When It Rains in America: When Zero Meets Fifteen
By Ruby Fire
Notes: The chapter title is a Five Iron Frenzy song which is about what a guy sees when he gets on the bus and he wonders why he would bother to save the save the world with 13 cents and a broken pen. And yes, I'm aware that the band is breaking up. And lyrics are used without permission.
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She felt stiff all over when she woke up. The rocks left nasty red marks on her sides and back. Her clothes were damp and her hair was wet enough to cling to her face and neck in tendrils. Her breath formed the tiniest, most perfect clouds.
She opened her eyes and stared at the dark underside of the bridge. She watched as water dropped off the bridge in thin sheets when cars roared overhead.
She turned her head and saw that the sky was a startling shade of blue. Robin egg blue, she though. The soft blue that parent's paint a baby's room.
She tried to pull herself to her feet but her joints weren't behaving as they should have. She stumbled and slowly bent her knees and winced at the pins and needles that seemed to be jammed in the cartilage. Ouch. Man, that sucked.
And what's when it hit her.
That sound wave. The mix of lead and bass guitars and a trombone and trumpet accented with a heavy handed percussionist blasted her. It made her eardrums vibrate and her brain rattled and her heart beat wildly as it tried to keep in time with the loud bass.
" . . .have to ride the bus again, at ten-o-clock on Tuesday night, with thirteen cents and a broken pen . . ."
The voice had boomed over with a bit of that scratchiness when you try to scream what you sing.
Mamimi leapt to her feet and forgot about the tingles of needles and pins in her knees and elbows and ran form the bridge, thinking it was going to fall down on her while it rattled from this mighty rock band of God.
". . . could have walked another block, to get away from the scene . . ."
She couldn't understand what was happening. Had the gods come down from the highest stars or was the world falling apart? She couldn't understand the worlds as they ran together and echoed with the kind of feedback you get form playing too loud.
". . . gave my thirteen cents, to the man who peed his pants . . ."
The words seemed to slow for Mamimi. Her mind recognized every few words of English. The rest she could fill in. She understood.
Someone was singing. That's all it was. No Apocalypse. No Ragnorak or raging volcanoes. Just a concert that had happened to spring up in the curve of the ground near the foundations of the bridge.
She stumbled past the sheet of dirty water and into the shoving and raging crowd.
The echoes of the music were no longer as painful when she stepped into the open. In fact, she felt as if all the noise was absorbed by all these people. They sucked up every big light and energy and sound to keep it all to themselves and never share with those who stood outside the writhing crowd or with the cars that passed over the bridge.
She felt tired just watching them.
She had to join.
The tons of bodies pushed her and tried to toss her right back out of their private bubble of energy but she crawled her way in and jumped with the other rockers and banged her head and tried to sing along even though she didn't know the words. No one cared because the singer's words were hardly decipherable let alone anyone the crowd.
Among the hundreds of people, she lost track of the time. She felt her clothes cling to her body uncomfortably. Sweat dribbled down her face and made her hair stick to her face and neck.
". . . if I had a nickel for every time I tried to classify . . ."
The songs were melting together, just simply shifting from key to key with various style changes and some talking in between. Mamimi didn't understand what anyone was saying but she loved it.
The crowd roared and bucked and the world swirled around Mamimi. Her fingers somehow clumsily found their way to the precious camera around her neck. She lifted it up to one eye and began spinning. Her finger tapped the button what felt like a thousand times.
In her mind, these pictures would feature the bodies of the hundred dancers. But with their fast moments and the slowness of light, these people would be streaked and twisted of rainbow lights.
". . . pre-ex-girlfriend . . . That girl's just to fine for me . . ."
But the crowd of rockers had formed some kind of wave. So many people were bigger than her. The wave kept pushing higher and higher over her and she saw the ground coming closer and closer and people's feet and ankles were too close to her face. She curled up in a protective ball as the crowd pushed her under them. She curled her body around her camera and pulled her hands over her head but feet and knees were hurting her no matter how small she made herself become.
She felt someone fall down next to her. She grabbed onto them but the person shoved her away in the fight for survival from under the wave of dancers.
She screamed and clawed at the sneakers and combat boots and pulled off the sandals of someone. She pulled at stockings and camouflage fatigues but the people were still jumping and dancing to this relentless beat.
"Gang way!" someone shouted in a loud screaming voice that nearly lost all the words simply to get the sound across.
Suddenly, people around her began to step away and there were shrieks of annoyance and surprised. She heard the revving of a motorcycle. People shuffled away as they parted before this biker like the Red Sea before Moses.
