Before the Rain
By Justin Alvarez
A knock at the door brings me back to the present – the light from the streetlamps stabbing through the slits between the window blinds, the thunderous pounds of a garbage truck, the arthritic pain that reminds me of my old age. It’s a weak knock, but one strong enough to cause my fingertips to jolt forward and tip over my glass of water onto the laminate countertop. “Coming!” I call out as I tear off a paper towel from the roll next to the sink and sweep across the edge of the counter to prevent any more water from falling.
Bertram stands on the opposite side of the door, just like every Monday: the pockmarked face, shoulders sloped as if he has been hung on a clothes hook to dry. He is past due for a haircut. He smells of his mother’s cheap cigarettes. “Hello, Mrs. Knapp,” he mutters. His face reddens as he speaks.
“Good morning, Bertram. I apologize for my appearance, but I was not expecting any guests this early.” The pain in my back had subsided an hour before, but there is still a nagging itch on my spine as if a spider bit me during the night. A car alarm goes off outside. Bertram jumps. “Come in,” I add. “I was about to have some tea.”
He steps forward hesitantly. The apartment resembles a museum; I’m well aware. Records with names like Benny Goodman, Sammy Kaye, and Lionel Hampton on their sleeves; framed photographs of my aunts and uncles and distant cousins and dear old college friends with names like Kip and Missy scattered on top of the bureau and hung up on my walls, all of them long gone. My music box collection, delicate and pristine, displayed in a cabinet at the corner of the living room, a gift from my grandmother. The door closes behind him. He’ll notice once again I don’t own a TV.
“No TV yet, Mrs. Knapp?”
“No television,” I respond as I almost slip in the puddle of water that has now formed at the base of the counter as I reach for two mugs out of the cabinet. “Would you like some honey?” I ask. I watch him in the mirror next to the kitchen sink. He scratches his scalp. His clothes are in need of a wash.
“I-I-I’m actually fine without any tea” he stutters, anxiously rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “If I … if you could…” He trails off. His gaze loiters at his feet.
“What was that, Bertram?” I pour two cups from the kettle anyway. I find people have a difficult time turning down tea.
“If I can have the bags, I can be on my way.”
I squirt a dollop of honey into each cup. I know what you want, I should say. Why else would you be here? “There are some mornings I just add milk. That’s how Frank used to drink his. My father, on the other hand, was content with just two sugar cubes. Today, though, feels like a honey kind of day, doesn’t it?”
“Mrs. Knapp, if you could…”
Just place your hands in your pockets and listen to what I have to say. “Dr. Iannotti also told me I should take more walks, but there were so many people outside running and walking it seemed there wasn’t any more room for Buster and I.” I look down at Buster sprawled next to my feet. He snores in his sleep. “It’s suffocating. I can’t walk to the grocery store without seeing a woman from the hair salon. I’ll wait in Dr. Iannotti’s office and there’ll be one of my daughter’s friends asking how I’m holding up.” I take a sip of the tea. It needs more honey.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Knapp,” Bertram speaks firmly now, “but if I could just get the pills I’ll get out of your way.” I know he didn’t want to say it like that, but certain things can never be said any other way.
“You know, Bertram, the only good time to walk is at night. You can hear your thoughts clearly then.” I place the two cups of tea back on the counter and open a side drawer. I pull out my prescription bottle and a Ziploc bag. I tap in ten OxyContin. As I seal the bag, I look out through the blinds. Fall is coming. The leaves are changing. The river runs briskly now. I see the garbage truck is now parked a couple houses down. An old man empties the trash containers into the rear of his truck. I’m glad to see Old Jim is still working. He is overweight by thirty pounds and a bit senile these days, but I remember Jim as the handsome man he once was: his hair thick and his body well toned from the manual labor at the mill. Before the fear of lung cancer and varicose veins. When men wore hats and women always wore dresses. I remember him at the Wonder Bar in town joining the rest of us as we danced and drank the workweek away. He would always get too drunk and hit on me (or one of the other girls, whoever was closest). I would politely smile at his advances, but deep down my heart swelled up with each new compliment. I was only twenty at the time. I didn’t know any better. At the end of the night he’d stumble home alone – always alone – singing old military cadences to the moon. I looked at him, he looked at me. Played it safe, I climbed a tree. And now I sit here in this tree. An MTI has captured me. I would wear my nicest dresses those nights. Before we’d leave, Frank would walk up behind me in front of the mirror and place the pearls he bought me for our first anniversary around my neck. I would tell him the irises were in bloom again in the garden. The memory excites me for a moment. Then I quickly feel old again.
