goodolvic

God, look at that sun shine. The sun is beautiful. Hell, everything is beautiful. The rows of multicolored columns in my bookshelf are beautiful. That black spider currying up the wall in the corner is beautiful. The smell of last night’s General Cho’s Chicken served over white rice is beautiful. Everything under the sky in heaven and above the fires in hell is absolutely, unbelievably beautiful. But these are just small observations whose beauty is amplified by the presence of the true beauty that lies beside me, with her arm resting across my stomach and her head on my chest. Her mix of dark and highlit strands swept behind her head and to the side, near my armpit. A thigh over my leg, a slender foot resting on my shin. The smell of her sweat, smell of her hair. All of it, every bit. Beautiful.

“Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?” A wind chime, singing the melodies of the angels by way of the heavenly voice from between her two thin pink lips. I’m so caught up in the beauty of existence that I don’t listen.

“What?”

“I asked, will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s joking, I’m sure. It’s just such a strange thing to ask. But, as she pulls away to look at me, I see that she’s not smiling. In fact, she looks pretty damn serious about it. I take a deep breath, making sure my chest rises and settles, and move my arm higher until I can feel her shoulder blade against the hair on my forearm. It’s something I’ve learned over the years; show that you’re listening when you don’t know what to say.

Finally, I realize I may as well voice what’s in my mind

“What do you mean, ‘will God forgive us’?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “I mean, do you think He’ll forgive us? You know, for having sex?”

Forgive us for having sex? Having sex? What is she, fifteen? She wants forgiveness for experiencing the most beautiful, intimate, passionate aspect of human existence? How can she even think of that now, as we lie together in bed, draped over one another as two bodies melded into one. And good lord, look at her eyes…

“Why would he have to forgive us? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe you don’t think we’ve done something wrong, but He says we have.”

This is getting funny.

“He ‘says,’ really? Did he speak to you?”

“Of coure not. Please don’t mock me. My relationship with God means a lot to me.”

Jesus fuckin’ Christ. “I just don’t get the question. Are you saying this feels wrong to you? Am I evil to you? Do you think I’m here to corrupt your soul?”

“Well, you are being really harsh about it.” The rims of her eyelids are glistening. “You know I’m a Christian.”

I do? I must’ve missed that during the preamble last night.

“It means a lot to me, okay? Please, just tell me what you think. Will God forgive us?”

She’s joking. She has to be. “Look, I get it. You’re a religious person. But you’re kidding, right?”

She pulls away from me then, moving her one leg to the floor followed by the other. Hair draped around her face as she peers down for a second to ensure her footing, then uses her arm to push herself upright. I’m lying there on my back, naked, watching as she climbs over me; there is not a thought in my head.

She walks her dainty self to the other end of the room. Pitter, her feet pitter across the floor. Pumf, pumf, pumf. The soft heel-toe that only small and delicate girls can accomplish. Breasts don’t pitter, but just slightly jiggle. Hers aren’t as large as others, so it’s just slightly. Watching her thighs clench, buttocks tighten with every pumf. She pitters across the hardwood floor of my apartment. Past the corner of the bed, near the fridge and bathroom door. She’s going for the bookshelf?

Her fingers touch on the books, from one to the next.

“Where’s your Bible?”

Fuck me, she is not kidding. And how does she know I even have a Bible?

“Why?”

“I want to read you a passage.” Amazing. She’s actually going to go for a sermon.

“Why does it fuckin’ matter?” Really, why does it? “I suppose the rule is no sex before marriage? So, we’re breakin’ religious law. What’re we to do now? Repent? Kneel and beg for his almighty fuckin’ mercy?”

“You don’t have to shout, or curse.”

I’m shouting?

“Yes, you are, and it’s very disrespectful.”

For a couple of moments I relapse, and it’s Sunday school all over again. I see the steeple of the church as I did every Sunday morning for years. The sheen of those colored stained glass windows in the early morning sun staring out over the crowd of people below, waiting for the doors to open for Sunday service. My parents and older brother go to the area with the picnic tables and talk to the adults while my little sister and I are sent to the large building next to the church where they teach about God and the Bible. The lower half of the walls painted brown and the upper half painted beige along with the majority of the building. We shuffle in and memorize poems that teach us lessons while Mrs. Mallory scolds us if we talk during reading time or form the wrong cross with our thumbs and index fingers. But I’m only there for a few of moments before I turn my attention to the sweet little Bible thumper working her way through my miniature library.

“Look, this is ridiculous. Come back to bed. It’s early, it’s sunny,” at least it was, “and you and I can talk this out without resorting to spouting scripture. Will you come back?”

Not a word. Where’s the effusive gal who smiled playfully when I asked her if she knew what the fish in the tank behind the bartender were thinking.

“What are they thinking?” she’d asked.

“They’re thinking, ‘What’re the tall fellow and gorgeous gal sitting at that bar thinking?’”

She’d laughed, even grinned. She didn’t have to, but she did. Where’s the girl who told me about her escapades as a rambunctious college student and accepted the drinks I bought? She wasn’t a prude about discussing the sexual repression of women in the Middle East. Where’d she go? I want her back.

She finds it on her own. The Bible, which I’ve been promising myself to read (eventually), is brand new if slightly dusty. It’s one of those study bibles with footnotes which may as well be titled “The Bible for Dummies.”

“Have you ever even read this?” She’s leafing through the pages now, that same serious expression still twisting the beauty of the smile that shined down on me no more than an hour ago. She settles on a page and looks up, holding the book with one hand and using the index finger from her other hand to keep her place.

“You have heard that the law of Moses says, Do not commit adultery. But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye – even if it is your good eye – causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses to glance at me. I have no words. I’m not even here.

“And if your hand – even if it is your stronger hand – causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses again, holding the opened book against her flattened stomach and ribs. The cover of the book rests just an inch or two below her breasts.

“So I ask you, again: Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s fucking naked! She’s giving me a sermon and standing there at the foot of the bed with the Bible in her hand pressed against her stomach, and she’s fuckin’ naked. God, this moment is beautiful. I could cum (again) thinking of this moment. If my mind were a VHS tape… well, you know about the worn out points in VHS tapes.

