Living in the city,
we rarely paid attention to what really happens outside at night. We usually
mind our own business regardless what goes on out on the streets. We typically
watch a movie, sit and talk or just get on the laptop and spend the time in peaceful
moments. The television is usually left on while we are doing the internet
thing and the mind wanders between the internet and the movies playing.
Outside, the
evening was darkening quickly. The clouds had been gathering all day long and
we knew the sun would be far gone by the end of the afternoon as clouds were
darker and you could hear the rumbling of thunder in the distance.
A gathering
powerful dark clouded rainstorm was announcing its presence as it approached
from the east side of the city that is covered by a high ridge on the rock
faced rugged mountain facing the house about five miles away.
Dark and ominous,
the lightening came to begin a wicked light show as it hurled the rain over the
mountain with a driving current of air
of hurricane force that was bending trees almost all the way to the
ground and some were shaking at their roots. The weather became more intense.
Intuition told me the city was in for a torrential time tonight and the streets
would be flooded as they did the last time the mountain brought these summer
rains.
Flashes of light,
grumblings of thunder persistent and shook our house. The lights began to
flicker and the living room lit up with an eerie neon glow. The wind was
banging the tree branches against the windows and you could hear the smaller
things not bolted down, being tossed in the wind and strewn throughout the
yard.
Thinking this was
going to be the mother of all storms before, we battened down the hatches and
got out our flashlights and batteries just in case we lost our power. The puppy
had found a safe place under the coffee table and covered up her ears as the
thunder became blastingly loud, trembling and quaking the house for a moment or
two.
Living here in
Southern California, it hardly rained and there was more concern for
earthquakes than severe thunderstorms but this night, the mood was different.
Maya was two years old and she had never experienced a hard driven rain like
this before so she found a little place to hide away from the loud thunder and
lightning.
We had a hard time
getting comfortable and the satellite dish had turned off a time or two already
as we sat there, waiting for the storm to kill the power once and forever like
the last time we had a night like this. The rain was falling and falling hard.
It was pouring so hard you couldn’t see outside the windows.
The winds were
driving the rain into bizarre patterns that zig zagged and in furious and
numerous dumpy eruptions of rainwater as powerful as it was, forcefully pressed
hard by the wind that was constantly blowing harder and harder as the night
went by.
A huge drumming of
thunder rattled the windows followed by a brilliant, retina burning flash of
lightning which startled all of us. I opened my eyes and sat up to look out the
window overseeing the backyard deck, and noticed Maya was hiding under a pillow
that had fallen off the couch and everybody else was intently looking through
the sliding glass door in the kitchen facing the back yard where a small lake
was forming.
The water was
rapidly rising. I knew everybody was scared to some degree because of the
violent storm. Just then, another loud applause of thunder followed quickly by
a brilliant display of lightning that scattered along the ceiling and
throughout the room.
Suddenly there was a loud knock on the front
door and Maya jumped up and as I followed her I was wondering who would be
standing at the door during this downpour this late at night. I opened the door
cautiously fearing a malicious stranger would try to enter the house to get out
of the storm.
There, standing in
front of me, under the small front porch cover, stood a drenching wet teenaged
boy, skinny and shivering with quivering lips asking if we could give him a
ride to the bus station.
I could see him
blinking, trying to rid the water from his eyes as it poured down his
face. It was if he was pleading with us,
but I could not hear what he was saying because the pouring rain was so
acoustically loud and the thunder claps were relentlessly booming.
He looked beat up
as the wind and the rain had pummeled him with all their might from side to
side pounding his frail body with body blows that must have hurt him badly as
he was not wearing a coat and dressed in a saturated white tee shirt and
soaking wet jeans.
He had long unkept
and tangled hair. I motioned for the boy to come in and sit down in the kitchen
where I gave him a hot cup of chocolate with foamy marshmallows floating at the
top. His eyes were wide open with fright. He was scared to death and it showed.
His hands were shaking badly, trembling with panic or stress.
Outside, the
thunder kept growling loudly, the lightning exploded with another brilliant
flash of bluish white light. The boy
stood looking directly at us. His lips moved as if he wanted to speak but no
words came out of his mouth.
He was in
semi-shock and it was because he was near beaten to death by the rain and wind
outside. He slowly sipped on the cup as his face was beginning to return to its
color as he was pale faced with lips that were turning blue.
With each flash of
light, the whites of his brown eyes disappeared into dark holes on his face,
and his opened mouth muttered some words asking the same thing – he said with
his words stuttering a bit, “can you please take me to the bus station so I can
go home.”
It was obvious the
boy came out of the darkness and appearing from nowhere. The rain was still
pouring heavy and pelting the ground, sometimes mixed with hail, and the best I
could do was to tell him to wait out the storm and just relax and change into
some dry clothes.
