We get dirty rain pretty often in the desert. The type that’s warm and slightly dusty, that smells like damp ragweed and soil. The kind that leaves you feeling faintly sweaty and mildly irritable because of it.
This rain is different.
This is one of those rains that you see in movies, where children splash in the puddles and catch droplets on their tongues. Like a cold shower on a hot day, it’s crisp and clean, leaving you feeling refreshed and dotted with goosebumps. I turn my face to the clouds, closing my eyes and letting the tingling sprinkles prick my brow. The water runs down the curve of my mouth and my lips part, letting a drop run in. The action leaves my parched throat begging for more.
In the distance the faint sound of surprised hallelujahs echoes off the surrounding canyon. Clearly, I’m not the only one relieved by the weather. A creak of old hinges comes from three houses down, followed by a metallic slam and some mumbled profanities. With her floral top and crimson pants, Miss Jennings hobbles off her porch and into her yard of dried grass and rock. She looks up at the sky, holding her palm out to inspect the precipitation, before turning back to her house. When she reappears, she has what looks to be a plastic mop bucket in each hand. Miss Jennings places one on a flat rock in the middle of her yard then carefully picks her way down to the curb.
Shaking, she bends down to a dog leash tied to the pole of her mailbox, attaching the small silver clip to the handle of her second bucket before laying it against the concrete. As the rain picks up to a drizzle, a stream of water runs down the street and into her awaiting trap. When she stands, straightening the stiff hunch of her back, her gaze lifts to meet mine. I offer a half-hearted wave from the top of my driveway and she extends a salute of her own: a middle finger raised in the air.
Yeah, Miss Jennings is kind of a bitch. Being well into her seventies and with the personality of sour milk, I learned a long time ago not to bother with civilities where she’s concerned. There’s not a single time I remember her smiling back at me or offering a word that wasn’t laced with snark. Seemingly hating everyone and everything, just walking past her house leads to a rant about disrespect and private property: “Your kids are too loud!” “Your dogs are too wild!” “Your tree branches are in my yard!”
The second slam of her metal door marks Ms. Jennings’ retreat, a little extra ‘screw you’ she likes to throw in when she’s feeling extra crotchety. Despite her less than hospitable attitude, I guess a neighbor is still a neighbor. I can’t really complain when she’s the last one on the block.
Living at the corner of a cul-de-sac, I used to be surrounded by life. Dogs on walks, kids skipping home from school, stalled cars and package delivery vans. Good neighbors, bad neighbors, I saw them all. Miss Jennings was here, of course, but so were the Jenkins next to her—a beautiful young couple with cherub-like twin girls and a yappy Yorkshire named Sprinkle. The Wilsons, an older gay couple with a love for sweater vests and gardening magazines, lived to my left. You wouldn’t know it now, what with the wilted brown stalks littering their yard, but they grew the most beautiful sunflowers I’d ever seen. Well, except for one year when they went out of town and left me in charge of watering… I was a designated admirer after that.
A chilled breeze blows in from my right, drawing my attention to the house lurking there. The goosebumps breaking across my skin have less to do with the cold and more to do with who used to live next-door.
The Hillington’s were those neighbors, the kind that everyone knew of but didn’t go out of their way to know personally. Due to proximity and pure misfortune, I got to know them a bit better than everyone else. They were decent enough neighbors I guess—once you got past their rough appearance and wayward behavior—but at the same time something about them screamed ‘do not interact’. Maybe it was the beige minivan they drove with blocked out windows and extremist bumper stickers plastered on the rear. Maybe it was the police scanner that blasted from the garage anytime the husband was in there working on his secret projects. Or maybe, just maybe, it was their son Leonard.
A shirtless Leonard used to come out to their driveway every afternoon wearing the same pair of frayed jean shorts. He'd walk out barefoot and take his time slowly circling and inspecting the ground. Once he found a spot he deemed suitable, he would crouch down, pull a pair of chopsticks out of his pocket, and start stabbing into whatever ant hill he had found that day.
Maybe that would be somewhat expected, albeit strange, behavior for a child with anger issues, but Leonard was nineteen. He was nineteen and licking the swarming ants off of his fingertips like they were sesame seeds. It still gives me the heebie-jeebies remembering the outpouring wave of ants that he reveled in.
If Leonard’s crazed behavior wasn’t enough, his sister, Suzette, was known for her unique artistic talents. A fan of anything dark and macabre, Suzy often merged her love of art with her skill in taxidermy, creating disturbing pieces she’d then try to sell at local craft fairs. I’ve heard the phrase ‘having an artistic eye’ but I’m pretty sure Suzy had the eye of an actual artist stored in a jar somewhere.
As for the couple that raised those interesting members of society, it was clear the apples didn’t fall far from the twisted trunk of the tree. Sharon, their poofy haired mother, was always lounging around their front porch in a low collared pajama shirt and panties–her signature glass of brandy in one hand and a raunchy romance novel in the other. Some days something stanky would hang from her orange-painted lips, the smoke of which had a tendency to weave itself through our house vents or into my lungs when out checking the mail. I made the mistake once of glancing toward her over a stack of utility bills, witnessing the moment Sharon dropped her latest Fabio Lanzoni novel and leaned over to pick it up. I learned more about the effects of gravity on Sherry’s bosom that day than I had ever wanted to know.
Mr. Hillington—informally known as Greg—could often be found in the middle of a hardware store, yelling at some helpless employee over the price of batteries or bolts or zip ties. On his especially eccentric days, you could find him in the electronics aisle and hear him muttering about how he’d 'fix them walkie radios up good’. I tried to keep my distance from Greg most of all, but even so, I knew him well enough to know that while some men take up a hobby in mechanics or woodwork or golf, Greg took up prepping for doomsday. I can’t even attempt to list all the bulk material I’d seen him carry out back to his would-be bunker. Those galvanized-steel walls were practically bursting at the seams with MRE’s and camping gear. I’m pretty sure I saw him try to fit a whole canoe in there once, though I think New Mexico is one of the least likely states to flood even in an apocalypse.
Crazy or not, the Hillington’s used to be a part of my community, a part of my life. This whole block used to be filled with the sounds of laughter, the smells of home cooking, and the sight of overpriced fireworks fizzing across driveways. I never realized how accustomed to the hum of everyday life I had become, how comforting this neighborhood and its people were, and how hard the nostalgia would hit with it all gone. Now all that’s left of that life is Miss Jennings and her weathered bucket collecting run-off in the street.
Miss Jennings.
The rain.
Me.
Oh, and not to mention—
“Adira!”