She shakes her head gently, places the Bible back on the bookshelf, and turns around. Son of a bitch, she’s picking up her clothes.

“Wait, wait! Yes, all right? God’s going to forgive us. We are sharing our love with one another – physically and spiritually. That can’t be wrong.”

She slips on her panties, the lacy black pair that landed on the counter in the middle of the night. I’m losing her.

“We can pray! I mean, that’s how it works, isn’t it? We pray for forgiveness.”

Slinking back into the black dress. She pulls it up to her waist, stomach and chest still bared. One arm beneath a strap.

“I didn’t ask you to pray. I asked you if you thought God would forgive–”

“And I said I think he would.” Sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet over my lap. “He will forgive us, because as I said we’ve done nothing wrong. We are two people, and for a night we shared ourselves. Please,” patting the bed, “come back.”

That one strap over her shoulder, looking me in the eyes like someone looks at a faraway sign or really tiny words. I don’t know what to say.

She sighs and quickly pulls up the other strap. “The blood of the wicked can be as sweet as virgin honey.”

What? What kind of response is that?

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You’re a weak man, sweetie. You should work on that.” She smiles. She fucking smiles, then looks away and puts on her flats. The dainty feet don’t pitter as she walks to the door and shuts it, loudly, behind her.

I’m sitting on my bed, wondering what the hell just happened, and all I can think is “fuckin’ God.”

“You don’t mind if I take this seat, do you?”

“No,” says Paula.

“Oh, good.”  The tall man smiles, and he is blonde, and he is older.  His suit screams of class; her clothes scream indifference.  It’s only a sports bar at ten-thirteen at night.

“A glass of Merlot, please.”  His order screams of class as well.  Paula’s beer is looking mighty dull at this point.  He is alone—no woman.  A business man.

He swirls the wine in the glass, takes a whiff.  “God, it’s so warm out there, isn’t it?”

“A little bit.”

He thanks the bartender for bringing the wine, then glances at the television she stares at.  The game’s over, and only highlights are played.  Night at a bar in the airport.  His face has lines and freckles.  It looks comfortably worn.  Friendly.

“So where are you headed?” she asks.

He turns back to Paula, smiles again.  Perfectly combed hair.  His shoes shine like the brass bar below them.

She hears D.C., and purses her lips as she nods her head.  “Good place, I hear.”

“Yea,” he says.   “It’s great.  Though it’s somewhat difficult to get around.”  Only in a bar, and only at an airport.

“How so?”

“Well, people drive like maniacs.”

“Don’t go to L.A.,” she says.

“Why?”

“Driving,” she says, “is not easy to manage.  Strange that it’s required of every human being within the county limits.”

He delivers an uneasy smile.  Too many beers already on her tab.

“Come now.  Are you perhaps being melodramatic?”

Paula is not being melodramatic.  He waits and then glances across the bar to the rows of bottles.

“Well, I have been there.  It’s not that the driving is bad, it’s just odd.  Likewise, D.C. is very odd.”

“What’s odd in D.C.?” she asks.

“Driving… the people.  Very pressured lifestyle, you know?  I’ll often just find myself walking on streets in the middle of the night to free the mind a bit.  It can be overwhelming.”  One of those.  Opens up easy, like a flower in the morning dewlight.

Paula says, “huh.”

He says he was visiting a sister.  Probably another Nordic beauty, like him.

“How was she?”

“Good.  She just recently moved out there.”

Her eyes are on the television.  The Lakers are not doing well.  A shame.

“So why is driving a pain in D.C.?”

“Ah well, everything is different.  I’m just not used to it, I suppose.  I tell my wife that…”

Wife.  Unimportant.  Something about a Mercedes.

The bartender says, “Your tuna melt and fries,” and she says “Wrap that up to go, please.  And give me a shot of Jack.”

Paula drinks the shot and smiles; she has to go catch her flight.  He smiles back and says it was nice to meet her.  The momentary pause of consideration and wonder is lost in an instant as a loud paper bag is dragged along a bar and placed in a messenger bag, destined for the overhead storage compartment of an Embraer ERJ 145 on its way to Seattle.

She sits in the airport terminal for forty-five minutes and watches the lights slowly roll by the window as the arrivals are taxied into position.

A dimly lit airplane in the middle of the night is a den of philosophers.  Travelers attempt to sleep as they reflect on the past and consider the future in the context of traveling aboard a time capsule.  They enter, they sit, and just as quickly as they take off, they arrive at their destination.  These people had lives and fly quickly back to those lives, but in the airplane in the middle of the night they are frozen.  The forty-four minds are momentarily contained.  The man in the brown waist-coat and spectacles reads the card detailing the airplane’s emergency procedures as if he intends to follow the procedures if the plane were to fall over the Cascades stretching north below them, as if he were not going to panic and groan to the Lord to save him.  The tanned German teenager and her boyfriend in the pink hooded sweatshirt talk softly among themselves, holding secret conversations and expressing what seem like hidden desires but are in actuality thoughts about the parents they left behind in order to take a vacation.  Paula, too, is deep in thought and passes the time by assuming and gleaning secrets about those around her.

Beyond a cough and a whisper there is silence, but silence screams loudest of all when every mind is abuzz with possibility and regret.  Those left behind are remembered and those waiting for them are considered.  The lights outside the window are few and far between, partially obscured by the engine located at the rear of the craft where she has been seated.  Thunderous noise is not so noticeable when it is constant, and the silence remains undisturbed.

They do not serve meals on this flight.

The bus stop in front of an empty airport terminal at night is mostly devoid of life.  Few people come and quickly go as they ride away in a taxi or hotel bus.  There is no bus or taxi for her.  She sits at the end of the curve in the road and watches the windows for approaching headlights from around the bend.

The air is cold here.  Paula wonders if pigeons fly at night.

Buildings are cold and lifeless and they are designed for efficiency, a trait that is as useless to the heart of the mind as wings on an elephant.  She is patient to an extent and impatient enough to sit, then stand, then pace from one end of the walkway to the other.  Time passes in hours at first, then minutes.

