to sting on a summer day in Alabama. Paula pulled her feet out of the stream, put them back in the sandals, and began to walk up the trail towards the spot where there was an open keg of beer. She was just shy of six feet tall, with a mop of blond hair that seemed immune to graying. When she walked, she moved with a kind of authority that was the legacy of having taken ballet lessons as a girl.
She was wearing a purple sun dress; most people she had worked with had never seen her in anything but a suit. The census dress code was "business casual," but Paula had wanted to set an example for the young people who worked for her. However, the census was over now, and Paula could afford to relax a little. Not quite as much as the young people; she was coming over a little rise in the trail where she could suddenly see the swimming area. The young ladies were dressed in minuscule bikinis, attended by eager young men in cut-off jeans. Paula smiled indulgently, and then turned left to where the beer keg was.
Paula had never experienced anything like the humid heat of the Alabama summer. She felt simultaneously oppressed and excited by it. It was like being trapped in a warm cocoon that amplified her senses. She had been living in 'Bama for almost two years, and during that time, in fact, since her divorce, she hadn't had a man. She had lately begun to develop a super-heated fantasy life. On the job, she was a model employee. At home, her thoughts turned steamy. She wrote stories about her fantasies, in her native German, but didn't show them to anyone. She would simply write them, and then re-read them, after which nature would take its course.
Up the hill, by the keg, stood Virgil, along with a group of young lads, and a comely young wench who was dressed in her bikini top and a towel wrapped around her waist. They all held cups of beer, and as they drank, the admiring gazes toward the young lady's long legs and saucy bosom became increasingly less covert. Virgil kept his eyes under control; although the census was over, he was still maintaining his decorum. His jeans were clean and un-tattered; he wore a wine-colored short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar; and his running shoes were shiny and new. The young lady announced her intention to get back into the creek, at which point all the lads felt the urge to swim as well. They went scampering off, leaving Virgil alone with his beer for a moment, until Paula walked up.
Virgil had come frequently into contact with Paula in the course of his job, and he respected her as a highly intelligent and responsible person. Despite her foreign accent, which made her seem slightly exotic, she was more articulate and concise in her way of expressing herself than anyone else in Virgil's census office. Virgil grinned and asked, in his Alabama drawl, "Were those some of your troops?"
"Sheryl was one of my crew leaders," Paula replied. "I have probably seen those young men around somewhere." She helped herself to the beer. "So, Virgil, what will you do now that the census is over?"
"I have a new job in Atlanta. I'll be headed over there in three days. Between now and then, I guess I'll just kick back."
"What does it mean, 'kick back'?"
"It means to relax and enjoy myself. Let my hair down a little."
Paula grinned mischievously. "You're not going to go chasing after Sheryl, are you?"
Virgil grinned back. "Nah... she's a bit out of my age bracket."
"Really?" said Paula. "What is your age bracket?"
"I dunno. Probably 30 to 60."
"30 to 60! You're giving yourself a lot of leeway!"
"Hey, I need all the leeway I can get!" Virgil attempted to re-fill his beer cup, but all he got from the keg was a disappointing trickle.