She tried to struggle to her feet as she heard the engine coming closer and it dawned on her that it was heading right at her.
"Don't move!" the person screamed again.
As if she could. She felt like every bit of skin was either scraped raw or deeply bruised. She tried to push herself up but her arm didn't seem to want to work but just ache.
The motorcycle screeched to a stop somewhere near her. Dust was kicked up by the tires and she ducked her head down, pink hair falling across her face, to keep it from blowing in her eyes.
"Shh, keep still, kid," a man whispered comfortingly in Japanese. "I'm just going to make sure you're all right."
Mamimi gingerly lifted her head. Her hair obscured her vision as it caught in tangles around her nose and her eyelashes but she could still see this stranger.
Even if he was crouched over her, Mamimi could see he was a tall man. Lanky, too. Everything else about was ordinary, one-descript. Except for his clothes. Torn pants, a dirty vest, and that ridiculous, stupid-looking eye-patch. Mamimi wanted to reach up and pull it off to see if he really had lost an eye.
The pirate-man asked, "Can you sit up?"
"I'm not sure."
"Here," he said and slid his arms under her back and knees and lifted her up. For such a thin man, he was pretty strong.
Wiry is the word, thought Mamimi.
The man gingerly set her down in a half-sitting position on the back half of his bike
She looked around as the bike started to move slowly and smoothly. She saw that there were other people laying hurt and were being carried out on stretchers of the barely distracted crowd. Some were carried by ambulance workers, but more were carried by other members of the crowd.
The bike stopped in front of a near by ambulance. The workers were wrestling with the gurney and were trying to shove someone in.
"Hey," called out the man. "I found a girl that got trampled. Where do I take her?"
A harassed looking worked looked up from the bruised face on the gurney. "Take her to the ER. Have her get checked. Go two blocks, turn right and go straight. You'll see it." And with that, the doors of the ambulance swung shut and the engine started up.
The pirate man watched the ambulance pull away. "Well, kid, do you think you need a trip to the doctor's?"
Mamimi looked down at the ground. "I don't have much money."
"If you broke a rib, it might cost more later on to get that fixed."
"I'm fine," she said quietly.
The man didn't say anything for a while. Eventually, he nodded. "All right, if you say so. But to make sure you're ok, how about we just cruise around and see how you feel in an hour or so?"
Mamimi looked up and stared him in the eye. She heard all the warnings her drunken mother said. Don't go off with strange men. America has the highest number of serial killers out of the entire world. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
"Don't give me that look," he laughed. "I'm not hitting on you. I have no interest in under-aged girls. How about we go to a café just down the road? I heard of this singer who is pretty good is singing down there. I'll get a couple cups of coffee and we can sit and listen and appreciate the music."
She didn't say anything.
"And there's no dancing."
She bit her lip as her mind whirled while she made her decision.
"Fine."
"Good," he said. He turned around and restarted his motorcycle.
"Wait!" Mamimi cried.
"What?"
She slid off the seat and walked toward the dancing crowd but this time she did not step inside. She wasn't going to risk that but also because she didn't need pictures from the inside of the crowd. She faced the man who saved her who was in front of some ambulances with their red and blue lights facing. He was twisting around to see what she was doing.
Click!
"There," she said simply as she place dher camera back around her neck. "I'm done."
"Fine. Let's go."
She struggled up onto the bike which was pretty high up. When the bike pulled forward, much faster this time, she wrapped her arms around his waist to keep from slipping off the back.
"Never ridden one before?" he called back over the noise of the engine.
"I have. I knew a girl who drove one all the time. She was a crazy driver," Mamimi smiled as she thought of how she had to clutch onto Haruko's uniform as the older woman swerved and accelerate only to break suddenly which always threatened to send them flying over the handlebars.
"I'm nor going very fast."
"Oh, sorry."
"Nah, don't worry. I'm not used to riding bitch either."
She thought for a minute and asked, "What did you just call me?"
"Oh, riding bitch means you ride the back of a motorcycle. It's not you, it's just a term."
The motorcycle ducked between the huge and clunky vans and SUVs and the sleek and tiny sports cars that were hardly any bigger than the motorcycle.
Mamimi liked the feeling of the sulfur breeze that played with her hair which went flying in every direction. She liked the sound of the tires squealing as people braked quickly when they swung in front of the cars. She liked the smell of the burnt rubber as others tried to get around them only to be left behind when the pirate man accelerated just to piss them off. On the sharp turns, she liked leaning toward the pavement so close that she could the wind pass over the gravel in the road.