As she ponders an action and all possible reactions she rests her hand on a messenger bag and finds strange warmth.  Velcro tears open and inside is the wonderful smell of a tuna melt and fries.  Flashes of hunger spring into her and the plastic box is torn open.  Buttered bread, now soggy, slides into her hands.  The aroma of shredded tuna fish whipped and spread with a tangy mayonnaise across the thick toast fills her nostrils and cause Paula to raise her head to the air for a heavy dose.  A cold breeze blows through an aluminum bus stop’s slatted walls and moments later the tuna melt is in her hands and in her mouth, vanishing one bite at a time and difficult to swallow as she forces the clumps of softened food and wishes she had accepted the water bottle aboard the flight.  The tuna melt is gone in the span of a few minutes and the warm stale fries shortly thereafter.  She sits for a while as her esophagus is cleared and she returns to herself in the cold night at a bus stop at an airport.  Reality is mere fantasy when there is nothing to keep a person grounded.

As the cold surrounds her she reaches into a gray nylon sack and removes from it a white towel, using it to envelop herself in shallow warmth.  The white towel stands out against the surface of the night’s cloak, and she stares at the windows waiting for headlights that will never come.

“They’re always married,” she mumbles.

“You don’t mind if I take this seat, do you?”

“No,” says Paula.

“Oh, good.”  The tall man smiles, and he is blonde, and he is older.  His suit screams of class; her clothes scream indifference.  It’s only a sports bar at ten-thirteen at night.

“A glass of Merlot, please.”  His order screams of class as well.  Paula’s beer is looking mighty dull at this point.  He is alone—no woman.  A business man.

He swirls the wine in the glass, takes a whiff.  “God, it’s so warm out there, isn’t it?”

“A little bit.”

He thanks the bartender for bringing the wine, then glances at the television she stares at.  The game’s over, and only highlights are played.  Night at a bar in the airport.  His face has lines and freckles.  It looks comfortably worn.  Friendly.

“So where are you headed?” she asks.

He turns back to Paula, smiles again.  Perfectly combed hair.  His shoes shine like the brass bar below them.

She hears D.C., and purses her lips as she nods her head.  “Good place, I hear.”

“Yea,” he says.   “It’s great.  Though it’s somewhat difficult to get around.”  Only in a bar, and only at an airport.

“How so?”

“Well, people drive like maniacs.”

“Don’t go to L.A.,” she says.

“Why?”

“Driving,” she says, “is not easy to manage.  Strange that it’s required of every human being within the county limits.”

He delivers an uneasy smile.  Too many beers already on her tab.

“Come now.  Are you perhaps being melodramatic?”

Paula is not being melodramatic.  He waits and then glances across the bar to the rows of bottles.

“Well, I have been there.  It’s not that the driving is bad, it’s just odd.  Likewise, D.C. is very odd.”

“What’s odd in D.C.?” she asks.

“Driving… the people.  Very pressured lifestyle, you know?  I’ll often just find myself walking on streets in the middle of the night to free the mind a bit.  It can be overwhelming.”  One of those.  Opens up easy, like a flower in the morning dewlight.

Paula says, “huh.”

He says he was visiting a sister.  Probably another Nordic beauty, like him.

“How was she?”

“Good.  She just recently moved out there.”

Her eyes are on the television.  The Lakers are not doing well.  A shame.

“So why is driving a pain in D.C.?”

“Ah well, everything is different.  I’m just not used to it, I suppose.  I tell my wife that…”

Wife.  Unimportant.  Something about a Mercedes.

The bartender says, “Your tuna melt and fries,” and she says “Wrap that up to go, please.  And give me a shot of Jack.”

Paula drinks the shot and smiles; she has to go catch her flight.  He smiles back and says it was nice to meet her.  The momentary pause of consideration and wonder is lost in an instant as a loud paper bag is dragged along a bar and placed in a messenger bag, destined for the overhead storage compartment of an Embraer ERJ 145 on its way to Seattle.

She sits in the airport terminal for forty-five minutes and watches the lights slowly roll by the window as the arrivals are taxied into position.

A dimly lit airplane in the middle of the night is a den of philosophers.  Travelers attempt to sleep as they reflect on the past and consider the future in the context of traveling aboard a time capsule.  They enter, they sit, and just as quickly as they take off, they arrive at their destination.  These people had lives and fly quickly back to those lives, but in the airplane in the middle of the night they are frozen.  The forty-four minds are momentarily contained.  The man in the brown waist-coat and spectacles reads the card detailing the airplane’s emergency procedures as if he intends to follow the procedures if the plane were to fall over the Cascades stretching north below them, as if he were not going to panic and groan to the Lord to save him.  The tanned German teenager and her boyfriend in the pink hooded sweatshirt talk softly among themselves, holding secret conversations and expressing what seem like hidden desires but are in actuality thoughts about the parents they left behind in order to take a vacation.  Paula, too, is deep in thought and passes the time by assuming and gleaning secrets about those around her.

Beyond a cough and a whisper there is silence, but silence screams loudest of all when every mind is abuzz with possibility and regret.  Those left behind are remembered and those waiting for them are considered.  The lights outside the window are few and far between, partially obscured by the engine located at the rear of the craft where she has been seated.  Thunderous noise is not so noticeable when it is constant, and the silence remains undisturbed.

They do not serve meals on this flight.

The bus stop in front of an empty airport terminal at night is mostly devoid of life.  Few people come and quickly go as they ride away in a taxi or hotel bus.  There is no bus or taxi for her.  She sits at the end of the curve in the road and watches the windows for approaching headlights from around the bend.

The air is cold here.  Paula wonders if pigeons fly at night.

Buildings are cold and lifeless and they are designed for efficiency, a trait that is as useless to the heart of the mind as wings on an elephant.  She is patient to an extent and impatient enough to sit, then stand, then pace from one end of the walkway to the other.  Time passes in hours at first, then minutes.

