Maurice moves upon the South Louisiana Cajun Prairie swooshing in and out

I see him from time to time

Sporting a new body, sleek and fine

But still soaring naked

He once told me that bodies were meant to breathe

By that he meant bodies weren’t meant for clothes

Maurice died from blood cancer in 1999

He was just shy of his eightieth birthday

A big party had been planned by his girlfriends (gay boyfriends)

Maurice had a large cadre of friends, straight, gay, bisexual, transgender

Everyone loved him

Maurice ran the Pink Powder Puff right smack dab in the middle of the village of Canard (duck in English)

The village got its name from the ducks, domestics and wild ones, that roamed the village streets

Other than duck shit on the soles of your feet, the ducks were a delight

The city had created duck crosswalks, duck parks and a duck pond

It was illegal to hunt, harass, or be abusive to the ducks

Okay, now back to Maurice, the Pink Powder Puff was a hair establishment or as referred to as the Beauty Shop back in the day

Diva Maurice could make any woman of any age look divine with a new do

An artist he was

And men loved him, too, cause he made their wives look even more fabulous than they already were

Now don’t get me wrong, the villagers of Canard, loved and respected Maurice, but they didn’t condone his lifestyle (that’s how being gay is still referred to – a lifestyle, like it’s a choice)

Maurice loved his life in Canard

He had lived with blood cancer for about twenty years

His diagnosis came in 1979, August, during one of the hottest months of the year in South Louisiana

Maurice died on his birthday, August 16, 1999 and twenty years prior on August 16, 1979, he had been diagnosed with the blood cancer

And Maurice’s diagnosis of blood cancer and his time of death were both the same time to the second

Doctors in New Orleans told him that he had about a month to live

Maurice laughed at the doctors and responded: ‘That’s not what God told me!’

And Maurice lived a full life until that day when he fell off his front porch and broke his neck falling onto a cracked step

A third event that happened at 3:42 pm—same as his birth, diagnosis and death, to the second

To explain Maurice’s death—he was standing on an old rickety chair trying to hang magnolia flowers on the cedar posts on his porch

One of the chair legs closest to the cement steps gave way, Maurice flipped, hit his head on the cement steps that had been chipped like an arrowhead

That arrowhead stabbed him right between the eyes

When Maurice was found he was bent over with his head still connected to the chipped step

Ambulance guys had to cut the steps out of his face to remove his body from its connection to the steps

Doctors said Maurice had died instantly

Knowing Maurice like they did, people said that it was a morbid way to die, but Maurice would be delighted that he had done another first to die doing a flip and then a headstand onto an arrowhead chip in a cement step

What a funeral was had

The village outdid itself in burying Maurice

The Pink Powder Puff won out as the venue for the funeral

So many people in attendance that they had to have multiple services so that all could see Maurice laid out in his pink rhinestone coffin shrouded by a Pink Teddy with feathers

Many said that it was just like Maurice was shrouded inside of a pink cocoon

Maurice was buried right next to the Powder Puff establishment in a pink tomb inside of the Pink Ladies pink rose garden

Recently Maurice told me of his happiness riding through the ether world of the South Louisiana Prairie

He goes by the Pink Powder Puff often and patrons feel his presence

Usually, there’s a pink fragrant mist that smells similar to the fragrance that Maurice wore each day dabbed behind his ears

During sunsets I see Maurice

The pinkish sunset pastels are Maurice lighting up the gay sky