Fragments From Floyd

The house was empty, my inspiration exhausted, and it was raining. I crawled back into bed like a soldier into a foxhole--a protected place where I could wait until the next assault on the task list. I slipped under cool sheets as the bedroom curtains lifted and fell, as wave upon wave of rain advanced down the valley from the south. I do not know if the place I went was sleep, but it was not wakefulness and it was not dream. It was somewhere in the archives of rains past and it was projected before closed eyes, light flickering faintly on the screen of perception and memory. The sound of rain was the same in every scene, more intense or less, but a constant in a life where not much is.

It is raining and I am pretending to sleep on the metal glider on our screen porch in the first home I remember. I don't think there were gutters because sheets of rain are pouring off the roof, splashing against the foundation of the tiny house. Fat drops blow against the screen, turning to mist, wetting my bare legs where I lay pulled into a ball for warmth. It is summer. The sudden chill is alien and welcome. The air fills with ozone, the smell of old brick, metal screens, Zoysia grass and bus exhaust from 49th street. The sun will come out and steam will rise from the hot sidewalks.

It is raining, has been raining for three days, and the natives are restless. The cabin is festooned with the blue jeans and T-shirts of twenty soggy unhappy campers. The bunks on the west side are damp from blowing mist that sifts through the screens of Navajo hut. Our teen-age leaders have exhausted everything in their bag of diversionary tricks and there are still five days of summer camp to go. We cannot swim or canoe; it is too cold. We cannot ride horses or play softball; it is too muddy. The rain runs down past the flagpole like a river delta. We endure the call of reveille and taps in the cheerless rain. The muddy water enters the muddy creek, red upon red. The roar of Kelly Falls drowns out the verses of Day is Dying in The West at vespers. The woods becomes a rainforest smelling of pine and mildew.

It is raining and I cannot tell where I am exactly. Camping somewhere. We walked in, most likely up or down a mountain with the rain rolling down our useless ponchos, filling our boots. If it ever stops raining, we (whoever it is I am with, I cannot tell) can dry our boots by the campfire. I may be on the Cranberry River in the three-sided shelter as the river rises closer and closer to our somewhat-dry sanctuary. I may be on the top of Walker Mountain where the rain is freezing in the trees and when we wake, it tinkles in the early January breeze like crystal wind chimes. Maybe this is one of a dozen times when a day of rain pulled us into fetal position in our tent, fat drops plopping against the translucent fabric, outlines of rivulets visible as drops run down the thin nylon, blue and cheerful, the only blue we see for days. Or this rain may be from days spent under the beetling sandstone cliffs in the Sipsey, where raindrops big as nickels are hitting the Frazier magnolia leaves like timpanies. Water is pouring over the rim in a dozen places, spontaneous water-falling into the ravine thick with ferns and boulders held by the roots of jungle plants.

Through the open window, above the rush of the creek and the heavy drops on the metal roof and the twitter of wet, happy birds, from my half-sleep I hear the crunch of gravel. She pulls into the driveway, home from town with groceries. And it is still raining.