As she ponders an action and all possible reactions she rests her hand on a messenger bag and finds strange warmth.  Velcro tears open and inside is the wonderful smell of a tuna melt and fries.  Flashes of hunger spring into her and the plastic box is torn open.  Buttered bread, now soggy, slides into her hands.  The aroma of shredded tuna fish whipped and spread with a tangy mayonnaise across the thick toast fills her nostrils and cause Paula to raise her head to the air for a heavy dose.  A cold breeze blows through an aluminum bus stop’s slatted walls and moments later the tuna melt is in her hands and in her mouth, vanishing one bite at a time and difficult to swallow as she forces the clumps of softened food and wishes she had accepted the water bottle aboard the flight.  The tuna melt is gone in the span of a few minutes and the warm stale fries shortly thereafter.  She sits for a while as her esophagus is cleared and she returns to herself in the cold night at a bus stop at an airport.  Reality is mere fantasy when there is nothing to keep a person grounded.

As the cold surrounds her she reaches into a gray nylon sack and removes from it a white towel, using it to envelop herself in shallow warmth.  The white towel stands out against the surface of the night’s cloak, and she stares at the windows waiting for headlights that will never come.

“They’re always married,” she mumbles.

“Don’t know why?” she asked.  Ms. Potterson pointed anxiously at the clouds that had been cast over our little town of seven hundred thirty-seven for over a month now, sometimes raining down the dogs and cats and sometimes just menacing over like they were going to pick a fight but didn’t have the gall to go for the first shove.

“There’s no sun up in the sky!”  It was getting tiresome, to be sure, but what God did with his sky was not for us to judge, and even then some people started to feeling stressed over the whole thing.  All I was asking was why she looked so down, but I should’ve known better.

“Stormy weather,” I muttered.

She turned away and gathered one of those children of hers, the rest bundled up in that car outside like they lived out of the old jalopy. She caught me looking at that sad old sight and then turned her back to me, clearly agitated, and walked out. She paused just before stepping out of the shop and into that rain.

“Since my man and I ain’t together… keeps rainin’ all the time,” then she left.

It was getting on and even though the grayness of those days made it tough to separate morning from day and day from dusk, it was clear dark was coming on. I had to start closing up soon but everyone was always waiting ‘til church was up to get out and rush into the shops before they closed. Being close to the only grocery in town made it wrong to lock up too early, and I wasn’t the depriving type.

Barry Johnson, a plumber who lived on Willow (near the old mill before it got tore down back in seventy-eight), he was watching that whole scene with Ms. Potterson and sort of shrugged, because he knew what I did, which was folks were allowed to be bothered these days.  It was getting tough to get by here in town and only us old people and the kids too young to leave on their own were left.  Seeing that kind of gap in a community, whole generations missing like that, well, it made me sad to think about.  It was like when there were wars and we lost so many of the young folks, only this wasn’t no war against an enemy, just the times that we were in.

Barry walked up and dropped a loaf of bread and milk on the counter.

“Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere.  Stormy weather…” and he trailed off when he heard the cash register ding open.  He tried to smile, sort of, and then nodded.  He reached around in his front pockets, to pull out his cash I gathered, but wasn’t coming up with anything.  He looked sort of concentrated like he was trying to will the money into his hand, but nothing.  I was worried he wasn’t going to have any cash and I’d have to have another tab on my hands (which ain’t easy to keep track of with so many as I had, try it sometime), but then his eyes lit up and he reached his right hand down into one those big side pockets that his Levi’s had on them.  It was the type those carpenters need for tools and nails and all, and in old Barry’s case it seems it’s where he kept his change.

He chuckled and said, “Just can’t get my poor self together.”  I smiled back as he counted the change in his hand and reached out to hand it to me, twisting his face a bit as he did.  He’d been having some wrist trouble and I should’ve known to reach over my own self so he wouldn’t strain it.

“I’m weary all the time,” said Barry, then he furrowed his brows like he was trying to remember something as I pulled out his change. Maybe he’d finally remembered that he had my lawn mower (the Craftsman, mind you, not my old Honda that I’d had to use since he borrowed my good one).

“The time?” he asked, and I was tempted to ask about my lawn mower right then, but those kinds of things are better discussed during the week (and I made a note to myself to ask him that following Monday, believe you me).  I pointed to the clock on the far wall and he looked over and nodded, then took his change, the loaf of bread, and milk, and put them all in that sack of his.  He saluted to me (a queer sort of greeting and goodbye he’d taken to, which I thought was right respectful if anything), and headed out into the rain.  As he walked out I noticed the queue to pay was longer than the number of people still picking out items, and I quickly pointed Andy over to the door to flip the sign to CLOSED.  He had been stacking empty boxes over by the door and was used to waiting for me to tell him when to close as dusk came on.

I then heard a sniffle, and “… so weary all the time.”  It was Mrs. O’Haley, mulling over those words of Barry’s.  She knew what they meant, given the time she’s had with those medical bills after her daughter, Lorrie, got the back surgery.  Poor kid had fallen off a horse.  Didn’t help any that her dad was in prison (who is not Mrs. O’Haley’s husband, another gentleman she was with before moving into town), riding out a sentence he got for selling those damn drugs near Johnny’s by the train tracks.  He was no good for her, or anyone, but she’d gone on with him probably just like she’d gone on with that old husband of hers, except this time she got saddled with a kid, good kid mind you, and all the tribulations bound to come up.  We got to talking about it once, as I helped her move her groceries into her car.

“Since he went away, the blues walked in and met me.”  I guess it was more she got to talking and I just moved the bags into the back of her stationwagon, me not being the talking type and all.

“Since he stays away, old rocking chair will get me. All I do is pray the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more.”  Suppose it was sort of poetic, what she was saying then, though not being one for all that flowery nonsense I never did bother with it.  It’s just that with the weather we’d been having lately it seemed more appropriate than any thought I’d conjure up.

“Can’t go on, everything I had is gone, since my man and I ain’t together…” and she kept it up until I was done with her bags and clanged the bottom door of the stationwagon shut.  She smiled politely and stepped toward her door, sort of stopped to look back at me, maybe to apologize or explain her rambling, I don’t know, then just waved and left.  Mrs. O’Haley, young as she was, would find herself a good man, I knew it.  Even if he wasn’t here in town, and if it took her a lifetime, she’d do it.

