The Sand Hill Review               http://www.stanford.edu/~sandhill              2006

Mark and the Storm

    By Richard Allan Burns

Mark woke up with a start.  The windows rattled like a wild animal was trying to break through, the rafters shook in the attic and whistled outside under the eaves.  A roaring downpour pounded the roof like he had never heard before.  The old, two-story house creaked and swayed precariously on the hillside, buffeted by the swirls of a savage spring wind. Aaron and Stephanie had squeezed into the bed between him and Rachel.  Aaron was sleeping now, but Stephanie’s eyes were wide open.

“Daddy, is it all right?  I’m scared,” Stephanie whispered through the din.  One of the trashcans blew over, tumbling noisily down the embankment out back. 

“Hon, no need to be frightened. Your mother and I are right here,” said Mark, nuzzling her cheek. “The old house has been through a lot worse than this.”

Another fearsome gust and the whole house seemed to lean over.  A weather-warning siren blared in the distance.

Mark rubbed his face to help clear his head.  He felt his way toward the knob on the radio.

Rachel, Mark’s sometimes-happy wife of 14-years, was a sound sleeper.  Pulling her comforter up she asked, “What is it, Mark?”

“I don’t know.  Radio won’t come on.”  Mark pushed the switch on the lamp by the bed, but no light came on.  “Honey, where are the candles?”

“Don’t know.  Try the top of the fridge.”

The wind, urgent and unforgiving, howled through disheveled trees fronting the weathered picket fence bordering the patch of weeds that Mark called the lawn.  A loose shutter banged wildly.  A flash of lightning lit up the room.  Rain gusts noisily splattered the windows intermittently.

“Steph, see if you can find some matches.  In the kitchen, most likely; the fridge or the drawer next to the silverware.” 

“Okay, Daddy.”

Another bright strobe flashed as his daughter ran out of the room.  “One, two, three...” Mark counted the seconds until he heard the crackling boom of thunder.  He scrambled to get his clothes on.  “The lightning is getting closer, less than a mile,” he yelled as hail now began to pelt the rooftop.  “Rachel, where in the hell is our portable radio?”

“Do I know everything?” said Rachel, caustically.  I  think Aaron was playing with it out by the lumber pile a few months back.”

“I can’t find my damn socks.  It might be a twister.”  The siren blared on, the loudness sometimes cut off by the wind.  Mark groped under the bed for their big flashlight.  “Well lookee here.  The stupid thing works.” 

The broadly built man stood and made his way to the curtains, his calloused hands snagging the fabric as he threw them open roughly.  He used the flashlight to cast a spot light down on the front yard. The icy stones of hail bounced off the ground like so many giant white jumping beans. 

“Holy Toledo.  It’s hailing the size of your breakfast biscuits, Rachel.  Hurry!  C’mon and look!”  By then Stephanie was back with candles and the matches.  Rachel, miffed at the interruption of her deep sleep, got up and helped light them. 

“Careful, now. I’ll do it. There; let there be light,” Rachel said. “Put this one on Daddy’s dresser.”

All three, originally from the mild, sunnier climes of farmland near Bakersfield, California, had gotten use to the heavy snow blanketing the trees in the winters here near Daysville, Kentucky.  Mark had moved the family here four years ago, closer to Rachel’s widowed mother. 

Tracey showed up, barefoot from the girls’ bedroom down the hall. “Oh, my gosh.  This is pretty bad?” she said. 

“God is mad at something,” said Stephanie.

“I wasn’t that bad yesterday,” Mark joked. 

They stood transfixed as the yard boiled with a barrage of golf ball-sized hail, clearly visible when lightning flashed in the sky.  Outside, the dog barked defiantly. A bolt of lightning lit up the room brightly for a full second followed immediately by a deafening crash of thunder.  “Yeesh, a close one!” said Mark.  He started to feel some of the fright still evident on Stephanie’s face.

“No kidding, Sherlock,” replied Rachel, laughing in her nervous way. 

