by Jack Crawford
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
"Oh, this is just perfect," grumbled 24-year-old Brian MacKenzie. He had just stepped out of his girlfriend's apartment after a very nasty argument and was standing on the front step with two suitcases in hand. Gripping his meager possessions and thrown out of the residence he had known for the last two years, he had no place to go. What made the situation ironically "perfect" was the driving rain and lightning that flashed overhead. The weather was due to a sudden cold front passing through which brought a wicked chill to the air.
Brian wandered aimlessly down the street, sputtering expletives at his now ex-girlfriend who was tired of putting up with him. His muttered words came out in puffs of steam from his lips and the rain dampened his suitcases as it matted down the hair on his head and clouded his eyes. There! He found a bus stop and stepped beneath the flimsy shelter that at least kept half the downpour from beating directly onto him. Still, rivulets of water ran down his shoulders as well as his two suitcases. He sat down and let the self-pity wash over him like the intense rainfall as he wrapped his arms around himself to warm up.
Berating his former girlfriend more virulently in his mind, pausing only to add emphasis by growling aloud, "Fucking bitch!" it took some minutes for Brian to realize his feet were resting in several inches of water, high enough to roll over the tops of his shoes and soak them from the inside out.
"Dammit!" he railed against the weather. The weather? That was only the last in the string of miseries visited upon him today. Brian had no job, no girlfriend, no place to stay and almost no money in his pocket. And now he didn't even have dry socks!
What made this specific indignity so galling was that Brian lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. It seems like it never rained in Vegas, and even though he knew that downpours could be particularly nasty in the desert city, they were few and far between. The twin neon glows coming from The Strip and Downtown taunted him as the bright lights glittered in the falling rain.
Even as he bemoaned his situation, a bus pulled up to the stop causing a wave of dirty water to crash over him. As the filthy water sluiced over his already soaked body, the bus door opened and Brian looked up into the uncaring eyes of the bus driver.
"Thanks a bunch, dude!" yelled Brian. The man behind the wheel looked at him from his high and dry perch, shrugged his shoulders then turned to face forward with indifference as he closed the bus doors and pulled away.
Spitting mad with his frustration growing by leaps and bounds, Brian looked at the bus as it rushed away from the stop. Then something struck him; he saw the glowing "111" in the back window of the bus indicating which route the bus followed. If he remembered correctly, his Aunt Ruby lived in a neat town house complex near a bus stop... a stop that was on the number 111 Route. Maybe she could put him up for a bit.
He fumbled in his pocket to check how much money he had and was disappointed to discover he was short of the bus fare for even the modest trip. Now he felt like a real loser - someone trudging out of a casino having bet his last nickel trying to recoup earlier losses.
Oh, well, there was nothing else to do but hike on over and see if Aunt Ruby might let him hang out for a bit. Looking up at the sky, he realized the downpour was not going to relent anytime soon. Already as wet as a drowned rat, he gripped his two suitcases and trudged off into the storm.
Standing in the narrow vestibule Brian pressed the button to ring his aunt's townhouse. The rain was still driving into him, but at least here he could keep his head out of the deluge of water. "Hello?" answered a female voice over the intercom.
"Uh, Aunt Ruby? It's Brian... Brian MacKenzie, your nephew."
"Brian?" she asked with shock and surprise in her voice. "What did you do? Swim here?"
Frustrated, Brian almost lashed out but common sense prevailed. "I'm sorry to bother you so late tonight, but... but... could I come up and talk with you?" His voice had a pleading tinge to it and his aunt thought she could see tears in his eyes.
Maybe it was just the rain, but that was the least non-charitable thought Ruby had as she peered at her nephew in the grainy image from the security camera. Regardless, she buzzed him in with a terse, "Come on up."
Brian went in through the security gate and then climbed the single flight of stairs with his two soaking suitcases. He tried to gather himself before knocking at the door. Placing the suitcases on the floor on either side of him he tried to brush the excess water from his clothing. It was a futile effort that was nonetheless interrupted when his aunt opened the door before he knocked.
Pursing her lips in disapproval, his aunt shook her head. She had seen enough on the security camera to answer the door prepared. "Come in and put your bags on the tile by the door. You stay on the tile, too, for that matter," she said by way of greeting.
"Hi, thanks for letting me in." He found he could not say much more than that as he started to shiver.
