After the millionth hot day Mom would lose it and curse the heavens. “Those little clouds that show up at the end of June aren’t going to produce spit. They’re just teasing us. They’re worthless.” She fanned herself under a swamp box vent. “It’s all false advertising. They want us to beg them for rain. To hell with them. I refuse.”
Don’t let Mother Earth push you around, Ma.
Eventually she’d cave and perform the Ritual Guaranteed to Bring the Rain. When you wash your car, in order to bring rain, it must be washed with real enthusiasm. Elbow grease and sweat. You have to wipe it, polish it and buff it. Make it shine. And then hang two full loads of laundry on the line while singing “Rain, rain, go away.”
Always provoked a deluge.
I was assigned the task of setting up the lawn chairs out in the front yard while Mom popped the Jiffy Pop. The Master Sergeant proclaimed that tonight’s storm would be the Show of the Year.
“I hear a herd of buffalo stampeding in the distance and they’re heading this way! What’s that? Now I’m hearing angels bowling right overhead! Listen to those thunderboomers. Whoa! That one snapped, crackled and popped. Where are the candles, Jean?”
Mom got up to see if we had candles.
“Calculating your distance from the lightning is a useful skill to learn, boy. Especially if you have a metal plate in our head like Dirty Billy’s dad. When you see a flash of lightning, count by one-one thousands and convert that number into the deductible for your emergency room visit when you get nailed with a thunderbolt in the behind. Let me put it to you this way, Sparky. Avoid open areas during thunderstorms unless you want to fly Ben Franklin’s kite to St. Peter’s. Don’t be a sitting duck in Zeus’ bombing range.”
Right. This from the same Master Sergeant who had us sitting out in the open, in our front yard, in metal chairs, eating popcorn out of a tin while he pointed out various lightning strikes with a collapsible metal pointer that resembled a lighting rod. All the while sipping a Bud and cooling his heels in a wading pool. “Greatest show on earth! Admission’s free!”
He’d “conduct” the symphony of lightning and thunder like he was Leonard Bernstein. Cue the wind. Release the fleeing birds. More wind! And now, the dust storm!
“Look at these clouds! Those are Cecil B. DeMille clouds, kiddo. Gullywashers. Tell Noah his ark better be seaworthy because the Good Lord’s about to float his boat.”
He winked like a sea captain. “Moses better be looking for high ground. Did you see that lightning corkscrew across the entire sky?”
We nodded.
“After a good flood I’d try my hand at Gila monster surfing. Strap a pair on my feet and ride the surf in the Santa Cruz. Gila monsters are the manatees of the desert. Look it up.”
We all oohed and awed at every thunderclap and lightning strike at the same time. As the rain pelted us, Mister Sonoran Farmers Almanac refused to slow down. “It either rains at 3 o’clock or 9 o’clock. If you’ve experienced a downpour at any other time of day your watch needs to be cleaned. Probably a dead scorpion jamming the cogs.”
A thunderclap made us jump.
“I once tried crossing a flooded wash by tying a couple rattlesnakes together end-to-end into a tightrope with a Devil’s Claw for a hook. I got bit, hooked, wet and rattled. Those look just like the clouds in ‘The Ten Commandments.’”
“I always carry a baker’s dozen of doughnuts with me during monsoon season. I once saw a family of quail and their 11 chicks drowning in a flash flood. I looked at my doughnuts and I looked at them, desperately struggling to stay alive. I threw them my donuts. There is no better life preserver for a family of 11 quail than 11 powdered doughnuts.”
Finally the rains came, driving us inside to watch the backside of what looked like Niagara Falls pour off our roof in front of the big picture window. After the rain stopped, the Master Sergeant ordered us outside to admire the rainbow. Then we piled into mom’s very clean car so he could drive us to the wash to marvel at the wet brown rolling water. On the way home he told us to roll down our windows. Cool moist air filled the car with the fragrance of wet creosote. “Smell that.”
“What?” we said, exhilarated.
“Sweetest smell there is. Rain.”
