For the rain it raineth every day

            “God’s tears, glad or sad.”

            “Huh?”

            Carmen repeated, “God’s tears. Abuelita always said so. Didn’t rain so much where she lived, though.” Carmen stuck her hand out the passenger window.

            Leo, at the wheel, flicked the windshield wipers. “Where would that be?”

            “Extremadura. Little village outside Mérida.”

            “Spain?”

            They hadn’t known each other long—this roadtrip surprising both of them in a yeah, why not? moment of quenching the need to get out of dodge, or Middlebury, in their case. “Of course Spain. Where else?” Carmen instantly regretted the sarcastic tag. Leo wasn’t dumb (no one was at Middlebury) and didn’t seem desperate to date someone like her. Hard to know if they were really dating. They both worked late shifts at Mister Up’s sports bar, walked home to different dorms, lingered here and there. They hadn’t made a plan where to stay in Springfield for The Big E music festival, or even which acts they’d want to see.

            “The rain in Spain,” Leo decided to sing, “stays mainly in the plain.”

            Carmen tittered, having heard this once or twice, if not from him. “Not true. Extremadura is the plain. Dry as…”

            “As God’s tears?”

            “What?”

            “Nothing. I don’t believe in God. Famine or flood—just a ton of physics and an ounce of industrial fallout.” Leo adjusted the lever to speed up the wipers.

            After a minute she pulled her hand in and raised the window almost closed. “Do you believe in Gypsy tears?”

            “Huh?”

            “In little vials. Hung around men’s necks to shield them from AIDS.”

            “According to who?”

            Carmen corrected him. “To whom. To Borat.”

            “Borat? That dweeb?”

            “Taught me about America. Maybe more than Middlebury’s doing.”

            “Ha! And what film will teach me about Spain?”

            “You’ve already seen it: My Fair Lady.”

           

            Highway 7 clung as well as it could to Otter Creek, winding through the western side of Vermont. On a less bleary day, the drive would be breathtaking, especially in this early turn of autumn. The steady downpour grayed those colors, however, and made for difficult driving. A speeding truck from the other lane caught an unlucky puddle, plunging the Ford Fiesta toward the road’s shoulder and causing Leo to curse. Carmen, who didn’t have a driver’s license, offered to tag-team. “I learned how, anyway.”

            “From Abuelita?”

            Actually, yes. But she chose not to say. The Green Mountain forest was darkening around them despite the hour, not yet time to pull over for dinner. But Leo was clearly tired; Carmen searched her phone for options in Bennington, maybe twenty minutes away. They hadn’t planned to stop—Springfield wasn’t so far—and Leo remembered he packed a thermos of coffee for this very purpose, to keep chugging on. Warily, Carmen reached for it in the back seat, belted in against a backpack, where a child would sit wondering ‘how much further?’ Carmen would pat that kid’s knee and say, ‘farther, Chiquita. Further is depth of degree. Farther is length of a journey.’ Maybe all that in Spanish, quién sabe? She pulled the thermos to the front and unscrewed the top, pouring a little too much for Leo to take without spilling. “May I sip the brim?”

            “Of course.” Leo was doing his damnedest to keep the Fiesta from hydroplaning. He concentrated past Bennington and toward the Massachusetts state line. Besides the coffee, Carmen turned the dial of the radio to pick up something listenable that could get through the mountains. She considered crooning something herself, seeing how Leo was game for that an hour ago, rain in Spain stuff and nonsense.

            She abandoned the radio for a story instead. “So, Abuelita, you know, prays for me every day. That may not matter to an atheist…” Leo shrugged a doesn’t matter. “My sister and I were at her farm, just the three of us, all tucked in for the night. Thunderstorms happened but we didn’t hear them, sound asleep. Early in the morning Abuelita went out to gather eggs but slipped in the mud and knocked herself out. We had no idea, waking up hours later. Then it started to rain again—real hard, like now—and where was our abuela? So we’re nervous, Jimena and I, and go out looking for her, getting soaked. We were just 5 and 7 years old, crying like babies. We thought she might be at the tiny chapel half-way toward the village. But no, not there, so we ran to a neighbor, who took us in…. You listening?”

            “Huh?” Leo wasn’t sure. He was glad to hear a voice to mitigate the deluge. “Yeah. You ran to a neighbor. She contacted Abuelita?”

            “Couldn’t. Phone line went down with the storm. Just had to wait it out.”

            Carmen was silent for a while, maybe waiting for Leo to tell his own tale. Instead, he guessed, “she must have regained consciousness… unless—”

            “Oh, she’s alive alright. The mid-morning rain woke her up; only by then our searching had gone down different paths.”

            “How come you didn’t pray?”

            Carmen reflected on that. “Abuelita said the prayers were in the search.”

           

            They were near the state line when Leo nodded off. Carmen grabbed the wheel to keep them straight and screamed for him to wake. He shook and stomped the brake with both feet, putting the Fiesta into a spin. The Hoosic River on the right was yawning for them—a pillow or a grave. If Carmen could only steer beyond the strength of panic, maybe they’d avoid that gamble. Yet they were little more than socks inside a washing machine, pawns to physics and the whims of industry.

            The Hoosic River had swelled with the day’s rain and wouldn’t notice more to carry. It wouldn’t honor prayers, or dishonor them, for that matter.