Yeah, this was real freedom.
Notes: The chapter title is a Five Iron Frenzy song which is about what a guy sees when he gets on the bus and he wonders why he would bother to save the save the world with 13 cents and a broken pen. And yes, I'm aware that the band is breaking up. And lyrics are used without permission.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
She felt stiff all over when she woke up. The rocks left nasty red marks on her sides and back. Her clothes were damp and her hair was wet enough to cling to her face and neck in tendrils. Her breath formed the tiniest, most perfect clouds.
She opened her eyes and stared at the dark underside of the bridge. She watched as water dropped off the bridge in thin sheets when cars roared overhead.
She turned her head and saw that the sky was a startling shade of blue. Robin egg blue, she though. The soft blue that parent's paint a baby's room.
She tried to pull herself to her feet but her joints weren't behaving as they should have. She stumbled and slowly bent her knees and winced at the pins and needles that seemed to be jammed in the cartilage. Ouch. Man, that sucked.
And what's when it hit her.
That sound wave. The mix of lead and bass guitars and a trombone and trumpet accented with a heavy handed percussionist blasted her. It made her eardrums vibrate and her brain rattled and her heart beat wildly as it tried to keep in time with the loud bass.
" . . .have to ride the bus again, at ten-o-clock on Tuesday night, with thirteen cents and a broken pen . . ."
The voice had boomed over with a bit of that scratchiness when you try to scream what you sing.
Mamimi leapt to her feet and forgot about the tingles of needles and pins in her knees and elbows and ran form the bridge, thinking it was going to fall down on her while it rattled from this mighty rock band of God.
". . . could have walked another block, to get away from the scene . . ."
She couldn't understand what was happening. Had the gods come down from the highest stars or was the world falling apart? She couldn't understand the worlds as they ran together and echoed with the kind of feedback you get form playing too loud.
". . . gave my thirteen cents, to the man who peed his pants . . ."
The words seemed to slow for Mamimi. Her mind recognized every few words of English. The rest she could fill in. She understood.
Someone was singing. That's all it was. No Apocalypse. No Ragnorak or raging volcanoes. Just a concert that had happened to spring up in the curve of the ground near the foundations of the bridge.
She stumbled past the sheet of dirty water and into the shoving and raging crowd.
The echoes of the music were no longer as painful when she stepped into the open. In fact, she felt as if all the noise was absorbed by all these people. They sucked up every big light and energy and sound to keep it all to themselves and never share with those who stood outside the writhing crowd or with the cars that passed over the bridge.
She felt tired just watching them.
She had to join.
The tons of bodies pushed her and tried to toss her right back out of their private bubble of energy but she crawled her way in and jumped with the other rockers and banged her head and tried to sing along even though she didn't know the words. No one cared because the singer's words were hardly decipherable let alone anyone the crowd.
Among the hundreds of people, she lost track of the time. She felt her clothes cling to her body uncomfortably. Sweat dribbled down her face and made her hair stick to her face and neck.
". . . if I had a nickel for every time I tried to classify . . ."
The songs were melting together, just simply shifting from key to key with various style changes and some talking in between. Mamimi didn't understand what anyone was saying but she loved it.
The crowd roared and bucked and the world swirled around Mamimi. Her fingers somehow clumsily found their way to the precious camera around her neck. She lifted it up to one eye and began spinning. Her finger tapped the button what felt like a thousand times.
In her mind, these pictures would feature the bodies of the hundred dancers. But with their fast moments and the slowness of light, these people would be streaked and twisted of rainbow lights.
". . . pre-ex-girlfriend . . . That girl's just to fine for me . . ."
But the crowd of rockers had formed some kind of wave. So many people were bigger than her. The wave kept pushing higher and higher over her and she saw the ground coming closer and closer and people's feet and ankles were too close to her face. She curled up in a protective ball as the crowd pushed her under them. She curled her body around her camera and pulled her hands over her head but feet and knees were hurting her no matter how small she made herself become.
She felt someone fall down next to her. She grabbed onto them but the person shoved her away in the fight for survival from under the wave of dancers.
She screamed and clawed at the sneakers and combat boots and pulled off the sandals of someone. She pulled at stockings and camouflage fatigues but the people were still jumping and dancing to this relentless beat.
"Gang way!" someone shouted in a loud screaming voice that nearly lost all the words simply to get the sound across.
Suddenly, people around her began to step away and there were shrieks of annoyance and surprised. She heard the revving of a motorcycle. People shuffled away as they parted before this biker like the Red Sea before Moses.