Anyway, Lorrie’s surgery had been done in the city since the only doc in town was not near learned enough to do that kind of thing.  Lorrie was sort of mobile now, using crutches and all, and Mrs. O’Haley had told me that the city doctors had told her she’d be having a tough enough time walking let alone riding horses.  Poor kid.

Mrs. O’Haley was buying some carrots, peas, noodles, a few chicken breasts, and some bouillon cubes, and as she stacked the items her wet coat was dripping water all over the counter.  She looked at me exasperated and said, “stormy weather.”  I just shook my hand and brought out the old rag I kept under the counter to wipe the moisture off .

“Keeps rainin’ all the time,” I told her.  “Keeps rainin’ all the time.”

She smiled again, a pretty sort of smile, in a more mature way, and paid what she owed.  I was getting her change out and she brought her hand to my arm, patted it gently, and shook her head.  We played this every time, me getting her change, and her refusing, telling me to keep it because I’ve been as kind as I have to her, helping her out when I can.  At first I was refusing every way I could, of course, but we’d been here for some time now, and I just played my part so she could play hers.

By and by we got through the remaining customers: Mabel Bernstrom (Doc Bernstrom’s wife); Lefty; little Rita Huxley (girlfriend of the captain of our high school’s football team, the Badgers, and in fact same team Andy was on); George Winston; Ms. Durand (one of the few young teachers still in town); and, surprisingly, Lola Baxter.  She lived up the block and never, ever came in herself, always asking for Andy to come by and drop off her groceries.  She was in her nineties somewhere so we were glad to do it, but now here she was, our last customer and looking as spry as any old body I’d seen in there today, especially with that weather outside.

I grinned as she brought up what she was buying: Happy Soup for the Heart and Soul.  It was something we were ordering out of Cincinnati and I liked the name of it more than anything, but I’d tried it myself more than once and it was right good, so we kept stocking it.  They’d recently started putting some kind of songs or something right on the labels, which I got a kick out of even if I wasn’t into that flowery stuff, and sometimes I’d just sit on the box and read the labels when the new shipments came in every month (not many folks bought the stuff, you see).

Lola Baxter came up with two cans, one of which she held onto so she could read: “I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad.  Night comes around and I’m still feelin’ bad.”  She chuckled and handed it to me so I could put it in the bag for her.  She wasn’t even wearing glasses when she did that.

I picked up the other can and read: “Rain pourin’ down, blindin’ every hope I had,” then just sort of scratched my ear and placed it in the bag with the other.  It’s amusing that they put this stuff on soup labels, but they ought to at least make it a bit more cheersome.  Those particular cans weren’t doing much for my soul, not much at all.  She shrugged, Lola Baxter did, and whistled as she handed me her coins and I gave her the change.  She seemed even more cheerful than I’d ever remembered, and walked back out into the rain toward her house up the block, her bag held under the big shawl she’d come in with.

Well by the time I’d finished with the customers, Andy’d finished with the rest of the shop.  We’d gotten our routine down so good that I never had to tell him anything, that kid.  I surely would miss him when he left to college in a couple years, and probably for good.  He was another clean-faced bright kid, who had more to offer than shop boy in a town like this.

Andy would normally ride his bike off after work, probably to visit Jean, his girlfriend of some odd years, but today he asked me if I’d give him a ride home.  Sure, I told him, and we got into my old Mercury Marauder (still sharp and powerful as the day I’d bought her, better believe).  Andy lived over on Woods Drive, on the other side of town, so I rightly guessed, I’m sure, that he wouldn’t want to ride a bike around in this rain.  I wondered about it as we wrestled his bike into the trunk of my car, which thankfully fit since I’d just cleaned out all the miscellaneous nonsense that I’d gathered up in there.

We got going and I don’t like guessing about folks so I asked him about it, him needing a ride.

“This pitterin’ and patterin’ and beatin’ and scatterin’…” he said, and I nodded.  Some believe rain is a calmative but too much of it has just the opposite effect to my mind.  Drives one wacky in the obscene amounts.

“Drives me mad,” said Andy, almost like he was reading my thoughts. He seemed down, more than the usual kind of down most folks were, so I figured I’d change the subject.  I asked him how he and his girlfriend were doing, and if she was going to make it out to see Andy and the rest of the Badgers play against the Wildcats the following weekend (not here of course, but over in Fitchburg, where it wasn’t raining every day).  Andy just looked on out the window and didn’t answer right away, and I was going to ask if he’d heard me, but didn’t get a chance to.

“Love, love, love…” he said, real sarcastic.  I asked what the problem was and he got into how Jean had broken up with him.  I figured they’d had some row over something, but turns out Jean just wanted a boyfriend who had a car.

“Love…” he said, again.  “This misery’s just too much for me.”  I patted him on the shoulder as we crossed the bridge onto Woods Drive and up to the curb.  He thanked me and apologized for being so dreary but I told him to think nothing of it, and not to worry over Jean.  He’d find himself a nice, pretty girl in no time at all, football star and good guy as he was.  He smiled lopsidedly and then got out, telling me to stay in and keep dry.  He got his bike out of the trunk then waved at me through the sideview before disappearing around the side of his house.

For the ride home I figured I’d take the scenic route, since I was out on this side of town and all, and I drove up from Woods Drive to Middlefield, which cut through the old cotton fields and then looped around along the ridge that overlooked the town.  From there I could see it all, from the one end of town to the other, all the lights just starting to come on as the last brightness of the day faded down to dark, made even darker by the clouds blocking out any chance of moonshine getting down to us.  I hadn’t driven by this way in a while, and I remembered how Marie and I used to stop along here for picnics, back in the old days, when we were young and inseparable.  It reminded me of why I stayed, the purpose of it.  Some people had diamonds and photographs and such, and I did, too, but I had more than that to help me remember.  I had every house and every tree, the whole town, reminding me of those days when we were happiest and the most trouble was getting ice cream off our hands after spending too long making out on a summer day.