            Well past midnight in Extremadura, a grown-up Jimena prodded Abuelita awake. She gave the disoriented old woman her glowing mobile phone. “¡Es Carmen, para ti!”

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2019)

In the Room

            Jasper, it just wasn’t the right way to deal. I come see you maybe twice, three times a year, usually to have some laughs, clink some drinks, be on your side against the advice of Mom and Dad. Now you’ve pushed me over to theirs. I mean, not really—we’re all on your side, hoping to get you back. Praying, if that’s what this is. Talking to you. Trying to get you to talk, explain yourself. Forgive yourself—just fucking deal.

            Let’s go through this again—no filters, no doctor stepping in. Maybe the nurse will come by, check this or that, talk loudly in some effort to get through to you, wake you up, whatever. It’s just been three days and I’ve heard of these kinda comas lasting for years. Your heart’s still good, they say. Survived the crush of everything else. God damn it, Jasper, it just wasn’t the right way to…

           

            So, I remember when you first fell in love—that’s not too much to say about elephants, is it? I mean, I liked that day in Baraboo, climbing a ladder to sit in that festooned box atop the old bull. But you positively loved it. Wouldn’t get out. The trainer let you ride two more circles by yourself for no extra charge—must’ve seen an apprentice in you, lure you into his world, eventually. And he succeeded, what—eight years later? when you turned sixteen and could legally drop out of school, run to the circus, throw your life away? Oops, that’s Mom and Dad’s side again, aint it. I probably encouraged you: kid sister looking up to learn how dreams might burst out of the box. I didn’t have any dreams myself—maybe still don’t—so I envied your panache. Wondered why it had to be elephants, but… why the hell not?

            You said they had big hearts. No, duh: they’re giants in every dimension. By ratio, though, dogs’ hearts are bigger, you know. And there are a lot more options working with dogs… But then you vouched for an elephant’s memory, like somehow that’s equivalent to virtue. Most folks who cling on to memories become curmudgeons or narcissists. Or broken-hearted sisters.

            Sure, it was interesting telling friends what you did for a living. Some pulled a face, like you were monstrous—animal cruelty, all that. One guy said that while snarfing down a McChicken sandwich, I remember. Others romanticized the idea—nice to know someone out there still cares about the earth and its creatures, cuz I always attested to your care of them. Never saw otherwise. Then again, I didn’t witness your dumbass act three days ago. Nobody did, except Jumbo. Jasper and Jumbo sharing a private moment. Jasper and Jumbo and maybe God.

            Wha’dja expect, anyway? No change to the program, like ever? Circus kicks you out, sends their animals to various zoos. You follow, trunk to tail, and beg for a job cleaning up their manure. The elephants, you contend, need exercise, so you keep up their routine, tossing them beachballs and stuff, making them balance on this boulder or that—no more circus apparatus, so you make do with what’s lying around. You sneak rides on their necks when they’re out on the glorified safari grounds, the zoo’s petty sense of being ‘woke’. They fire you for overstepping your bounds. Not gonna recommend you to another zoo or anything to do with pachyderms. Skills down the toilet. May as well fly to Delhi or someplace that supplies your demand.

            Can’t do that now, Jasp. You decided to go down with the ship—the Hindenburg blimp, as it were, minus the media circus. You curled into a cardboard box—LG, with their “Life’s Good” logo of an ugly face—as if you bought a new air conditioner just for the box. Then you called out to Jumbo, “c’mere, boy, do your best pirouette! Don’t worry where I am, just play for the invisible crowd.” And I bet you he swung his trunk to show his distrust for this stunt, following orders in the dark, manacled to the memory of your voice…. And you must’ve arched your back in the box so Jumbo wouldn’t instantly feel its impending collapse. Still, his leg must’ve hovered—like Damocles’ sword—brainy, big-hearted galoot. At a final command, he pressed into the LG logo and broke all your bones before tumbling forward himself.

            Did I get that all right? Spirit of the story, at least? Care to add, edit, repeal or redo? If you’re wondering what the elephant thought of your suicide note, well.., he’s being held without bail for manslaughter at the county clink, probably on suicide watch, as these things go. Seems like his trainer, the only man he’d come to understand, as such, stomped on his heart. J&J 4evr tattooed the old-fashioned way.

            What? Was that a groan from underneath your mummy wrap? Shall I call the nurse or...; no hurry, I guess. Huh? How am I doing? Funny you should ask. You know, being a kid sister I’m gonna damsel through this like… like a fuckin’ Dumbo. I got Mom and Dad to fall back on. Maybe develop my own, out-of-the-box kinda dream. I dunno, something like… hedge funds. I hear that’s got some edge, some rootedness to the good ol’ earth. Follow in your footsteps, bro.

            Okay, so I’ll shut up now, let you sleep. You know, Jasper, all kidding aside: I don’t know if these past three days have been much different than the past three thousand. You were always a pretty good listener; me, a jabberwocky. I really liked that you took care of your friends, and they the same to you. I never imagined there was—or is—necessarily anything you’ve suppressed. No skeletons in your closet, no elephant in the room. I think that’s a hard trick to pull off, and you can expect me back soon to big brother me a little more.

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2019)