In the uncertain light of three candles and the lightning her husband noted that Rachel’s face had gone pale, her eyes wide and desperate.  She darted into the bathroom and promptly threw-up into the toilet.  Another something to worry about, thought Mark.  Her period was a month late.  Next pay check, they’d go to the doctor and find out for sure if she was pregnant again.

Aaron by now was up, pulling back a curtain; standing on his tiptoes, the boy dressed only in his underwear peered out to watch nature’s show. 

“Aaron, where did you ever put that old radio, son?”  Aaron scampered down the hall and moments later was back triumphantly handing an old coffee-stained portable to his dad.

“Daddy, are we going to be blown away?”  It sounded to Tracy like the old house would fall apart under the torrential assault.  “Let’s go to the storm closet; this might be a tornado.  That’s what they told us to do in school.  Don’t you hear the siren?” Tracy wailed above the noise of the downpour.

Little Aaron slugged Tracey on her upper arm for no apparent reason; then the little imp fled, jumping into the bed and disappearing under the covers.

“I’ll get you, you brat!” his sister stammered.

Kimberly, wrapped in her pink bathrobe and tall for her seven years, stumbled over something running into the bedroom. She flew to the window that faced south and looked out, eyes wide. 

“Wow!” she said in awe when an especially long lasting bolt of lightning illuminated the side yard blanketed in white.

“Hush for a little bit,” the children’s father admonished with a downward gesture of his hand.  “The man on the radio is talking.  I’m trying to listen.”

Rachel was ready to call the kids into the hallway for safety’s sake, but it sounded like the hail peppering their roof was letting up.

“According to the radio, three of ‘em touched down,” said Mark.  “Sounds like some real damage at a farm near Russellville!  I better find my gloves and put some gas in the Black & Decker.”  The power saw was one of those essential tools, bought some years ago, that he used again and again out here.  He bought it when they had lived back in California.  Five years ago, the couple had decided California was getting just too crowded, not enough white kids that even spoke English.  The state was too full of queers and crazy liberals.  There was, as well, the minor issue that rent was sky-high for a man unemployed half the time.  Then Rachel’s mom was diagnosed with kidney failure, which decided the matter of where they would move.  Sadly, her mother had died eight months ago from complications, but they agreed they liked it here, so they stayed.

Mark jostled Tracy’s straight brown hair and said to take care of her mom while he went out to help clear some roads.

“Now, Mark,” Rachel said.  “Don’t you leave us at a time like this.  We need to set up the storm closet.”

“Nonsense!  Radio says there ain’t nothin’ around here,” said Mark.  “It’s beginnin’ to die down outside.  The main storm has moved south and east accordin’ to the radio.”

“Must you, Mark?  Don’t you have a load to haul today?  You said something ‘bout Chicago to Buffalo.” 

“I don’t think much work is goin’ to get done today, Rach,” he replied, cocking his head off to the side, the straight line of his blond eyebrows giving his squinty eyes and broad nose a look of sincerity there in the candlelight. “Besides, that ain’t until four in the afternoon.  If I need a nap, I’ll have time.”  A peal of thunder rumbled way off to the south as Mark hastened toward the stairs to find his wallet and keys.  “Get you and the kids back to sleep.  It’s still last-night,” he said. “Least ways, not much past one.”

Tomorrow would be Saturday so the kids could sleep in.

This was the kind of adventure Mark lived for.  It would provide interesting tales and gossip to last at least a couple of years.  He hoped no one he knew got hurt, but surely the little towns, Daysville or, a few miles east, Russellville must have lost a house or two.  He wasn’t about to miss it.

“But, Mark!” Rachel wanted to put her foot down, this time, but he didn’t hear her.

“Oh, that man is stubborn as a bull,” she said.  She went to the top of the stairs and hollered, “Don’t you dare leave us without tightening down that loose shutter downstairs, dearest husband.” She went halfway down the stairway.  “I won’t live in a darn old house that’s about to fall apart!”  Rachel heard the door slam.

Mark noted the hail had turned into a rain.  He hurriedly checked the loose shutter, found two large nails in the shed, and secured the loose shutter directly into the stucco wall on opposite corners.  Chunks of cracked-off plaster fell to the ground.  “That’ll have to do for now,” he grunted. 

