When the Gods Speak Through Rain

By Christopher Higgins

Sixteen-year-old Marcus is a young man living within a confused world. His mother has developed an insatiable taste for alcohol, his father is mostly absent, and his brother has been deployed to Afghanistan. As unrest lurks inside and outside of his Brooklyn home, Marcus begins a quest for answers to lifes most difficult questions.

Marcus has not heard from his father in months, but he still agrees to meet him one eveningjust so he can get away from his mother and her obnoxious new boyfriend. Marcuss father looks like he has a lot of class but really has none whatsoever; when he takes Marcus to a greasy chicken joint to reveal that he is remarrying, Marcus realizes nothing has changed. But for Marcus, life is about to become more than he ever expected. After the police search his home for drugs, secrets shatter his normalcy, and the only world Marcus has ever known begins spinning out of control.

When the Gods Speak through Rain tells the poignant story of a young man who is just trying to surviveeven when it seems impossibleand eventually finds hope in the realization that the imperfections of others are really what makes them perfect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426938986

Christopher Higgins

Christopher Higgins was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and later immigrated to the United States. He is the author of a compilation of poetry and has been published in magazines, journals, and newspapers. He currently lives in Georgia with his family, where he is a teacher.

Book preview

Mama’s Dance                         1

It is raining tonight and the Brooklyn streets are quiet with a hushed silence that only happens when it pours like this. I love when it rains and it washes away the troubles that have been living around here for a while. I know once the rain goes away the problems will reappear and it will be like nothing changed, but tonight it is peaceful. The light from the street lamp is glittering amongst the raindrops giving this place some beauty that have been missing for some time. My mama’s music is playing loud in the apartment tonight and I can hear her dancing slowly in the living room. She loves to dance and play her music and sometimes I wonder if she enjoys the rain as much as I do. Her cigarette smoke hovers all over the apartment clogging my nostrils with an unforgiving scent and once in a while you can hear the clanging of ice landing loudly in her glass. I love when mama is happy because often times she isn’t that very happy. The pain of life seems to always be there with her everywhere she goes. I wish she could get away from this place and live like the women I often see on those television shows where their lives are filled with laughter, joy and the perfect man. My mama, a beautiful woman was blessed with a dancer’s figure which gets her in a lot of trouble with men from all walks of life. My daddy loved her body though he didn’t stay around much after I was born. He would come and say hello to my brother and I, but after a while he just drifted away from our lives starting a new one with some other woman. There were other men who came around over the years and ate away at my mama’s beauty, drinking her soul for their satisfaction and leaving her broken to shed tears once their feasting was completed. I have heard her cry many mornings over the years because of those men who disappeared from her life after getting what they wanted. There is a sadness that comes over me when I think of her and the hurt she has gone through. I wish my father had stuck around and loved her right instead of the losers throughout the years, but my mama often said she and daddy are a bad mix. Too much fighting and a little bit of loving.

The rain is getting louder and landing softly on my window. I watch as each drop melts into tears and cry all the way down the window glass disappearing into nothingness. My mind pays a visit to my brother Ricky who is a Marine in Afghanistan, wondering if he is getting the same rain like I am in Brooklyn and if he is dry and warm. My mother worries about Ricky a lot. She didn’t want him to join the Marines, but he disliked school and so after graduation he enlisted and shipped out. I remembered how much she cried at the barbecue party that she threw for him before he left for Afghanistan. Ricky was brave and acted as if he was just going to the mall and would be back in a quick second. My father also showed up that day to say goodbye to him. He was acting all macho and dismissing mama telling her that her son was a man and that she should be rejoicing instead of crying. Mama of course ignored him and cried more the entire night. I wish Ricky was here tonight and we could sit and watch the rain fall on the street chasing troubles away.

I can hear mama’s footsteps coming to my door. I quickly got my book that I was reading earlier and acted as if I was still engaged in it. Mama never knocks and even though I told her I am sixteen and that she needs to she never listens to me. She told me when I start paying rent then she will knock. Grownups always make rules to satisfy what they want ignoring the feelings of others. She opened my door and stood there with her glass filled with melting ice and a little of that brown liquor that she likes to drink so much.

What are you doing? Little beads of sweat sat on her forehead and I could tell she had been dancing heavily.

Reading, I said. I knew it wasn’t completely true but I chose to tell her that as I couldn’t tell her I was watching the raindrops falling. She would think that was crazy like she has thought about me for some time. I could tell from her eyes that she didn’t completely believe me. She worried about me especially since Ricky left and I had developed some new friends that no one could see but me. One night she heard voices coming from my room and she came in and asked who was in there with me. I told her no one and she searched every corner of my room thinking I was lying. I told her that I was speaking to myself and the next morning I heard her talking to Grandma Brown about me on the telephone. She was saying how worried she was about me and some other stuff that I wasn’t sure about.