I walk the bag over to Bertram. “And how much do you have for me from last week?” The words feel foreign on my lips. The sense of being in control has always been for me deeply extrinsic. Some things when said enough times become meaningless, even familiar, but not those words. Those words make me want to crawl into my clothes and hide as if I was a kid again caught by my mother trying on her makeup at the vanity mirror. In the past I have been my father’s daughter, my brother’s sister, my husband’s wife, but now here I am, Agnes the widow, with no one to hide behind.
“Yes, I got…” Bertram stutters as he reaches into his wallet and pulls out a bunch of worn bills. He hands the money to me. “It should be two hundred there.”
I straighten out the bills in my palm. “Is it really?” I ask. Even in front of a teenage boy, I do not want to appear vulnerable.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I look back up at Bertram after counting the bills, and I realize then why I like the boy so much. I recognize that face – that look – of desperation, thinking of distant places he’s only read about in books and magazine, places he’ll probably never have the chance to visit. Grand Canyon. Hollywood. Yellowstone. I know every time he hears a whistle blow as a train passes through town he feels that fleeting illusion that better things are indeed out there somewhere, places he can start again. I know this because I feel it too.
“Well, I should get going, Mrs. Knapp,” Bertram adds as he places the Ziploc bag in the inner pocket of his jacket. I notice the Stockman’s penknife inside his front pocket. Frank used to own the same model. He would sit outside on the stoop of our building on summer nights and carve a doll for Gloria from wood he had picked up at the town yard. His shoulders would flex back and forth like a locomotive with every sweep of the knife. Those are the moments I choose to remember, that I choose to keep close to me. They are the tangible flecks of dust collecting on top of my shoulders slowly weighing me down. The moments I took for granted at the time but would now sell my soul for the chance to live them out just one more time.
Bertram zips up his jacket and takes his knit cap out of his pocket. My hands clench the doorknob. “Good bye then, Bertram. I will see you next week.”
Bertram looks up with timorous eyes. “Good bye then, Mrs. Knapp.” I compliantly close the door behind him. My hand lingers, waiting, waiting for anything, something to latch onto, but nothing appears. Every time he leaves my home, I find this dark shadow thrown over me. I feel irritable and out of place, even empty, but the moment passes. I feel foolish. I turn around and quickly walk back to the kitchen. The sun is rising, and the light reflects a hue of green off the water on the floor due to the color of my blinds. I take out a notepad from the same drawer I keep my prescription bottles in. I write the details of the transaction. Ten pills given to Bertram and two hundred dollars profited from last week…
I try not to dwell on the details for too long. There is much to be done. I need groceries. Buster needs dog food. Gloria will arrive in a couple hours to drop off Tommy, who I’ll babysit while she works at the Golden Rooster. I will also drop off my rent money to Mr. Cotter downstairs because now I have the cash to do so. “There is much to be done,” I say aloud. Buster moans in response as he falls back to sleep. “There is much to be done,” I repeat, to make sure I’m awake as well.
I grab my coat and purse with the two hundred dollars now inside and walk out into the dark hallway towards the front door where the sky brightens the building’s entranceway. Gloria will be waking Tommy up about now, still groggy from her lack of sleep and no coffee. He will beg her if he can sleep a few minutes longer. She will tell him he should be excited because he is going to see Great-Grandma today, and he will moan and question if he has to. He probably doesn’t even know my name. Agnes Esther Knapp, the daughter of a reverend and a housewife and the sister to a baby girl who only lived until she was three days old and a brother who lives three-thousand miles away. I was the wife of a lobsterman who later became a garbage man, the mother to a drug addict who abandoned her daughter, and the grandmother of a waitress who got pregnant when she was sixteen. Will he ever know this? Probably not everything, and I’ll admit that might be for the best, but maybe one day he will be curious and I’ll be able to tell him the story of our family. He will question the name Esther with that perplexed tone because it’s just one of those names, and I will laugh and tell him it was my mother’s name. Tommy will laugh too but for different reasons because he will think it’s a stupid name, and I won’t disagree. Then he will run outside to play with his friends and will never think about the conversation again. There is so much more to tell you, so much more you’ll never know because you’ll never ask, I’ll plead, but that’s just how things are. That’s how things will always be. Time passes and people just don’t care. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized the importance of time. It isn’t something that just passes by, but something we all live within. It confines us like the walls of our homes. It is something to fill our possessions within, our daily activities. It defines us, and if we turn our backs to it, it will suddenly disappear.
I take a deep breath as I open the front door and step out into the cool morning air. Even though the wind brings a chill, the sun shines over me. I look up at the sky and notice dark clouds forming in the distance. It will rain later, and I forgot my umbrella.