Charleston

The power went out over an hour ago. The shutters are closed up over the windows, rattling their clasps and hinges, banging the frames. The wind pulls at the walls and howls through the trees. Lightning flashes in long multiple-stroke strobes followed close by the thought-stopping percussion of thunder that rattles the china in the cabinets and vibrates the floor from beneath your feet. The rain pounds the tin roof of the veranda and sends up a spray off the porch deck. The gutters overflow and the drive is awash with its own rapids.
It’s been getting noticeably worse by the quarter hour. You’re dreading sitting this one out in the dark. You still don’t know what led you to this miscalculation. You waved off the last ride inland so confidently. It seems just the thing you used to think you could count on me for – maybe it is over finally.
Still, you’ve been leaning up against the door frame, keeping watch through the screen door at an empty road. The trees thrash about as if wildly waving their arms to get someone’s attention for you. The air draws a voice from the siding now and again that seems to call out, “Hey!” then pauses, expecting an answer. You wipe the wetness from your cheeks, most of it rainspray off the screen door.
There was some thing in that last book that showed up that made you try Charleston. Made you dream of old world charm and craftsmanship, the scent of the mandevilla, the taste of bourbon in the afternoon, the methodical pace of the bay, unhurried casual drawls, gentlemen and ladies and parasols. Maybe you read too much into it. It came without a note, not even a smiley, maybe it wasn’t even from me,… and now you’re stuck in the path of the storm.
Maybe you’ve made too much of being able to trust your intuition with me. Maybe it was a moment of weakness that you should have turned away from quicker. Maybe you were hoping to let yourself be wrong just to show yourself it was over. Maybe I misled you on purpose – would I be spiteful like that? The thoughts chase themselves around an impenetrable funnel cloud in your head. It always seemed like it was too easy before; the let down was bound to follow, wasn’t it? You wipe your cheek again, and the coolness of the damp focuses you back on the present, and you look beyond the drips collecting in the spaces of the screen. Still no movement out on the road, there’d at least be lights visible. The tree branches are starting to protest from the continuous strain. Was that a gunshot? No, a tree trunk popping as it starts to split. There’s another one, then another in a lower register, and the old tree by the drive has given in; accelerating down, dragging its roots up out of the ground as it makes impact. Insurmountable forces have blocked the way – no use waiting or watching now, may as well finish closing up.
You step back away from the threshold and into the dark and throw yourself into closing the door, keeping your hand on the bolt handle so you can find it to turn it. Blindly, you turn it and feel it latch. The you let your hand fall away from the handle and pivot to lean your back against the door. As you’re realizing that it is not going to work out like in the stories, you let your weight fall fully back on the door, trying to take support from it. Close your eyes from the darkness to try and find the next image for this story, but only seeing brief flashes of the others. Too few and too short to string them together. You drop back into the present, feeling your weight against the door, the pressure of the unseen in the dark, your pulse (you’ve always tried to control it before) in every artery, the shallowness of your breath like when you cannot gauge the depth you’re in.
A barrage of thunder shakes the house. It is nearly constant now, only brief pauses between. An aftershock shakes the door against your back, and the floor under you, and a chandelier somewhere in the darkness. The door shakes again. Then again, more forcefully as if the door were trying to match the pounding of your heart with a pounding of its own. Now again, almost purposefully, like the thunder means to bring the door down on you,… like someone’s pounding on it,… like someone pounding on it? Something reckless in you convinces you to risk it. Turn the bolt handle, feel it click in the open position. Brush your hand down the edge of the frame to find the knob. Take a breath, stop yourself from wishing, turn the knob.
The door flies open and shoves you back as it and I are thrown inward by the wind. I give you a hand up and try to hand you a flashlight. Instead of reaching out to take it, you’re hitting me with the heels of your hands on my arms and chest, each impact splashing on my clothes waterlogged mostly by the rain. I put up no defense, leaving my hands at my sides and waiting it out, and dripping in the doorway.
When you’re done, you look down at the circle of light on the floor from the flashlight. An occasional sparkle gets thrown from the drops falling from my eyebrows and chin. They draw your gaze up to my face. It’s too loud to try and speak: we stand in the wind coming though the door and regard each other. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better, but it’s clear that I did all that I could. You still won’t take the flashlight from me, so I lay it on the ground and head back out on the porch. Returning, I distribute and light some candle lamps, set a battery lantern down in the beam of the flashlight, and put a picnic basket down in the next room.
I take your elbow and bend forward to speak into your ear:
You’ll be okay now? Stay in until it’s all over: it’s real mean out there.
I pause, considering what I’d planned to say next, but instead swallow it with pursed lips and straighten back up, letting go of your elbow. I turn back to the door with my head down and my eyes closed. I wipe at least the rain off my nose and pull my cap down tighter. It’s going to take a good grip on the door handle to get it pulled closed, but that doesn’t explain all the extra tension in my forearm as I pause in the threshold to gather myself. You move just in time to stop me, stepping into the door (“wait, it’s a big house, I’m sure there’s room for you somewhere”). Still, I keep my grip on the outer doorknob (but, there’s only one picnic basket), until you put your hand over mine and lift it off (“then you’ll have to be happy with what I can share of it. You can have any stinky cheese or anchovies there might be in it for starters…”).
In the morning, I wake from where I was sleeping on the floor propped up against the end of the couch. I'm cold all over except my hand, extended over the edge of the couch and held in yours. For a long time, I close my eyes and focus on that point of contact. Rain patters against the shutters still. I climb up to my feet slowly, crawling over to the bookcase to pull myself up on. Still damp, I shiver briefly as I slog across to open the window and the shutters. I put my hand on my chin and try to push the crick out of my neck as I look out. The rain’s still pretty heavy, and falling out of a dark sky. Now and again the wind kicks up a bit and blows some drops through the window.
Haven’t been able to get any writing done for weeks. Don’t remember how it came to this. I might try some now, but no notebook, no pen, and no reason to think there’d be any more stories. You’re stirring on the couch now, turning over and wrapping up in the blanket, then opening your eyes to catch me watching you.
Hey, the worst of it seems to be over. Want to take a walk around, see if there’s anyplace with power we can get a coffee from?
“Yeah, I’d do that with you. You okay?”
I think so, a little sore, pretty tired. A hot beverage might just do the trick.
“I’ve got some things for you.”
Yeah, what?
You reach over to the coffee table to grab them, and toss me a pen and notebook.
(How’d you know?
“I’d been reading along.”
I thought you’d gone.
“I thought you’d quit.”
Yeah, because you’d gone.
“Yeah, because you’d quit.”
Pause.
Nervous laughter, hesitant at first, then breaking into a full laugh out loud.)
That’s perfect. Just what I needed.
“So, you got a story for me or what?”
Let’s go see if we can find that coffee first.