10 June 2009

Watching "Buffy", season two, when it begins pouring, torrential rain, outside. Pause the television, rush downstairs to the porch. It is 11:00 PM and my father should be driving up any minute from work. I love heavy rain storms, I love thunder. I love things that are chaotic, from a distance.

My brother Tom passes in his white car. He too is coming home from work. He lives across the street. He parks in the back alley, although technically he's not allowed. My father is the next car to pass, some minute or so after Tom. There is a space for him in front of our apartment, but he has to park on the right side of the road because of street cleaning,so he parks a block away from our apartment in the only spot left open. I am in my silk robe. Mom is with me on the porch. I tell her I should take the huge umbrella we have to the car.

Dad is still in the car five minutes later. Still torrential rain. I walk upstairs, change into jeans, put on sneakers, and a hoody and take the big umbrella to the car, where he is inside, the car not running, so that it is dark. The rain is coming down so hard that it must in some way obscure the street lights, I can't very well see anything. I knock on the window. He comes out, with his Giant Eagle bag, he puts his arm around my shoulder, and sings "singing in the rain" while we walk, slowly -- on account of him -- to our front steps. Seeing my mother, he sings even louder, until, upon coming up the stairs -- me holding the umbrella over him as he painstakingly, and slowly, walks up them -- I see that my brother has crossed the street, without an umbrella, and is sitting soaking wet in a chair on our porch.