No Stranger to the Rain

I heard the rain on the roof of the chicken houses. Loud and steady. It’s an unmistakable sound, this clatter of rain drops on a tin roof , 500 feet long and 40 feet wide. Funny thing, the dimensions of Noah’s ark, the length, the width, are very similar to my chicken houses. I think about this as the rain falls and I look at the chickens and think perhaps I have spent 40 days and nights in there just today it seems. I’m getting ready to “go out” which means they come get the chickens and I get a few days off. I never forget I don’t have chickens, I like to say and often will catch myself headed out there to check them only to realize they are gone. Getting ready to “go out” is a tedious process of rolling a few things up out of the way and hiding handles to the vent doors and tunnel curtains because for some reason, the catch crew (the men who come get the chickens, usually Hispanic, usually don’t speak English) will turn the cranks and then, when I come out there to get ready for baby chicks everything is out of whack and I turn on machines and  it breaks cables and pulls things literally off the wall. Sigh. So, I’ve learned to check things and put things right but mostly, to pull those durn handles OFF beforehand  so as not to temp the little darlings to spin them.

  I heard the rain and my heart sank just a little. Crud, I thought. I had driven the Kubota out there. It’s the best thing for me to dump the dead chickens but…it has no roof. It has no windshield. I looked out the door, the rain pulled in on my face by the fans. It was cold. Maggie My Dog and Tika came running inside, scattering the big chickens. Tika waited patiently by the door while Maggie trotted behind me. I threw the chickens into the back of the bed of the Kubota. My wrists were hurting. I had done a fair amount of culling. To make it quick and painless for the chickens, I have to be brutal and quick with my hands. This causes me great pain. Not internally, mind you. It truly does not faze me at all to kill a chicken. It causes me no more grief than plucking a tomato from the vine. I don’t want these runty, sickly, fuzzed up culls in the food chain. So, kill them I must.  You can thank me later.

But it causes my hands to shake and my wrists to be achy for days sometimes. I’ll turn a doorknob and feel a twinge. Arthritis, I’ll think. And that, dear reader, is what it is. Regardless of the age I FEEL I am (oh, around 30) I am FORTY TWO. Every bit of it and my body reminds me every day. It reminds me as I type, as I sew, as I chop vegetables or mix a cake batter by hand.

  I counted the chickens and wrote them down and tallied them in the computer that runs the chicken house.

 I stuck my phone in my bra, dear reader, to keep it dry and safe and not be dropped in disgusting puddles of goo. I strode into the rain and sat on the seat, my lower half instantly drenched. I drove to each house and gathered up the dead from each one, counting as I picked up and threw. The feathers in the houses stuck to my wet arms, my face. I spit them from my lips.

  I drove to the composter and dumped the dead, the rain falling on me, coming in sideways.

           ( a memory)

 Rain hit my shirt, hit my neck, hit my eyes.

(so long ago. the sounds of violence. glass breaking)

I drove on, feeling this memory break thru the surface of glass that my brain can be.

(screams. thud. get help. get help. cold rain)

I feel the glass of my brain crack and give and snap.

(me,  clad in a t-shirt and underwear, dressed for bed but now… barefoot, running in the night)

I feel my heart beat quicken. What is this memory? Flotsam, jetsam, bits of leaves and sticks floating in a stream of dark water.

(my t shirt soaked, my feet fly over rocks and puddles, the highway glistens in the night, headlights blind  me and pass without stopping, this ten year old running, in the cold rain, along the highway)

I stop the Kubota and sit. I lean my forehead on to the steering wheel. Rain drips from my hat. Maggie My Dog whimpers from the seat, looks at me. Go home, her whine says. Go home.

 (I am standing on a porch. the neighbor lady  drags me inside, throws a towel over me, tells me I’m indecent, cover up. get help, I stutter)

I start the Kubota. Maggie My Dog looks pleased. I drive home, feeling the rain on my face. It feels good, crisp, pure.

(I try to leave the neighbor’s house, she tries to stop me. she has called the police. I run, she scrabbles at me, grabbing the towel. I run, indecent again, down the highway back to the house.)

I kick my boots off in the breezeway. I let Maggie My Dog inside, she runs to her soft bed and sighs contentedly.

I pull my wet clothes off and step into the shower. Water hits me again, but warm. I turn it as hot as I can stand, my skin turning bright red.

(I’m in the house, pulling wet t shirt and undies off and putting on dry ones. the violence is winding down, blue lights flash and flash again, low voices, assurances and explanations)

I dry myself  from my hot shower and put on dry clothes and sit on my bed.

(I slide into bed, pretend to sleep, but there is none that night, only bits and pieces and dreams of running down black highways alone in the cold)

I call Clint.

“ I’m done with chickens! They were fine. Got brooders and sensors up.”

“well, sounds like you earned your keep today.” he says. I hear the smile in his voice.

“it’s raining, hard. And it’s cold. I got soaked!” I tell him.

“oh, you’ll live.” he laughs. “ a little water never hurt you. You won’t melt.”

I laugh back.

“that’s true!” I say.

“you’ve been wet before.” he continues. “you’ll get dry.”

    (rain slicked highway, headlights blinding, soaked t shirts, dirty, wet feet)

“oh, yes,” I say. “I’ve gotten soaked several times. Hasn’t killed me yet.”

          (rain in my eyes mixed with my tears I’m indecent)

We chat for a minute or two, then I hang up and sit on the couch. The house is quiet, save for the rain. Sweet, blessed, cold rain.

Washes the glass of my brain clean, I think.

 I sit on my couch. I curl my feet up underneath me.

 I pray for a moment, a silent, wordless prayer of jumbled thoughts of Clint and my children and their spouses, my friends who are my surrogate mother and sisters and brothers. Thank You, God, for washing me in Your rain. Flotsam and jetsam float away in His rivulets of rain.

Oh, dear reader. I am no stranger to cold rain and dirty, running feet.  Of breaking glass, and glistening wet highways.

Neither are you.

And that is our bond.