The trees swayed black against the charcoal sky.  He went over to shove lovingly at Buster, their watchdog, and cleaned up his water bowl.  The busy, solidly-built, black mutt sniffed at his shoes, trotted around in anticipation, and wagged its tail, but Mark had no time to play. 

From the shed, he grabbed the power saw and a can of gasoline.  He checked that the big-beam flashlight was in the pickup as he opened the pickup’s door.  He groaned in pain climbing in.  There was a painful catch in his hip joint that just wouldn’t go away.  Maybe he screwed it up that day he stepped in a hidden hole while helping carry that heavy damn furniture for a friend at church.  

Mark was soon on the road in his pick-up with the radio on. Adventure called. 

 Upstairs, Rachel needed another quick trip to the toilet, retching until nothing was left in her stomach.  Was this really how God intended child-bearing to be?  She rinsed out her mouth and came back to the window, looking out at the blackness.  She heard Buster woof and whine, probably tugging on the chain that kept him close to home.  The poor dog wanted to run after the pickup, she figured.  Hail still covered the ground, she thought, but it was too dark to see now that the lightning had passed, and she didn’t know where Mark laid the flashlight.  She could hear the trees nearby still rustling in the heavy gusts.  The weather might not be over.  Rachel shivered in the drafty room.  “That man’s gonna kill me,” she said. 

Sometimes she wished she had married a doctor instead of a handyman and truck driver.  “He don’t mind leaving me with four kids and a shaky house, long as he can have a little excitement,” she mumbled.  Her kids gathered near and looked out the window, but they saw only blackness, too.  She guided them back to her bed.  They had some unfinished sleep to catch up on.   Before drifting off to unremembered dreams, she briefly thought: what doctor would marry up with plain old me, anyway?

* * *

The pickup swerved down the narrow, curving road away from their old house, about three-miles east of Daysville.  Once on highway 68, Mark headed east toward Russellville.  The radio told of two tornadoes touching down outside Lewisburg just off state highway 431, ten-miles north of him.  A barn had been demolished and trees were downed, the broadcaster said; no casualties had been reported, but it was past midnight, and who’d know before daybreak?  Mark glanced back with a quick turn of his head to see if there was a tornado sneaking up from behind.  He saw nothing but blackness and said a quick prayer. 

The small Toyota sped through another patch of rain and gusting winds.  For three minutes straight, he feared his truck would be wiped off the road like cornflakes off a table.  Maybe I got out of the house too soon, he thought, but plowed onward.  He flicked the headlights on high beam, which revealed fields at the side of the road turned into marshland and long stretches of its shoulder awash in water.  It had been a wet spring. Mark dodged loose limbs and debris that dotted the road.

Five miles short of the outskirts of Russellville a lone car had stopped in the middle of the highway ahead, emergency lights flashing.  Mark reckoned there was an accident, perhaps a deer struck or a downed tree.  He slowed his vehicle and pulled over to the shoulder of the road behind the stopped car.  Their headlights revealed a tangle of branches that was once a large, spreading tree.  It had blown over across the road.  Flickering in the headlights was a figure, struggling and pulling on a branch.  In an instant Mark, with his chain saw, was beside the other man tugging at the large branch, making headway sliding the splintered, giant limb off to the side.  The chilly wind numbed his cheeks and made the tree branch come alive, writhing and pulling against the efforts of the two men. 

“Hi,” yelled Mark, as he moved down to the fat part of the enormous limb and started heaving with all his might against it.  “Somethin’ in your way?" he hollered, laughing.

“I almost make to home. Big tree fell down right other side; nearly could hit cars coming for Russellville.  I got afraid fast because … just only turned my car around … put my red blink-lights warn car next. I think so must clear fast … or bam!” 

Mark chuckled at this last expression. The man talked in a high, staccato accent sounding to Mark exactly like the convenience-store man on The Simpsons. In the ghostly illumination and shadows cast by headlights of their vehicles, he saw the dark skin of a quick-moving, wiry man with a full black beard and shaggy eyebrows. Secret glances at the foreign-looking guy brought to mind a faraway people he saw once or twice when he caught glimpses of the war coverage on TV.  He didn’t have the time or patience to watch news these days. 

