April rain

FERNANDEZ

Used to be, April was warm and sunny and rainless. April rain was not impossible. But it was a rarity, and always, it caught us by surprise. It was lovely this way. Warm sunny day when we venture forth into the world with no umbrella, no coat, our clothes light to keep us from becoming too warm, and then the sudden rain. We laugh our way home, clothes clinging to skin. Wonderful surprise.

April, when it begins with rain, is a different April. Is it even April at all? And we wonder immediately: Will it be like this from here on? Even so, tropical creatures that we are, we do love the rain. We might as well recall these few lines from Langston Hughes’ “April Rain Song”:

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

“The rain plays a little sleep song” on our roofs and move us to stay in bed as long as we can. And we hope the world likewise slows down from its fired up, angry, mad rush into wherever it is it wants to go. We hope it will go back to bed.

As for instance: We know there will be no checkpoints on the streets tonight. All the better for undocumented motorbikes to ply the streets. No cops will stop them to check registration papers. We always suspected these checkpoints were encouraged sub rosa by banks wishing to repossess bikes whose loan-payments have lapsed.

But not tonight! Tonight, bikers can freely ply their routes and as much as they like. We know how cops do not like rain. Even while bikers themselves can live with it. Riders wrap their slippers and shoes in plastic bags. The bags keep their feet dry: even as bike wheels throw water upwards from the streets while the sky pours rain. The bike riders ride through a sandwich of water, at once, rising and falling at them. They use what they can to keep dry, a hat, a plastic rain coat, even an umbrella struggling against the wind. Rain is also their protection.

So that others give up completely. They drive with no more protection than their clothes. It will be cold. But they will be moved one wet point in the streets to the next. They will carry their loads of people and products as they usually do on a hot and dry day. The lives of bikers are not stopped by rain. Only policemen have that luxury. Which is just as well for some poor addict or drug pusher scheduled tonight for rubbing out.

The rain will save this life whose would-be assassins choose instead not to venture out. Instead, they while the night away in a dry place sipping bowls of hot soup and coffee. This weather is too cold for going out at night to ply their trade. Guns and water do not mix. God is giving his people a little rest.