Eventually the road came back down and houses appeared again, until I was in the thick of the old part of town.  Houses here were more rundown, though still respectable by any right.  I was about to turn onto Randall to head back toward Main when I heard a loud explosion, least it seemed as such, and I was sure the engine had started acting up again, except immediately after I started to feel the road grinding up under my rear end and realized that I had blown a tire.  I stopped to look out and sure enough, the rear driver’s side whitewall was out for the count, flat as a pancake.  I got out then and went to the trunk to fetch the spare.  Of course my rain-addled brain had forgot that the old spare tire was one of the things I’d taken out yesterday, looking to replace it in case a thing such as this happened.

I ran back into the car and sat down then thought for a bit about what I’d do, figuring I’d have to knock on someone’s house here to get to a phone, when she appeared.  Mrs. O’Haley, in the same dress she’d been wearing earlier and an umbrella, was at my window, knocking lightly.  I rolled down my window to listen to her explain that she’d heard a loud noise and came out to check, and that the big lavender house on the corner was hers.

“Can’t go on,” I said.  “Everything I had is gone.”  I pointed out to the empty trunk and she nodded and pulled at my sleeve for me to get on out of the rain.  I locked up and followed her onto the porch where we shook off what we could, then she invited me into the hall so that I could use her phone.

“Stormy weather!” I growled, because I’d had just about enough of all this.  I didn’t mean to scare her or nothing but I was just plain angry now, angry that Andy’d been broken up with and soup labels had melancholy sayings and Barry was hurting for a proper set of jobs (which you’d think the rain would help with and not make more difficult), that Ms. Potterson and Mrs. O’Haley were alone, and that my Marauder, beautiful car I tell you, was out there getting worn down by all that damn rain.  She opened the screen door to the living room and let me in, with me apologizing all the way for being so damn ornery and stepping all over her nice rug that way I was.  She told me to forget it, and showed me where the phone was.

As I dialed the number she asked if I’d had dinner, and I told her no, though it wouldn’t take me long to cook up some of yesterday’s fried chicken (which I’d bought from Johnny’s, because although it was a place for scoundrel types his barbecue and fried chicken were top of the best).  I think she was going to say something else when Mack at the gas station picked up.  I told him I needed a tow from Randall to my place because of that flat, and he said sure, though he’d just sat down to dinner with his two kids.  I wasn’t going to go rushing him out here so I told him not to worry, and to come and look for me in front of Mrs. O’Haley’s when he was ready.

I’d just put the phone down when Mrs. O’Haley asked me to stay for dinner.  I was feeling right improper just then, imposing on a single lady and all, not to mention making a mess of her nice rug, but Mrs. O’Haley, she wouldn’t have it, and took my hand in hers when she insisted I stop being ridiculous.  It was soft, her hand, but sort of foreign, like a warm blanket after it’d been warmed up by someone else.  I told her I didn’t feel right, this kind of impropriety, but again she told me not to be ridiculous.

“Since my man and I ain’t together,” she said.  I sort of pursed my lips and took her hand, which she used to lead and set me at the table in her kitchen.  Lorrie came in and smiled, saying she was glad to see me, and apologizing to her mom for not being able to help set the table. Mrs. O’Haley just shushed her and went on about finishing dinner as we sat quietly.  Mrs. O’Haley was a spitfire, no doubt.

Lorrie and me sat and listened, least I did, to the pot in the kitchen bubble up, and Mrs. O’Haley click her shoes on the tiles as she walked from chopping vegetables and back to the pot.  The sound of the rain outside was getting louder, loudest I’d heard it I think.

“Keeps rainin’ all the time…” said Lorrie, and I nodded.

“Keeps rainin’ all the time.”

“Don’t know why?” she asked.  Ms. Potterson pointed anxiously at the clouds that had been cast over our little town of seven hundred thirty-seven for over a month now, sometimes raining down the dogs and cats and sometimes just menacing over like they were going to pick a fight but didn’t have the gall to go for the first shove.

“There’s no sun up in the sky!”  It was getting tiresome, to be sure, but what God did with his sky was not for us to judge, and even then some people started to feeling stressed over the whole thing.  All I was asking was why she looked so down, but I should’ve known better.

“Stormy weather,” I muttered.

She turned away and gathered one of those children of hers, the rest bundled up in that car outside like they lived out of the old jalopy. She caught me looking at that sad old sight and then turned her back to me, clearly agitated, and walked out. She paused just before stepping out of the shop and into that rain.

“Since my man and I ain’t together… keeps rainin’ all the time,” then she left.

It was getting on and even though the grayness of those days made it tough to separate morning from day and day from dusk, it was clear dark was coming on. I had to start closing up soon but everyone was always waiting ‘til church was up to get out and rush into the shops before they closed. Being close to the only grocery in town made it wrong to lock up too early, and I wasn’t the depriving type.

Barry Johnson, a plumber who lived on Willow (near the old mill before it got tore down back in seventy-eight), he was watching that whole scene with Ms. Potterson and sort of shrugged, because he knew what I did, which was folks were allowed to be bothered these days.  It was getting tough to get by here in town and only us old people and the kids too young to leave on their own were left.  Seeing that kind of gap in a community, whole generations missing like that, well, it made me sad to think about.  It was like when there were wars and we lost so many of the young folks, only this wasn’t no war against an enemy, just the times that we were in.

Barry walked up and dropped a loaf of bread and milk on the counter.

“Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere.  Stormy weather…” and he trailed off when he heard the cash register ding open.  He tried to smile, sort of, and then nodded.  He reached around in his front pockets, to pull out his cash I gathered, but wasn’t coming up with anything.  He looked sort of concentrated like he was trying to will the money into his hand, but nothing.  I was worried he wasn’t going to have any cash and I’d have to have another tab on my hands (which ain’t easy to keep track of with so many as I had, try it sometime), but then his eyes lit up and he reached his right hand down into one those big side pockets that his Levi’s had on them.  It was the type those carpenters need for tools and nails and all, and in old Barry’s case it seems it’s where he kept his change.

He chuckled and said, “Just can’t get my poor self together.”  I smiled back as he counted the change in his hand and reached out to hand it to me, twisting his face a bit as he did.  He’d been having some wrist trouble and I should’ve known to reach over my own self so he wouldn’t strain it.