She tried to struggle to her feet as she heard the engine coming closer and it dawned on her that it was heading right at her.
"Don't move!" the person screamed again.
As if she could. She felt like every bit of skin was either scraped raw or deeply bruised. She tried to push herself up but her arm didn't seem to want to work but just ache.
The motorcycle screeched to a stop somewhere near her. Dust was kicked up by the tires and she ducked her head down, pink hair falling across her face, to keep it from blowing in her eyes.
"Shh, keep still, kid," a man whispered comfortingly in Japanese. "I'm just going to make sure you're all right."
Mamimi gingerly lifted her head. Her hair obscured her vision as it caught in tangles around her nose and her eyelashes but she could still see this stranger.
Even if he was crouched over her, Mamimi could see he was a tall man. Lanky, too. Everything else about was ordinary, one-descript. Except for his clothes. Torn pants, a dirty vest, and that ridiculous, stupid-looking eye-patch. Mamimi wanted to reach up and pull it off to see if he really had lost an eye.
The pirate-man asked, "Can you sit up?"
"I'm not sure."
"Here," he said and slid his arms under her back and knees and lifted her up. For such a thin man, he was pretty strong.
Wiry is the word, thought Mamimi.
The man gingerly set her down in a half-sitting position on the back half of his bike
She looked around as the bike started to move slowly and smoothly. She saw that there were other people laying hurt and were being carried out on stretchers of the barely distracted crowd. Some were carried by ambulance workers, but more were carried by other members of the crowd.
The bike stopped in front of a near by ambulance. The workers were wrestling with the gurney and were trying to shove someone in.
"Hey," called out the man. "I found a girl that got trampled. Where do I take her?"
A harassed looking worked looked up from the bruised face on the gurney. "Take her to the ER. Have her get checked. Go two blocks, turn right and go straight. You'll see it." And with that, the doors of the ambulance swung shut and the engine started up.
The pirate man watched the ambulance pull away. "Well, kid, do you think you need a trip to the doctor's?"
Mamimi looked down at the ground. "I don't have much money."
"If you broke a rib, it might cost more later on to get that fixed."
"I'm fine," she said quietly.
The man didn't say anything for a while. Eventually, he nodded. "All right, if you say so. But to make sure you're ok, how about we just cruise around and see how you feel in an hour or so?"
Mamimi looked up and stared him in the eye. She heard all the warnings her drunken mother said. Don't go off with strange men. America has the highest number of serial killers out of the entire world. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
"Don't give me that look," he laughed. "I'm not hitting on you. I have no interest in under-aged girls. How about we go to a café just down the road? I heard of this singer who is pretty good is singing down there. I'll get a couple cups of coffee and we can sit and listen and appreciate the music."
She didn't say anything.
"And there's no dancing."
She bit her lip as her mind whirled while she made her decision.
"Fine."
"Good," he said. He turned around and restarted his motorcycle.
"Wait!" Mamimi cried.
"What?"
She slid off the seat and walked toward the dancing crowd but this time she did not step inside. She wasn't going to risk that but also because she didn't need pictures from the inside of the crowd. She faced the man who saved her who was in front of some ambulances with their red and blue lights facing. He was twisting around to see what she was doing.
Click!
"There," she said simply as she place dher camera back around her neck. "I'm done."
"Fine. Let's go."
She struggled up onto the bike which was pretty high up. When the bike pulled forward, much faster this time, she wrapped her arms around his waist to keep from slipping off the back.
"Never ridden one before?" he called back over the noise of the engine.
"I have. I knew a girl who drove one all the time. She was a crazy driver," Mamimi smiled as she thought of how she had to clutch onto Haruko's uniform as the older woman swerved and accelerate only to break suddenly which always threatened to send them flying over the handlebars.
"I'm nor going very fast."
"Oh, sorry."
"Nah, don't worry. I'm not used to riding bitch either."
She thought for a minute and asked, "What did you just call me?"
"Oh, riding bitch means you ride the back of a motorcycle. It's not you, it's just a term."
The motorcycle ducked between the huge and clunky vans and SUVs and the sleek and tiny sports cars that were hardly any bigger than the motorcycle.
Mamimi liked the feeling of the sulfur breeze that played with her hair which went flying in every direction. She liked the sound of the tires squealing as people braked quickly when they swung in front of the cars. She liked the smell of the burnt rubber as others tried to get around them only to be left behind when the pirate man accelerated just to piss them off. On the sharp turns, she liked leaning toward the pavement so close that she could the wind pass over the gravel in the road.
Yeah, this was real freedom.