Why is this man here?  Why here in Southwest Kentucky?  Mark was used to dealing almost exclusively with white Americans in this part of the Bible belt. This bearded guy could be a terrorist; that’s what his friend, Judd, would say.

“I work here almost five minutes trying move this thing out of way,” said the other man.  “It move, but not easy.” 

The two tugged and pushed some smaller branches off to the side.  With the added substantial weight of Mark’s big frame, large sections of the broken tree the man with the accent wouldn’t even attempt to move were shoved off to the shoulder. 

Mark ran to the next much bigger trunk section and pushed.  “Gotta hurry, fella,” he yelled.  “No telling when a big old 18-wheeler comes flying in here and not see the tree.”  Mark was many things, but not underfed, but the trunk would not yield.  The foreigner pulled hard on an attached limb, the intensity of his effort showing on his face, and the whole thing began to slide, slowly at first, then faster.  “Off to this side, fella.  That’s right…no sense goin’ ‘cross two lanes.”  They dragged it onto the central median.

The men swiftly pushed several more substantial, twisted pieces off the road.

The wind still rustled the leaves and flying twigs stung Mark’s cheeks.  “Shit, buddy, you best move your little car off the road like mine is or it’ll become a crushed fuckin’ sardine can next truck that’s careless and comes along.”

“I think so you right, mister,” he said, dropping the branch he was working on and sprinting to his car.

Mark moved two medium sized limbs off to the side while the foreigner parked his car safely out of the road way.

The foreigner, back to help and out of breath, smiled toward the big white man, saying: “I want thank you much.  It look like I’m stuck … I mean, I might stuck here all night.” He spoke with relief that was palpable.  “Wife expects me home long time before now.”

“Where do you live?” Mark asked.

“Oh, down road bit there is turn,” said the foreigner with a shrug, pointing back toward Daysville. “I see danger of tree mostly this side and needed lights; I drive over this side.”

I can hardly understand this guy, thought Mark as he swiftly threw smaller branches to the side.  Probably been in America a couple of months.  Course, I’d never be smart enough to speak his language, whatever it is.  The skinny fucker probably believes in Allah, not God, like all those troublemaking countries that got the oil.

Just then, Mark heard the other man holler, “Look out! Here come big truck, faster!”

Mark turned back while helping shove one of the heavier ones that finally surrendered to their efforts. “Oh, Fuck!” he shouted. Perhaps two mile down, a truck raced toward the big turn. He took quick inventory of what was left. One gigantic, unmovable branch still stuck out dangerously across the whole road. He looked back at the oncoming truck. “It’s a big fucker, and he’s closin’ fast!”  Mark scrambled to the center of the two lanes and sliced through the fat branch, the saw roaring, loud and desperate.

“I see if other end can move to middle grass,” hollered the foreigner and he ran like a cheetah to the leafy end, tugging mightily. It budged, Mark was amazed to see, even though it dug through a soft section of mud. 

But Mark had the heavier half to push off to the shoulder. He was breathless, sweat tickling his brow, as he rolled the huge limb off a third of the way, then half of the way. He could hear the truck coming now and it didn’t seem to see the trouble. “Shit, now this limb’ll hit my damn truck if I keep going,” he said to himself. “Oh, well. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Suddenly the heavy limb moved faster and guided by a force, angled back. Mark glanced over and saw the foreigner had joined him, shoving in a direction that would land the branch behind Mark’s truck. The speeding big rig closed in on them, its engine loud, its lights on them now, jerking stiffly up and down. The blast of its air horn scared Mark to death. He glanced to his left, shoving and rolling the massive log, and glimpsed the foreigner still stuck out in the road leaning his back against the sawn end of the big section for all he was worth. Their fierce pushing together forced the last big limb at an angle, off the road, just missing Mark’s pickup.

The lights were blinding and the horn blared again, rudely, as the thunderous motor drowned out other sounds. They stood looking high up at the rig as it roared by, Mark completely spent.