“I’m weary all the time,” said Barry, then he furrowed his brows like he was trying to remember something as I pulled out his change. Maybe he’d finally remembered that he had my lawn mower (the Craftsman, mind you, not my old Honda that I’d had to use since he borrowed my good one).

“The time?” he asked, and I was tempted to ask about my lawn mower right then, but those kinds of things are better discussed during the week (and I made a note to myself to ask him that following Monday, believe you me).  I pointed to the clock on the far wall and he looked over and nodded, then took his change, the loaf of bread, and milk, and put them all in that sack of his.  He saluted to me (a queer sort of greeting and goodbye he’d taken to, which I thought was right respectful if anything), and headed out into the rain.  As he walked out I noticed the queue to pay was longer than the number of people still picking out items, and I quickly pointed Andy over to the door to flip the sign to CLOSED.  He had been stacking empty boxes over by the door and was used to waiting for me to tell him when to close as dusk came on.

I then heard a sniffle, and “… so weary all the time.”  It was Mrs. O’Haley, mulling over those words of Barry’s.  She knew what they meant, given the time she’s had with those medical bills after her daughter, Lorrie, got the back surgery.  Poor kid had fallen off a horse.  Didn’t help any that her dad was in prison (who is not Mrs. O’Haley’s husband, another gentleman she was with before moving into town), riding out a sentence he got for selling those damn drugs near Johnny’s by the train tracks.  He was no good for her, or anyone, but she’d gone on with him probably just like she’d gone on with that old husband of hers, except this time she got saddled with a kid, good kid mind you, and all the tribulations bound to come up.  We got to talking about it once, as I helped her move her groceries into her car.

“Since he went away, the blues walked in and met me.”  I guess it was more she got to talking and I just moved the bags into the back of her stationwagon, me not being the talking type and all.

“Since he stays away, old rocking chair will get me. All I do is pray the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more.”  Suppose it was sort of poetic, what she was saying then, though not being one for all that flowery nonsense I never did bother with it.  It’s just that with the weather we’d been having lately it seemed more appropriate than any thought I’d conjure up.

“Can’t go on, everything I had is gone, since my man and I ain’t together…” and she kept it up until I was done with her bags and clanged the bottom door of the stationwagon shut.  She smiled politely and stepped toward her door, sort of stopped to look back at me, maybe to apologize or explain her rambling, I don’t know, then just waved and left.  Mrs. O’Haley, young as she was, would find herself a good man, I knew it.  Even if he wasn’t here in town, and if it took her a lifetime, she’d do it.

Anyway, Lorrie’s surgery had been done in the city since the only doc in town was not near learned enough to do that kind of thing.  Lorrie was sort of mobile now, using crutches and all, and Mrs. O’Haley had told me that the city doctors had told her she’d be having a tough enough time walking let alone riding horses.  Poor kid.

Mrs. O’Haley was buying some carrots, peas, noodles, a few chicken breasts, and some bouillon cubes, and as she stacked the items her wet coat was dripping water all over the counter.  She looked at me exasperated and said, “stormy weather.”  I just shook my hand and brought out the old rag I kept under the counter to wipe the moisture off .

“Keeps rainin’ all the time,” I told her.  “Keeps rainin’ all the time.”

She smiled again, a pretty sort of smile, in a more mature way, and paid what she owed.  I was getting her change out and she brought her hand to my arm, patted it gently, and shook her head.  We played this every time, me getting her change, and her refusing, telling me to keep it because I’ve been as kind as I have to her, helping her out when I can.  At first I was refusing every way I could, of course, but we’d been here for some time now, and I just played my part so she could play hers.

By and by we got through the remaining customers: Mabel Bernstrom (Doc Bernstrom’s wife); Lefty; little Rita Huxley (girlfriend of the captain of our high school’s football team, the Badgers, and in fact same team Andy was on); George Winston; Ms. Durand (one of the few young teachers still in town); and, surprisingly, Lola Baxter.  She lived up the block and never, ever came in herself, always asking for Andy to come by and drop off her groceries.  She was in her nineties somewhere so we were glad to do it, but now here she was, our last customer and looking as spry as any old body I’d seen in there today, especially with that weather outside.

I grinned as she brought up what she was buying: Happy Soup for the Heart and Soul.  It was something we were ordering out of Cincinnati and I liked the name of it more than anything, but I’d tried it myself more than once and it was right good, so we kept stocking it.  They’d recently started putting some kind of songs or something right on the labels, which I got a kick out of even if I wasn’t into that flowery stuff, and sometimes I’d just sit on the box and read the labels when the new shipments came in every month (not many folks bought the stuff, you see).

Lola Baxter came up with two cans, one of which she held onto so she could read: “I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad.  Night comes around and I’m still feelin’ bad.”  She chuckled and handed it to me so I could put it in the bag for her.  She wasn’t even wearing glasses when she did that.

I picked up the other can and read: “Rain pourin’ down, blindin’ every hope I had,” then just sort of scratched my ear and placed it in the bag with the other.  It’s amusing that they put this stuff on soup labels, but they ought to at least make it a bit more cheersome.  Those particular cans weren’t doing much for my soul, not much at all.  She shrugged, Lola Baxter did, and whistled as she handed me her coins and I gave her the change.  She seemed even more cheerful than I’d ever remembered, and walked back out into the rain toward her house up the block, her bag held under the big shawl she’d come in with.

Well by the time I’d finished with the customers, Andy’d finished with the rest of the shop.  We’d gotten our routine down so good that I never had to tell him anything, that kid.  I surely would miss him when he left to college in a couple years, and probably for good.  He was another clean-faced bright kid, who had more to offer than shop boy in a town like this.

Andy would normally ride his bike off after work, probably to visit Jean, his girlfriend of some odd years, but today he asked me if I’d give him a ride home.  Sure, I told him, and we got into my old Mercury Marauder (still sharp and powerful as the day I’d bought her, better believe).  Andy lived over on Woods Drive, on the other side of town, so I rightly guessed, I’m sure, that he wouldn’t want to ride a bike around in this rain.  I wondered about it as we wrestled his bike into the trunk of my car, which thankfully fit since I’d just cleaned out all the miscellaneous nonsense that I’d gathered up in there.