Did you take your bath yet? I told her yes and she asked me to come and dance with her. I love dancing with mama as it made me feel close to her like I was a child again. Ricky and I use to sleep in her bed when daddy left us. We would play Scrabble and she would make us hot chocolate. We would laugh and laugh until the late hours. I miss those times so much. I got off the bed and went out to the living room and danced with her. My face beamed with smile after smile because I could feel her joy from the music dancing in her. She held onto me and I held her tightly while we moved to one of those old time songs that she loved so much. I could never get into that type of music as it bored me making my mind dream itself to sleep. She hates my rap music that I am only allowed to play on Saturday mornings while cleaning up my room. We danced to a couple of songs when a pounding on the door could be heard overwhelming the sound from the music. I knew right away who it was since there was only one person who would beat on the door instead of using the doorbell. My mom walked over to it and peeked through the hole. I could see her wiping her face and giving her clothes the hand press quickly before opening up the door. There he was, the man I hated more than bitters that mama makes me drink once in a while to rid my body of worms. He was so different from the other men that my mama dated. He had gold teeth and countless chains hanging around his neck. Sometimes I wish one would get caught in the door or something and hang him. He stood at the door like some poor man’s version of an Egyptian god with mouth glistening from gold. She got all girly with him standing there and invited him in. I sat down on the sofa and acted as if I didn’t see him. He walked in and his coarse hand came landing on my head. Damn I hated those hands touching me. I wondered how many cuts my mother had all over her body from his hands.

Hey little man, what is the deal? I don’t like him calling me little man acting as if we have something in common. He came and sat down next to me and I could feel my skin crawl with nastiness.

Nothing. A weak reply came dribbling from my lips. I didn’t even give him any attention with my eyes. My mom brought him some of that brown liquor business that she was drinking. She turned off the music and I could tell from the noise outside the window that the rain had fallen to sleep and the troubles had come back to the block.

How is school? Still reading all them books that you like so much? Gosh I wish he would just blow up right now on the sofa and be gone forever. I didn’t answer him right away and mama’s eyes came tumbling down on me with you better answer quickly.

School is fine. Another weak ass reply came from my lips. I guess mama wasn’t satisfied with my response.

Marcus is doing great in school. He is now in honors English! She sounded so excited telling him this and I wondered if he even knew what honors English was. I bet he never even finished high school or read a book in his life.

That is great little man. His hand smacked my leg and that creepy, nasty feeling came all over me again. I wish he wouldn’t call me little man as I was sixteen going on seventeen and nearly as tall as him.

Tell Tony about the book you are reading now, mama said. I don’t understand why it was so important to please this asshole so much.

I am reading Richard Wright’s Native Son.

Tell him what it’s about, she insisted. I hated my mom at that moment because this fool was not interested in any book that I was reading. He came over for one thing and he was just making small conversation to warm her up before he took her to the bedroom to make those noises that often seeped through the paper thin walls of our apartment. Furthermore, I don’t think he could understand much if I was to even attempt to tell him about the book. I guess I was too slow to respond once again because he decided he wanted to open his mouth and show how incredibly useless he is as a human being.

Is that about them Indians that lived a long time ago. I wanted to shit my pants with laughter at his dumb ass but I had to laugh inside so not to hurt my mother’s feelings.

It is about a young black man name Bigger Thomas and it takes place in the 1930’s in Chicago. Before I could finish he interrupted with another dumb ass statement.

So they had a Biggie Smalls back in the days before the real Biggie Smalls? Was that a question I was supposed to answer? He was cracking himself up and mama was laughing just to laugh because I knew she was aware how not funny that was.

Does this have any rapping in it? Why am I even bothering with this fool I asked myself as he carried on with his stupidity. He was acting like those kids in school who didn’t know the work so they would go crazy and distract the class so the focus wouldn’t be on how much they didn’t know. Mama sensed how frustrated I was getting.

Marcus read some Shakespeare last month. No she didn’t just tell this idiot about Shakespeare. His brain would explode if he was to read one verse from his work.

Shakespeare is the shit. Ain’t he the one who did that Romeo and Juliet story. I can’t believe mama allows this man to curse in our home. If I cursed by accident she would scream and holler like I committed a major sin or something. He was excited that he knew one of Shakespeare’s work. I guess I should make the ding, ding, sound indicating that this jackass just guessed something right. I should go get a copy of the book and have him read some and watch him explode before our eyes.

