I stood by the window last night watching the approaching storm. I told my few remaining customers that they had better head home if the didn't want to be caught out in the rain. They scoffed and rambled on about how the weathermen have not predicted an accurate storm in weeks, it'll blow over they said, nothing to worry about they said. I told them I don't watch the weather and I don't listen to the weathermen. I watch the radars and look outside. To the north the sky was black, grey and green. The sign of an impending Texas storm. The kind of clouds that bring night at 4pm. To the south were long rolling clouds. The sun washing them in hues of purples, oranges and reds. The sky around them a vibrant blue. All giving no impression of the destruction to follow the sun shrinking into the night.
moments of eternity later I was alone in the bar when the wind began to howl. The windows rattled and the building shook. A fine mist covered the ground first and then the rain began to fall. Hard drops pounding the hot pavement. The wind so fierce the rain appeared to be coming straight out of the ground. The doors creaked and groaned, popping open and slamming shut in one fell swoop. The ceiling quivered. The walls trembled. The driving rain found it's way in to every crack and crevice of the old building, and poured thru the roof. The lights sizzled with every flash of lighting and flickered with every crash of thunder. I stood next to the door of the walk-in cooler, waiting for the ceiling to collapse or disappear. I didn't know which, but waited none the less. I made busy with mopping water off of the floor and putting buckets under the leaks. Anything to keep my mind off of my possible doom.
and as suddenly as it started, it ended. The rain began to fall from the sky instead of rising out of the earth. The lightning and thunder began to move off to the distance instead of over my head. The wind died to a whisper. Every thing was calm. The sky broke, revealing deep blues and blacks, a few stars shown thru the remaining wisps of clouds. And my evening returned to normal. Pouring cold beers and shots of whiskey, gin-n-tonics and shots of jager for the customers that had braved the end of the storm to seek refuge from the blackness left when the storm took their electricity. And I sat and listened, like I do most nights, to their stories of woe and excitement. But tonight it was a shared story. We had made thru another angry Texas storm. Together.