We got going and I don’t like guessing about folks so I asked him about it, him needing a ride.

“This pitterin’ and patterin’ and beatin’ and scatterin’…” he said, and I nodded.  Some believe rain is a calmative but too much of it has just the opposite effect to my mind.  Drives one wacky in the obscene amounts.

“Drives me mad,” said Andy, almost like he was reading my thoughts. He seemed down, more than the usual kind of down most folks were, so I figured I’d change the subject.  I asked him how he and his girlfriend were doing, and if she was going to make it out to see Andy and the rest of the Badgers play against the Wildcats the following weekend (not here of course, but over in Fitchburg, where it wasn’t raining every day).  Andy just looked on out the window and didn’t answer right away, and I was going to ask if he’d heard me, but didn’t get a chance to.

“Love, love, love…” he said, real sarcastic.  I asked what the problem was and he got into how Jean had broken up with him.  I figured they’d had some row over something, but turns out Jean just wanted a boyfriend who had a car.

“Love…” he said, again.  “This misery’s just too much for me.”  I patted him on the shoulder as we crossed the bridge onto Woods Drive and up to the curb.  He thanked me and apologized for being so dreary but I told him to think nothing of it, and not to worry over Jean.  He’d find himself a nice, pretty girl in no time at all, football star and good guy as he was.  He smiled lopsidedly and then got out, telling me to stay in and keep dry.  He got his bike out of the trunk then waved at me through the sideview before disappearing around the side of his house.

For the ride home I figured I’d take the scenic route, since I was out on this side of town and all, and I drove up from Woods Drive to Middlefield, which cut through the old cotton fields and then looped around along the ridge that overlooked the town.  From there I could see it all, from the one end of town to the other, all the lights just starting to come on as the last brightness of the day faded down to dark, made even darker by the clouds blocking out any chance of moonshine getting down to us.  I hadn’t driven by this way in a while, and I remembered how Marie and I used to stop along here for picnics, back in the old days, when we were young and inseparable.  It reminded me of why I stayed, the purpose of it.  Some people had diamonds and photographs and such, and I did, too, but I had more than that to help me remember.  I had every house and every tree, the whole town, reminding me of those days when we were happiest and the most trouble was getting ice cream off our hands after spending too long making out on a summer day.

Eventually the road came back down and houses appeared again, until I was in the thick of the old part of town.  Houses here were more rundown, though still respectable by any right.  I was about to turn onto Randall to head back toward Main when I heard a loud explosion, least it seemed as such, and I was sure the engine had started acting up again, except immediately after I started to feel the road grinding up under my rear end and realized that I had blown a tire.  I stopped to look out and sure enough, the rear driver’s side whitewall was out for the count, flat as a pancake.  I got out then and went to the trunk to fetch the spare.  Of course my rain-addled brain had forgot that the old spare tire was one of the things I’d taken out yesterday, looking to replace it in case a thing such as this happened.

I ran back into the car and sat down then thought for a bit about what I’d do, figuring I’d have to knock on someone’s house here to get to a phone, when she appeared.  Mrs. O’Haley, in the same dress she’d been wearing earlier and an umbrella, was at my window, knocking lightly.  I rolled down my window to listen to her explain that she’d heard a loud noise and came out to check, and that the big lavender house on the corner was hers.

“Can’t go on,” I said.  “Everything I had is gone.”  I pointed out to the empty trunk and she nodded and pulled at my sleeve for me to get on out of the rain.  I locked up and followed her onto the porch where we shook off what we could, then she invited me into the hall so that I could use her phone.

“Stormy weather!” I growled, because I’d had just about enough of all this.  I didn’t mean to scare her or nothing but I was just plain angry now, angry that Andy’d been broken up with and soup labels had melancholy sayings and Barry was hurting for a proper set of jobs (which you’d think the rain would help with and not make more difficult), that Ms. Potterson and Mrs. O’Haley were alone, and that my Marauder, beautiful car I tell you, was out there getting worn down by all that damn rain.  She opened the screen door to the living room and let me in, with me apologizing all the way for being so damn ornery and stepping all over her nice rug that way I was.  She told me to forget it, and showed me where the phone was.

As I dialed the number she asked if I’d had dinner, and I told her no, though it wouldn’t take me long to cook up some of yesterday’s fried chicken (which I’d bought from Johnny’s, because although it was a place for scoundrel types his barbecue and fried chicken were top of the best).  I think she was going to say something else when Mack at the gas station picked up.  I told him I needed a tow from Randall to my place because of that flat, and he said sure, though he’d just sat down to dinner with his two kids.  I wasn’t going to go rushing him out here so I told him not to worry, and to come and look for me in front of Mrs. O’Haley’s when he was ready.

I’d just put the phone down when Mrs. O’Haley asked me to stay for dinner.  I was feeling right improper just then, imposing on a single lady and all, not to mention making a mess of her nice rug, but Mrs. O’Haley, she wouldn’t have it, and took my hand in hers when she insisted I stop being ridiculous.  It was soft, her hand, but sort of foreign, like a warm blanket after it’d been warmed up by someone else.  I told her I didn’t feel right, this kind of impropriety, but again she told me not to be ridiculous.

“Since my man and I ain’t together,” she said.  I sort of pursed my lips and took her hand, which she used to lead and set me at the table in her kitchen.  Lorrie came in and smiled, saying she was glad to see me, and apologizing to her mom for not being able to help set the table. Mrs. O’Haley just shushed her and went on about finishing dinner as we sat quietly.  Mrs. O’Haley was a spitfire, no doubt.

Lorrie and me sat and listened, least I did, to the pot in the kitchen bubble up, and Mrs. O’Haley click her shoes on the tiles as she walked from chopping vegetables and back to the pot.  The sound of the rain outside was getting louder, loudest I’d heard it I think.

“Keeps rainin’ all the time…” said Lorrie, and I nodded.

“Keeps rainin’ all the time.”