The Night Before the Night the Levee Broke

     Walking home through the stinging, icy rain, you follow the narrow strip of pavement until it ends, and then you take the shoulder of the road, splashing through puddles, feeling the gravel bite through the thin tread of your sneakers. Soon even that ceases to be navigable, your way blocked by heaps of soggy leaves beaten to mush by the cold rain. The road is narrow and cars whip recklessly around the curve. You wait for a gap then dash to the other side, but you’ve only traveled a few yards when a barricade of tangled tree limbs felled by the storm causes you to stop and scale the slick embankment, the soil nearly liquid save for an occasional root or sharp stone. You heave yourself up, five feet or so above the roadway, and thread your way between the trees. The rain is louder here, ticking against the leaves that carpet the sparse grass like wet paper stars. You cut across the parking lot of a church, an old folks’ home, and up the alley so riddled with stone- and brick-filled potholes it resembles a riverbed more than a road, then finally you’re home and in your dry room, where you strip off your clammy clothes and slip the plastic bag beneath the mattress just as your stepfather’s new car glides up the driveway and disappears into the garage. You grimace the sound of his feet stamping on the doormat, then you think of the plastic bag, and when he stomps into the living room and sees your face he asks you what the hell are you smiling about and I hope you spent the afternoon in pursuit of gainful employment and you just head to the bathroom to grab a towel to dry your hair and don’t say anything. He follows you and stands in the doorway and says look at me when I’m talking to you, and you look at him and you’re close, you’re so close, so very close, but you’re not quite there yet. 

     And the rain is drumming on the roof and gushing through the drainpipes and overflowing the gutters. 

      And you dry your hair without saying a word.