A Ride in the summer rain

A Ride In The Summer Rain

By Bob Liddil

There were no clouds in the sky on Sunday at dusk. In fact, it had not rained in more than a month, not that I missed it. Rain is the enemy of boys in summer. Droplets of water falling, lightning splitting the air and leaving thunder behind as an afterthought, these things are day breakers. They wet down a baseball field, they puddle up where the old folks can see you jump into them to muddy new sneakers. Even though rain feels good on your face, it is a breaker of covenants between a boy and the magic of summer.

The morning I was to leave for summer camp, it was raining. The drumming of it on the tin roof of our house stirred me from sleeping minutes before the aroma of cooking bacon would have done the same. The twilight of silence that is the first few heartbeats of the day foretells the promise of adventure, of discovery, of intrigue as time stretches infinitely outward into mystery. Such a morning was that morning that I had waited for all year, the day I would shrug off the city for the piney woods and cool breezes of YMCA Camp.

Waiting for the city bus that would take me downtown to catch the Y bus for camp, I turned my face upward, closed my eyes and caught the droplets in my mouth. The yellow slicker and matching hat I'd been coerced into wearing made me feel like a rain covered banana. I hated that rain gear, but to not compromise would have set up an argument with the one person who could keep
me home. Not worth the risk. The rustle of the rain on the hat sounded like a crumpling candy wrapper about to be discarded.

The windshield wipers on the YMCA school bus beat a 2-4 tattoo, wiping the glass on the right hand pass and picking up the new droplets as they swung back left again. It was raining harder now. Little pings of splashes fell on the road before us, as if a thousand slingshots had all loosed bb's in a barrage into a shallow pond. For some reason, Edvard Greig's "Peer Gynt Suite" echoed in my subconscious ear, driven by the rhythm of the wipers. Mrs. Swerrengin, the music teacher from my school had played "In the Hall of the Mountain King" for us on the last day of class. The wipers were a metronome, keeping time to the rain.

The road from the highway into camp was very narrow and paved with dirt. Rain is always the enemy of dirt, a conspirator to evil ends when a school bus comes along, bringing kids to summer vacation. We were all singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall," and had reached 37 as we turned through the gate. The old bus almost stalled. It lurched as the driver missed a gear, then grabbed it back too quickly. Rain drummed on the tin roof of the bus, harder now at slow speed. The song died on our lips as the back wheels broke traction for a second or two and the bus gave a lumbering wiggle.

A stream ran under a very low bridge at the bottom of a hill before the road began to climb again to the edge of the camp parking lot. It had been raining all night and where I had seen creek and bridge in past trips to camp, I could see only a torrent of running water. Two years earlier in my life and I would not have cared, but I would be turning 13 that year and I knew intuitively that we shouldn't try to cross that bridge.

   The driver dropped into a lower gear and the engine whined in protest as the bus moved with purpose down the hill. The rain bounced off the windows and roof of the bus like bullets off Superman, giving off a rat-a-tat-tat too fast to count the individual droplets. Suddenly we were at the bottom and onto where the bridge should be. A wall of water sprayed high into the air on both sides of the bus as it plowed through the torrent. I was in the front seat and could see the driver's face. It was set, taut, veins on the side of his head standing out under the skin. He gripped the wheel tightly with both hands, as the windshield wipers beat relentlessly.

   The engine stalled. Now there was no sound at all except the rain on the roof and a whimper of sudden fright from one of the smaller boys. The starter spun, then stopped, spun, then stopped, then spun more slowly. The bus came almost to a halt, slipping sideways as the tires settled into the current. Then the starter spun one more time and the engine caught once more, roaring back to life with a bang, bang, bang of backfiring barely audible over our cheers. A lurch and a grinding gear change later, we were starting up the other side of the hill and leaving the stream behind.

As we pulled into the parking lot, the rain on the roof softened, then faded, then died completely. Knowing when it was beaten, the storm just moved on. That enemy of boys, that spoiler of vacations was vanquished, sent packing, leaving behind only the frantic beating of my heart which by then had begun to slow back to normal.

   We stood in the parking lot and watched the bus take leave of us. No one said a word. Everything was silent save for the dripping of leftover raindrops trickling from limb to bough in the overhead trees before finally finding
the ground.

Everyone started talking at once. Counselors suddenly appeared. A bugle sounded, and just like that, summer camp began, leaving the ride in the rain to the cobwebs of an old man's memory.