The languid, hot August days induced complacency, but there was no time for it. The height of hurricane season was upon us, and soon enough the weather reminded us of this with a jolt.
It all began with one long, endless cycle of torrential rain, night after night. The water rose up out of the Gulf into the clouds, and then dumped its cache onto the roof. It sounded like we were holding out inside a hollowed-out drum. Thankfully, the roof and windows held tight. The mornings, though, sparkled clean and humid, and in the midst of it all, the kids started school. In the afternoons they ran around the island with their new friends like a pack of cats. But at night, again, the rains came.
One of those nights, in a deep sleep, I awoke to the strange sound of gigantic bubbles bursting in slow, lazy belches. I imagined I was inside my stomach after a huge Italian dinner, but slowly, the spooky sound launched me out of a drifting sleep. I lay there listening to the continuous baloop, baloop, baloop. Then I knew.
Fresh hell, because there was never enough of it. I sat up slowly, swung my legs off the bed, and landed in water ankle-deep. Not thinking or caring about the possibility of zapping myself, I snapped on the light. In the dim glow, water bubbled up from under the baseboard along the wall. The floor shimmered with rainwater. A small rug drifted by and bobbed gently, like it was about to take off. With all the thunder and lightning, the kids surely would be frightened out of their minds. And now this.
Dad slept soundly. Holding up my pants legs, I splashed my way over to the kids. Shoes, socks, shorts, and tops were all on the move. An open paperback floated by. Nothing on the floor was anchored, except the beds. At that point, though, nothing would have surprised me. I began to get a dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn’t Italian.
Tick woke up and looked at me and at the floor with a sleepy eye, and then turned over and snuggled down into his covers. My girl sat up—a little angel floating in a white boat.
“Mom, is this part of The Adventure?” She rubbed her eyes and watched the waves ripple around her bed. The free-floating contents of the room bobbled and wandered, which gave a new perspective to my demands that they pick up their clothes. I tried to smile.
“It’s really kind of cool,” she said. “We could get a raft and float around in here.”
“OK,” I said, then sloshed over to her and tucked her in. She sank groggily into her Lion King quilt.
That’s when I had a moment of terror at what I had done. I had brought a hurricane of sorts to my family, hadn’t I? What have I done? I peered out the kitchen window and stared into the dark, impenetrable curtain of rain. We were a long way from Northwest Indiana, and family and friends. We were alone. No … I am alone. Maybe it was the dark, but the newness of The Adventure was beginning to dawn on me. I needed the sun. Not this incessant, unforgiving rain.
It was almost four in the morning. The rain continued to pelt the roof without cease. I don’t know how long I sat on that kitchen bar stool, absently watching the hallucinogenic patterns on the kitchen floor, searching for solutions, considering my options in my divorced, jobless, frustrated, and now flooded state.
Suddenly, of all things, I remembered Kurt Nimmergut and a sunny afternoon and our airplane ride. It was a week after my college graduation when I went flying with Kurt, my college roommate’s brother, a handsome, dark-haired hippy. I had no business taking off with him in that two-seater from an airstrip outside Alta Loma, California. But I did. We got up pretty high, and he handed the controls over to me.
“No way!” I said.
“Way,” he said.
So I flew.
“Don’t panic,” he told me. “Take each moment—one minute, one hour, one day at a time.”
I pulled back on the wheel, then bussed forward and scooped up the sky. That experience grounded me. I never forgot it, nor did I forget his advice. It was not my parents’ station wagon or Cadillac. I didn’t crash. I didn’t lose control. I flew.
No, I would not imagine trouble and worry over stuff I couldn’t do a thing about. There was quite enough to deal with. One day, one moment at a time. Now.
At least, I had a temporary solution. I jumped down off the stool and went for the Pinch. My Aunt Marian, who lived in nearby Bradenton, came over with bottle in hand to visit after we moved into the cottage.
“It’s there, honey, in the cupboard. For when you need a little boost, or to celebrate.”
