The Rain

A sodden Ward Ambler trudged gamely in the rain.  To a fellow angler on the beach he called out, any luck?  A lousy sea robin and a bunch of eel grass, said the other.  Catching shorts in the river from my kayak but nothing out here.  Ward nodded, his mind blank, unable to respond verbally in some commiserative fashion he just went from nodding to shaking his head like some goofy assed scar faced bobble head doll.  He continued up the beach with a barely audible see ya later to the other fisherman, whose back was already turned. Earlier, having misjudged an incoming wave his rubber boots were now holding an inch of water and sand and were pulling away from his feet with every step. His socks were all but slipped off and they floated bunched up in the toe of each boot. He didn't want to carry the damn things, they would be heavy, so he kept them on, and kept moving forward, miserably.  On his walk he periodically casted out into the ocean a chunk of shiny metal with its green tubing covered tail hook and unsurprisingly brought back to the beach only eel grass and the occasional sand flea wriggling on the dull hook piercing its belly.

Jimmy Jones was four feet deep in a hole shoveling sand and rocks up onto the growing pile.  The rain was not constant but the mosquitos were.  His trip up the river had been a short one and now in his back yard he was determined to finish the digging of the ditch for the new dry well, into which the dishwasher and washing machine drained.  The old well had been container-less and was apparently some old school attempt at a french draining system but instead of containing a combination of pebbles and larger smooth river rocks had contained 50 to 80 pound blocks of broken up concrete foundation material, surrounded by a few river rocks, and dirt.  His three-year-old hernia scar glowed red.  He climbed out of the hole and dropped one of the two 50 gallon dry well containers into it to test its alignment with the incoming drain pipe, which ran from near the washing machine in the basement to this hole in his back yard.  It did not align and he would need to make adjustments and probably a trip to Hardware Hell for an elbow or two.

Oh be serious William, how many people can tell you what day it is and who's the Vice-President.  It's no secret that my memory is fading but it was never that good to begin with.  Is it Tuesday?  Nope, said William Fillmore.  Well who gives a good goddamn?  I can remember a lot of things.  Just this morning I was thinking about when Tom was still alive.  It was 20, 25 years ago, he had just turned 65 I think and we wanted to get him set up with Social Security but he never got a card, don't know why, seems unlikely but there you have it, he didn't have one.  Didn't have a birth certificate either, or had one and used it to wrap fish, either way he had to prove his age to the people down there so he takes off his shirt, shows them the gray hair on his chest and they cut him a check.  Comes home, shows me the check and you know what I said to him.  Dr. Fillmore spoke up.  You told him to go back down there, pull down his pants, and see if he could get disability.  Oh, I've already told you that one?  Yes, last time you were here.  Ok, Ok, so I need to get some new jokes, but I'm fine, I'm as good as I'm going to get, so please just back off with all those silly questions you keep asking.  Ok, Shirley.  Anything else you'd like to tell me, any complaints or concerns?  Yes, I can't stand that new rap and roll music the kids play but whaddaya gonna do?  Now I'm going to get out of here so you can try to get something useful done today.  It was a pleasure to see you again Bill.  You as well, Shirley.