The Night It Rained and Nobody Came

The rain came at seven, which is the worst hour, because that is when the street is full and everyone is deciding where to sit. It did not arrive slowly the way it does in films. It fell all at once, forty people stood up together and got under the awnings, and then there was nobody at my tables at all.

We pulled the canvas out and tied it to the cart on both sides. It sagged in the middle and collected a small lake that my brother kept pushing up with a broom handle. Underneath, the charcoal took the wet air and went sulky. I stood over the grill and fed it, and it thought about it, and gave me less heat than I needed.

Counting a bad night

By nine we had sold eleven skewers and two glasses of sugarcane juice. My mother had already started putting things back into the cooler, which is her way of saying something without saying it. My father kept threading skewers for tomorrow, because he does not believe in a night that stays bad.

A bad night is not a disaster. It is only a number you carry to the next morning.

An old woman came at half past nine with a plastic bag over her hair and asked for two of the chicken. She stood under the canvas and ate them there and told me the rain would stop before eleven, and it did. She comes maybe once a month and never says much. I gave her a third skewer and she pretended not to notice.

At ten the street was water and reflected lights and the smell of wet dust. My brother said we should go home. I said we should wait. We waited an hour and sold four more skewers to a man who was already soaked and did not care.

What we carried home

We counted at the table at half past eleven. Not enough for the charcoal, and not a loss either. My brother wrote the figure on the back of his hand and said tomorrow is Saturday, and Saturday is different. He is usually right about Saturday.

On the way home my mother said that a shop with a roof would not have nights like this, and nobody answered her, because we all know what a roof costs. I walked behind them with the empty cooler and the rain in my shoes and thought about the third skewer.