Of course, I didn’t think she’d meant for breakfast, but I would celebrate this new turning point, and Kurt’s good advice. This small step in re-ordering my life. I poured a slug of the scotch into a jelly glass and drank it down. It burned with an earth-grounding jolt all the way to my wet pajama bottoms and damp toes. I climbed back up on the stool. Then, like the fingers on a drum giving up, the rain stopped. Still I sat, and although chilled, I remembered Kurt, and it gave me the warmth of new purpose, comforted me. I grabbed a legal pad and listed ideas and plans that came unloosed with the scotch. Pages and pages of them ended up in paper balls all over the bar, but a lot of good notes made it down, and stayed with me.
We needed to get settled—to find a house—maybe one of those little white stucco ranches, one with a barrel-tile roof. I’d have to figure out how to make a four-bedroom home out of one of them. I listed costs, tallied what I had in the bank—close to $90,000, with the sale of the Hammond house, the furniture, and china and such. I jotted down my favorite realtors with Sunday open houses and visualized my furniture fitting in these small, bright living rooms; pictured myself in the tiny backyards with crackling palms and scrubby grass, watching lazy neighbors who scratched away with their rakes to clean up the pine needles.
I wrote. I wrote some more. I drew floor plans and wrote descriptions of what I wanted (spare) and what I kept running into (clutter). I drew spheres that encompassed the cottage, the water, and the birds; the houses, the streets, the landscapes. It was good practice for setting off for The Adventure—and for future stories, for my story. I let the ideas take over whenever they came and took shape on paper. My life was becoming a Venn diagram of intersecting circles of events and memory and plans. It was a mess, and lot to think about, and do. But I would do it.
Such is the goodness of hope. I will water it and keep it alive.
I had another belt of scotch.
It had seemed like such a fun idea to start over in Florida. And now, I had to make it work. Manufacture a balance in this new little family. That was the priority. The suitcases were hardly unpacked, and we were far from settled. Still, today, I would start.
I stopped to listen to the rain drip off the gutter. It was a mellow hour, but I knew I’d better not get used to scotch for breakfast.
The gulls were cawing at the first hint of sunrise. With a light buzz, I imagined that I saw the tide of water in the living room receding gradually. At least the rug wasn’t floating anymore, and the miniature waves had ceased glinting in the overhead light.
I began sweeping out the last of the water, my feet cold and damp, tired all over, but loving the relief from disaster and the plans I’d written down. By eight o’clock, the kids were off to their dry school in flip-flops (with notes to their teachers). The sun was climbing into a blue sky and smiling cheerily, like the nightmare had never happened and the joke was on me.
Later that morning, I gathered the kids’ soaked clothing and shoes into garbage bags and a laundry basket. Much could be saved with a good run through the washer, but the papers and books on the floor were ruined. Then, at the foot of Tick’s bed, I saw a composition notebook: “Tick’s Journal.”
I shouldn’t, I told myself, and then I sat down on the end of his bed and opened up the damp pages.
I’m twelve years old and my name is Tick, because my grandfather named me that. He tells me that I have the intellect and personality of a twenty year old. He’s not far off. I told him I was a grown up inside my body, and he believed me. I guess I’m different, considering the way I feel, think, act, and look at things.
Sometimes I think I’m abnormal. I catch myself philosophizing some out-of-whack mathematical problem, or how a machine works, or how it got its name. If you could explore my mind, you would find it a very complex unit. My father and grandfather say I’m special and gifted. They call me a Renaissance man because I like to work with so many things and express everything that my “advanced” mind concocts. That sounds pompous, but I hope not. That’s the way it is and if you don’t like it you can kiss my ass. Sorry.
I like to write stuff down about my personal experiences and interests, and I like to talk to other kids about theirs. Some kids have the gift of the pen, like Anne Frank. Now there’s some story. I’d like to know this girl. I remember that she wrote about her pen and how great it was. She would probably feel the same way I do about this: I like to watch a sunset on the beach. (I’ve been blessed to see such beauty.) Look at it some time, and you will find its meaning. And if you are lucky enough, you will see a secret to life. You’ll see the true beauty, not material beauty (like a model in some magazine), but beauty that is overlooked many times and cannot be marred or measured. It will always be there, and that’s one thing you can depend on, one of the few things in life. You can hardly depend on anything else. That’s for sure.