The blast of wind from the double-trailers on the truck threw water and loose twigs.  One of the small kicked-up branches whizzed over Mark’s head; a piece thunked the foreigner solidly on the right side of his chest and shoulder, knocking him down flat, and flew past the guy like a missile. He was stunned, lying in two inches of standing water.

“My God!” Mark exclaimed, running over to him.

Getting up from the puddle and brushing mud from his sleeves, the man said, “That close one, mister.”

Mark nodded, astonished that the guy was on his feet.

“That stick hit very strong,” the bearded man said. He rubbed his shoulder and hunched it around a couple times. “I think so it okay.”

Mark stood for a moment, speechless, then turned, lifted his saw, and, wiping his face with his bandana, limped over across the lanes to the other half of the huge limb the other man had tugged on. He leaned against it and it didn’t budge.

An SUV sped by on the other side.

In the distance, a bolt of lightning flashed, and Mark saw the man was dripping wet like he was. He needs a damn shave bad, thought Mark, wondering what might be crawling around in the beard, and he shuddered.

The other man crossed over to the median and pointed back toward Daysville. Another truck barreled their way.

“Thank you … more; we finished.  Need hurry.  I go after this truck. See my daughter, my wife.”

The big rig rattled and roared by, this one, with no air horn blaring. The headlights illuminated the road; Mark could see how well they had cleared it. He looked at the other man who had a big grin spreading across his face.

“Man, are you sure you’re all right?” asked Mark.

“Looks like I okay. It hurt on my chest, but no blood. I check already.”

Mark shook his head in a sort of awe. He wanted to chat, but both were busy right now.

“Family scared with night like this.” The man ran off toward his small car.

Mark hollered after the man, “Hey, Arab.  I’m Mark Carpenter.  What’s your name?  Maybe see you round some day, huh?”

The man turned round.  “I not Arab.  I from Pakistan, but I … well, I like fine here this country.” 

“Don’t blame you.  I’m not big on hot deserts myself.”

“Maybe, I make it citizen … I be American soon.  I hope.  Long time my wife and I dream that. Many peoples is before us in line. New laws make slow thing.” 

“I suppose you might miss some things about your homeland,” Mark said.  “By the way, I didn’t mean to call you Arab back there.  Guess it might have sounded rude.  Didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” he said.  “My wife gets on me all the time about stuff like that.”

“No worry.  They happens.  Could be Americans say too much, sometimes.  We Muslims … I think so not like that.” He pulled off some twigs caught in his windshield wipers.  “We are, how you say, could be too formal.” He opened his car door and wrung out both pant legs, then stood up to wipe mud from his backside. “But I like peoples in this country; they seem open, very informal.”  He paused a moment to listen to what he had just said.  “Sometimes, I like.”  He laughed.  “It depend.”

“You did good job here, amazing, really.”

“You, too.” He laughed. “I think so truck almost hit you and me.”

Mark nodded. “Best git on the way,” he said and strode toward his pickup, but abruptly turned back. “Hey, you don’t got a name?”

“Sorry.  I’m Abdul.  My last name Belcasem. You have more trouble saying my name, Mr. Carpenter.  Glad meet with you.”

“Yeah, same here.  Maybe see you ‘round sometime, Abdul,” said Mark, unable to hide begrudging admiration in his voice. Judd would puke at some of the stuff he had just said to the foreigner, he thought. Another big truck zoomed past in the opposite direction, the wet road sizzling under the tires, raising a mist.

“Bye,” said Abdul.  He climbed into his old Corolla, started the engine, and was off, making a U-turn.

Another damn immigrant, thought Mark, but I better scoot; there might still be some work to do.

Mark turned his pickup around toward Elkton and highway 181 north.  Three miles down the highway was a cross street, Little Creek Road. Must be the skinny guy’s turn-off.   

Mark caught up on the news announcements on radio.  Three tornados had touched down in Russellville’s southern outskirts, one of them tearing up a block of new houses.  After the news became repetitious, Mark scanned the highway for trouble in silence, and he thought:  Heck, I don’t mind the bearded man livin’ here long as it’s all legal immigration like.  But, how the hell do I know he ain’t one of them terrorists, Al Qaeda ones, that ran the planes into those two towers? There was no way to know.  We bombed Afghanistan and ran off the Taliban; killed most of them.  Glad we got a real man for a President.  Not like them dip-shits in there before. 

