Rain

Early that morning Cooley Price pulled his shirt tighter as he walked in the drizzling rain down to the corner where New River and Jasper Creek converged. He had lived there so long he no longer noticed the splendor of the two Appalachian waters.

They now commanded attention. A tree floated down river clinging to a clump of broken planks and a piece of plywood. A large propane tank bobbed along moving much faster than a casual kayaker. The sound of rushing water felt unsettling, and Cooley’s thoughts shouted, stay in the bank, you son of a bitch.

A restless night and jittery headache tightened the back of his neck. The appreciation for the place once so alluring had completely soured. Walking back up the slope of the yard to the house, he wondered how there could be such crazy people in the world who’d build so close to so much potential danger.

The wind had blown hard, and when the wind blew like that, the electricity would go out. The night before, he had caught up tap water in five-gallon buckets which now sat on the kitchen floor. He hated not taking a bath every day, and the stored water usually set him at ease. That morning, with the river coming up, the buckets seemed foolishly in the way.

He tried to practice blues licks on his electric guitar. Usually he could lose himself in his music, and playing and singing would soothe him. Now his thoughts continually shifted out the window.

A doghouse joggled by.

Then a picnic table.

The creek side of the house didn’t appear menacing, but the river, normally content to stay in its bed, now licked over the bank. The current at the edge appeared deceivingly calm, like a pond, but farther out debris continued to flow. About noon he pushed a stick into the soggy ground to mark the edge of the river’s climb.

Cooley’s fingers stopped cooperating with guitar strings, and he put on a DVD. Halfway into the movie the phone rang, and he jerked to his feet. Kemper Lee, a friend who knew he didn’t have cable news, gave him a flood report. It would be midnight before the river crested. Yes, there was a chance it could come into the house. It had in the nineties; it had in the seventies. It had swept the entire bottom away back in the forties. Kemper Lee would come over to help. Good.

Cooley surveyed the contents of the house for what he would lose. Then started putting things on tables, countertops, chairs, and the couch. If the water came in he could save things from getting wet. Move everything off the floor. He had heard of people doing this. Everything higher. The more precious it was, the higher it would go. He moved books from lower to higher shelves. In the bedroom he stacked stuff on the bed.

In the living room, he picked the Christmas cactus up off the floor, placed it on the counter top, and gently edged it to the center where it would be safer. It was past full red bloom but still beautiful. Somehow, he had kept it alive all these years. At first it almost died, but he checked books out of the library and learned how to tend it and had very carefully transported it from place to place each time he moved.

Outside, he pushed another stick in the ground. His dog and the neighbor’s dog followed, sniffing the strange changing world. One, then the other, stopped to lap river water growing in the yard.

Where was Kemper Lee? He should be here by now. And why hadn’t Bob, his neighbor, come over to show his concern for the river? Neighbors used to stand by each other no matter what happened. But times had changed. Gone with the wind. Not coming back anytime soon. Especially, not in these kind of times. But can’t Bob see the river would take his stuff next?

Cooley could figure why Bob hadn’t come over. Bob was a drinking man...