It was a dark and stormy night

No "was" about it, no night either. Make mine present tense and hold the ice. Today, as I stepped out of the car I had to quickly step back in again and put my hip waders on because the sidewalk had turned into a stream. There were rapids forming over the curb and whenever a car wheel turned in snug to kiss the curb, like we were taught to do in drivers education, only no one ever actually cranks their wheels in to the curb, unless they’re too tight or too poor to get a brake job. That would be me on both counts. 

Thank gawd I have a clutch, as the emergency brake is done in for as well. We haven’t quite reach the Fred Flintstone school of driving and braking, but it looms on the lithic horizon. Anyway, the tire against the curb becomes a mini cofferdam and debris plugs the holes until the rivulet has left its bank. The storm gutters are overfull. 

We negotiate impromptu lakes spanning San Pablo, Marshall, and Stanford avenues. Momentary calm before the storm. A gust of wind turns Lorene into Mary Poppins. I have visions of chasing her down the street shrieking something about a spoonful of sugar. And the next thing I know, I can’t shut off the damn soundtrack. Earworm. As long as Willy Wonka isn't invoked, perhaps I'll maintain enough sanity to make it to nightfall. 

Here we are, April showers—more like April monsoons than showers. But the wildflowers are cavorting. I found myself kissing the landscape on both sides of the freeway. I gasped when I saw in the distance, a swale of buttercups—as if the painter had fisted buckets of yellow onto a canvas of green—so green even the air was verdant. When the storm hit, all the color drained out of the sky and the land turned the color of pavement. Everything was grey until I was on a glass bell glass of rain—and no one else on the road. 

Boy rides his bike down the Emeryville Bridge ramp  

billowing white shirt lufting behind like a full sail 

the back tire throwing up a spray onto that white shirt 

until he is wearing a skunk tail down his back. 

4/7/ 06 Writers' Group