Luckily, I
remembered, I had found some young boy’s clothes inside a box in the closet so
I took them out and threw them in the dryer to unwrinkled them and warm them
up. Little did I know the storm would
last almost all of the evening as it was reported to be a heavy downpour on the
weather channel with local flooding possible overnight.
By now, the
television station had severe weather bulletins advising people of local
flooding and other high water concerns. It seemed like this was going to last
awhile and driving anywhere was out of the question until it let up a spell.
The boy was stiff
as a board. He was cold and his heartbeat could be heard by my ears and seemed
like it was competing with the thunderstorm outside. Maya continued to stare towards sad looking
boy with tears in his eyes. I could hear her give him a low growl but her tail
was wagging at the same time.
She was not afraid
of this boy, instead she want him to pet her in the end as she edged up towards
him as he warmed up in some dry clothes that fit him snug and close-fitting. After another two
hours or so passed, the thunder has silenced some but only after the
thunderstorm rumbled its way into the distance, and the grumblings and the
flashing of light became further apart. We went to the garage, and in the
meantime, the wife had made a sack lunch for the sad looking boy who never gave
us his name.
The mood was somber
and the young boy was grateful for the food and clothes. He shook my hand and
gave my wife a hug. About almost midnight, we headed out the door as the rain
was turning to a light drizzle and the light show had done everything it could
but ran out of energy and turned the sky into complete darkness.
The main
thoroughfares were clear and the side streets were filled with debris that had
washed down from up the hillside homes and turned these side streets into small
streams.We stopped at
Starbuck’s to get him another hot cup of mocha and headed for the Greyhound
station. His lips had stopped quivering but the blueness never turned pink or
his flesh back to a normal color. He remained pale and ashen but he did break a
smile as he opened the door and headed into the bus terminal.
The buses were delayed because of the storm
but the sad boy said he would wait and thanked me for the clothes, the ride and
the hot chocolate once more. I left the station and never looked back. We had
been told that the El Nino was returning and that it might rain all week if the
front remained stationary somewhere off the coast.
I went to work the
next day and told my friends about the sad boy in the rain who asked me to take
him to the bus station so he could go home. It could have been a vivid dream
but the wife and the dog said it was true and real so I couldn’t make it up and
make anything more out of the experience for the time being.
I never saw the boy
again. The weather was improving and the storms we had were not as severe and
violent as the ones earlier this week. One evening, while
it was raining lightly, I was going through the closet, pulling clothes out of
some boxes to repack them as they were left there for some reason by a family
who had lived in this house before us and I was taking these clothes to the
Salvation Army for them to give to the homeless.
I pulled some sweat
shirt and pants out of the large box in the corner of the closet and a
photograph fell out of one of the sweat pants as it dropped onto the
floor. I picked it up, after packing the
sweaters in a box.
Staring back at me
I recognized these eyes as the frightful eyes of the young boy I saw the night
of the dreadful storm. I knew it was the same boy. I would have recognized him anywhere. But in
the photo, he was vibrant and alive, smiling in a group of what I had assumed
was his parents and perhaps his brother.
I sat and looked at the photo, thinking about what had happened to the boy
in this house.
The photo almost
changed my decision to repack the clothes and diligently, I packed them up and
sealed the boxes, getting them ready for the drop off at the Salvation Army
center. In the meantime, I had placed the photograph in my shirt breast pocket
and decided to go next door and ask if they knew of him and who he was.
Looking outside,
the rain had turned into a light drizzle, so I dashed over to the neighbor’s
house, with the photograph in my pocket.
Lucky for me, they were home. I knocked on the door and they graciously
recognized me and waved me in out of the drizzling rain. He offered me a cup of
hot coffee and I accepted so we could sit and talk in the kitchen.
I told him the
story of the sad boy in the rain the other night, and that I had found some
clothes in the closet when we moved in and was repacking them for the Salvation
Army when this photograph fell out of the clothes and onto the floor.
The neighbor looked
at the photograph and with a strange look on his face, he said, “are you sure
this boy came by here a few days ago and asked you to take him to the bus
station?” I said, “Yes, I am certain that was him.”
Shocked my neighbor
said, “That boy died in a car accident a couple of years ago, and it was one of
the reasons his family had put the house up for sale.” The wife, who had
previously been eavesdropping while stirring some mixing batter for a white
angel cake, stopped and slowly put her spoon down.
She turned to look
at me, and her face was pale, her mouth wide open. She had a frightful face and stuttered to
speak. “Are you sure, are you positively sure?” I sensed fear in her eyes as
her eyes began to tear.
At the same time,
my neighbor had also changed his mood and had turned very serious. I could see
they were both visibly upset so I left and told the wife what they had told me.
She said to me, “so the sad boy in the rain is was really dead?
No comments:
Post a Comment