Yes, he wrote that. Another feeble response came walking from my lips. Man, I wish it would start to rain again and clean him up from my living room. If it was raining his tired looking behind probably wouldn’t have come out of his house. I was ready to flee this scene but mama wanted me to hang around some more. It was important to her for all these guys to like me. I really didn’t care if they liked me or not because it wouldn’t change the way I felt about all of them. Tony was the worst of the three guys that often came around. He was the only one that spent the night. The other dudes I suspected had families somewhere because they never spent the night and they often came around when I was in school. I only met them because sometimes they would come around and take my mother to dinner or something. The other two guys whom I didn’t know so well were more respectful, spoke better English and dressed heaps better than this fool. Even my father who was the biggest loser of all was a much better man than this clown. At least my dad could act like his brain was in the ballpark when I told him about school and something new I was learning. Mama went back in the kitchen with his glass to bring him a refill of that brown gasoline they liked to drink. The taste of that drink was unmerciful to my throat as I sneaked a taste once when mama wasn’t home and it burned like hell in my stomach, so I never understood the fascination with this drink. I think she was getting him drunk to shut him up and she was getting herself drunk so she wouldn’t have to think about who she was spending the night with. We both just sat there waiting for mama to come back not having anything to say to each other. She asked me if I was ready for bed and I gladly said yes.

Sleep good little man. It is sleep well you fool I wanted to say but instead gave him a hypocritical smile of good to see you. His sandpaper hand came crashing once again on my head rubbing it. I was sure when I went to my room my head would be bleeding. I gave mama a kiss and of course he had a dumb comment to make of how cute that was. I went to my room and was so relieved to be away from him and his creepiness. I looked outside the window and the Brooklyn streets were starting to come alive once again. The rain that had washed them away was gone for the night it seemed and the players of the dark were all over the place. I heard my mother’s music come back on and I could tell that she and idiot man were dancing and doing a prelude for what they would do next. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and then changed my clothes into some sleep wear. I climbed in the bed and turned the light off thinking about which character I was going to bring out of its hiding place to come and talk with me until I was ready to go to bed. The idiot was getting loud killing the thought of anyone who would come and talk to me. I could hear mama telling him to be quiet as they made their way to her room. This is where I wish I could fall asleep as I knew in a few short minutes I am going to hear him calling my mother other names while banging the bed against the wall with fury. The talking outside increased as well. Some people never sleep in this neighborhood. I wish it would rain once again and take my mind away to a different place. Thank goodness my eyes are now weak.

I woke up to my mom’s hand shaking me telling me it is time to get up for school. I loved school but getting up in the mornings was the most difficult thing to do. I got up after she left the room. I hate to get out of the bed in the mornings in front of my mother with my pants bulging in the front from wanting to go to the bathroom. I yawned myself awake and went in the shower. There’s nothing like water to splash away sleep from the body. I got dressed and looked out the window to see which one of the losers was still patrolling about. Mama was busy about in the kitchen and the idiot was sitting there as well in a white tee shirt and shorts. He was watching the news or at least pretending to give a shit to it as this was my mother’s ritual every morning before I left for school.

Do you want something to eat before you go? she asked. I loved the smell of her bacon but the thought of sitting next to this clown was too much to stomach.

I think I will eat at school mom.

Are you sure? I know how much you dislike their food.

I am mom. He was there scarfing down toast and bacon and staring into the television. If only he could choke on a piece of it went through my mind. I knew it wasn’t right to think that way, but I couldn’t help it when it came to this dude. I grabbed my coat and gave mom a kiss.

Marcus, when you get home today I won’t be here. I am going out of town for a couple of days. Damn, I hate when she popped news on me like this. My mother went out of town every couple of weeks and usually for a couple of days. She never tells me where she is going or what she is doing, but whatever it is, when she gets home sometimes she is sick for a few days before she gets back to herself.

Okay mom. I am used to her saying that she will be out of town so it didn’t surprise me. I just don’t like when she waits until the day of to tell me about it.

I told Rosita to check on you for the next couple of days while I am gone. She came over to me and gave me a hug of guilt. She knew this pissed me off, but I didn’t mind Rosita, that fine Puerto Rican checking on me. She was so sexy and filled with life that I often just wanted to run my hands all over her body. I dream about her becoming my first lover over and over again, but I know her old man would kill me if that was to ever happen. I opened the door to walk out and that mickey mouse of a man wanted to know if I wasn’t going to give him a pound. My mama’s eyes watched me to see what I was going to do. I reluctantly turned around and walked over to him slapping him five. He pulled me into him and rubbed his hands against my head yet again. This time it felt like my entire scalp had fallen off my head onto the floor. My mom stood there sipping coffee and secretly hoping I am enjoying this fool’s playing with me. I got away from him.

Have a good day little man, came rolling from his gold laden mouth acting as if he is the king of this palace. I shouted out in my mind go fuck yourself as I opened the door and walked out.

Mamasita                         2

Mama was due to arrive in town later tonight more than likely after I have gone to bed. I have missed her for the last two days wondering about her and if she was okay. I wished there was a way for her to call me to let me know if all was well when she was gone. Mama was very secretive about what she was doing whenever she left. She always told me the less I know is better for me, but I can’t help thinking about what she doing. Her room is never open so I can’t go in and snoop around if I wanted to. She started going on these trips a few years ago when Ricky was old enough to look after both of us and started going away only once a month but after Ricky left for the Marines it became a more frequent thing with her. The only good thing about her leaving is that