Brian's aunt still had that look of disgust on her face as she let her eyes roam up and down his soaked body. In her arms were a pair of bath towels. "Oh, for goodness sake!" she gasped. "Let's get you dried off and warmed up."
"Th-th-thanks," Brian stuttered.
"I'll leave you this towel to cover up with," she said, dropping one of the towels on the carpet that edged the tile entryway, "and I'll put this other one in the bathroom in this hallway." She turned to go down the hallway adding, "Undress right there and leave all those wet things on the tile."
"Here?" the young man asked incredulously.
Aunt Ruby stopped short and spun around on one heel. "I'll not have you making a mess in my house and I assure you, young man, that you possess nothing I haven't already seen before. You may do as you are told or turn around and go right back out into the rain!"
Realizing there was nothing for him out in the rain but a freezing cold, Brian blushed and began stripping off his wet clothes in the doorway. Naked, he bent, picked up the towel from the carpet and wrapped it around his waist. As he entered the bathroom his aunt was coming out. "I put a bath robe on the counter for you," she said not unkindly. "You certainly can't put on those wet things again and it'll take a while to dry them out."
"Thank you," Brian said humbly.
"We'll talk when you are finished," his aunt replied as she closed the door for him.
The hot water of the shower felt amazingly good to Brian and he hadn't realized how cold he had become. There was a bottle of flowery smelling shampoo that was a little too feminine for his liking, but he used it anyway. He was accustomed to using his girlfriend's things and he didn't think twice about it. He had long hair and, in the rain, it had matted and gone stringy. At least now it was clean.
When he toweled off, he found a hair dryer and dried his hair. Looking into the mirror he nodded and approved the reflection as he was looking more normal now and feeling much better. Maybe better, but he still had a growling stomach as he tried to remember when he last ate.
The robe left for him was also a bit too feminine, but it was certainly better than wearing a towel. Putting it on, he tied the sash and then steeled himself for what he thought would be a fairly unpleasant conversation. Then again, the evening had started with a very unpleasant conversation and now he was here.
Coming into the living room he said, "I hung up the towels in the bathroom." He said it like it was a major accomplishment. Then again, his ex-girlfriend acted like hanging up towels was such a big deal. How many times had he said to her, "It's just a fucking towel!" He cringed as he recalled the looks she had given him. She always had to make little things such a big deal.
He was expecting a huge fight, but his aunt was surprisingly very pleasant.
"Have you eaten? Do you want something to eat?" she asked.
"I'm starving," Brian replied honestly, adding, "but don't go out of your way."
"I've got some leftovers you are welcome to have," she replied. "Let me just warm them up."
The leftovers turned out to be a roast beef and mushroom gravy with mashed potatoes, string beans and a couple of Parker House rolls. Brian wolfed down the feast, aware that his aunt was silently appraising him. Just as well, he thought as he considered his aunt.
Ruby lived alone and had never married. At one point, Brian had wondered if she didn't like men and was more interested in women, but it didn't really matter to him. She was attractive, even though some of her features might be considered a little on the masculine side. Mentally calculating, Brian figured his Aunt Ruby was in her early forties. If that was the case, she was in pretty good shape for such an older lady.
His aunt had short, straight blond hair parted on one side. It was short enough that it did not even come to her collar and if one only looked at her from behind or the sides, she might look a bit like a slender man. He figured she must be naturally blonde because she had very pale skin. Her black rimmed glasses stood out against that pale skin, but not nearly as much as the bright red lipstick she wore. Ruby was trim and lithe. His girlfriend... correction, ex-girlfriend, would have said that Ruby wasn't his type. Brian was more into women who had some meat on their bones and who were easily manipulated.
Brian had never, ever, thought of his aunt as being malleable. Maybe that is why he had avoided her for the past few years despite the very real fact that she was his only living relative. Finished with his impromptu feast, Brian looked up as his aunt broke the ice.
"So, what brings you to my doorstep, Brian, after such a long absence?" she asked. "I haven't had so much as a Christmas or Birthday card from you in a few years, much less an in-person visit." She leaned back in her chair across the table from him and patiently waited to hear some long sad story.
Brian exceeded that expectation.
The young man complained bitterly to his aunt about his lot in life, how he could not find a decent job and how unreasonable his former girlfriend had been. Worse, his ex-girlfriend had no compassion and a complete lack of empathy for his plight. "She kicked me out on a night like this!" whined Brian using the weather as an example of the callousness of his ex-girlfriend. "If she was that unhappy with me, she still could have waited for the storm to pass."
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