He laughed as his pickup rolled on through the moonless bluster.  He thought: I got more morals in my little finger than Clinton had in the whole White House.  The business end of a bullet comin’ at them is the only thing terrorists understand. I better buy us a new flag to hang out of a second story window at home. 

Another big tree had fallen, but it was well away from the road.

For a brief time, the moon appeared through an opening in the clouds revealing the power of the storm.  Mark surveyed the damage.  A toppled tree had crushed a corner of an old barn.  At the top of one hill, a whole section of trees was mowed down.  “Jeez,” he exclaimed, awestruck.

Clouds swallowed the moon, and the fields were rendered black again.

Four more miles of wet, rainy road north of Elkton and there was a truck, a big one, jack-knifed off to the side of the road, now mired in a brand new lake that had never been there before.  Up ahead, two large trees and part of a tangled fence blocked the whole road and oncoming lights were beginning to back up on the other side. Mark glanced at his watch: 2:30 A.M.  A few people toiled to move the trees off the road.  A police car with flashing lights, facing Elkton on the other side, would help them on the outbound lane.  Mark jumped out with his power saw and began removing branches. Expertly he cut limbs and portions of the trunk into pieces that were just the heft a man could handle.  The echoing sound and the weighty vibration of the powerful motorized tool in his hands made him feel solid, useful, and important.  He had his leather gloves on and the work went fast.

It looked like the worst of the weather had passed off to the southeast, leaving a chill from Canada where warm, muggy air had hung heavy for most of the previous week.  Another man with a handsaw joined Mark 20-yards down.  “Hell of a night!” Mark yelled to him. 

“You got that right, man. Some of the twisters hit the ground, four of ‘em south of Sharon Grove, the radio said.”

“That’s close to here!” shouted Mark. “I heard houses in Russellville got hit.”

Drivers of the blocked cars coming from Sharon Grove did what they could with ropes, shouts, chaotic teamwork, and brute strength, clearing the mangled trees on both sides.  Another State Police car with flashing lights stopped with a screech of tires at the blockage, and a truck from Kentucky Power & Electricity came with a yellow-helmeted crew of four and a large crane carefully backed up to the big rig, splayed on its side. 

One of the uniformed police told the industrious citizens working there that the county work crews would handle it from here.  It was a safety concern, he said, a hazard not covered by insurance.  Mark thought, he’d heard it before, but the fallen trees were just bad accidents waiting to happen.  He’d better go find the next one. 

***

It was still dark when Mark slipped his house key in the front door lock, made his way into the kitchen to wash his face, and creaked up the stairs.

In the bedroom, he felt his way to the old wooden chair. His soaked boots clunked to the floor and his wet gloves flopped on the bare wood near the closet. 

“Hush, you’ll wake up the kids,” murmured Rachel.  She rolled over.

“Shoot, ol’ Stephanie’s awake.  She asked me if I found any problems.  Told her to sleep.”

He got to bed about 4:30 A.M. feeling fagged out, his eyes tired.  The kids had gone back to their own beds.

He’d helped clear about four blockages in all, two up near Sharon Grove. 

He cuddled in close behind her, fitting his chest to her back, and moving his pillow up, cool and comfortable.  “There was trees down. I helped cut some up. Hardly enough to make any fuss over,” he said in the soft and gravelly, bedroom version of his voice.  Rachel was warm and he found her weight against him very relaxing. His right hand he gently laid on the warm nightgown covering her behind. His fingers squeezed her firmly, held their grip for a moment, and then let go, just laying on her there, heavy, inert.

She moved her hips slightly side-to-side, settling herself into the pleasant coldness of his pajamas.

“You’re warm, Rachel,” he said. “You feel nice.”

“Mmm!” Rachel said. Mark knew from the tone it was time to shut up and go to sleep.

“Don’t worry; I’m beat,” he slurred and was unconscious in seconds.