It's Raining Again

This is what I call a color sketch. The sort of thing I usually vent into notebooks. Please evaluate it. I want to find out I have an aptitude for writing. If not, I will go away and continue screaming therapeutically onto paper. Note: I have never shown my efforts to anyone except my wife. Note: she does not speak English.


It’s Raining Again

This time of year rain falls almost daily here in Costa Rica.

In Lomas, the wet stuff has been falling since mid afternoon. Sometimes heavy, sometimes just light and steady. A poorer area of San Jose, Lomas after dark has little to recommend it. The patched pothole streets are illuminated only here and there by the orangish glow of sodium street lamps. The smell of poverty is pervasive and in the rain; Lomas smells like a dirty, wet dog.

When it rains, garbage washes down the gutters plugging the few drain grates the locals haven’t ripped out and sold for their metal content. The large holes left behind are deep and a real hazard to the unwary. What remains of the wet smelly rubbish gets plastered into chinks in the cracked, buckled, and crumbling concrete sidewalks.

It is well past 3 AM and almost all of the cars have been moved inside and locked away behind windowless sheet steel doors. Thieves are ubiquitous here and the few vehicles left on the streets are up on blocks and gutted.

The poorly stuccoed cinder block dwellings are grimy, with peeling pastel paint and rusted corrugated sheet metal roofs. All have barred windows and metal doors. Most are set back 8 or 10 feet from high steel bar fencing abutting the sidewalk. Topped with razor band and sometimes electrified wire these fences provide necessary protection. Video surveillance cameras, mounted well up and out of reach, mark less poverty stricken households.

Barrio streets are mostly deserted at this hour, populated only by a few vagrants and the occasional local drunk sleeping off a skin full of cheap rum under old cardboard in the limited protection afforded by a doorway. I move down the center of the streets, not getting close to shadowed doorways, alley entrances, and the like. I check over my shoulder often. I have learned it pays to be careful. Every so often I note a pair, or maybe a threesome, of seedy looking individuals, sheltering under some building’s overhang and passing a plastic bottle back and forth. We silently check each other out as I pass.

I’ve been walking for almost three quarters of an hour. My cheap windbreaker long since stopped protecting me from the elements leaving me wet and chilled to the bone. It crosses my tired mind that most people don’t know you can freeze your butt off in a Central American country like Costa Rica.

It has been a long day and a longer night. I am headed home. As I pass along the rain slick streets, I am genuinely looking forward to a hot shower and sleep.

Stopping before a sheet steel door set into a large sliding garage door I look up and down the street then key the lock. Entering the empty garage, I quietly secure the door and let my eyes become adjusted to the dim light. Crossing the space to a locked gate, I pause a second, open the pad lock, enter, and then re-lock the gate behind me. Making my way around the side of the building I climb a flight of stairs and pause before the door to my apartment. Using a small keychain flash light, I note my small coin is still in wedged between the door and the doorjamb, exactly where I stuck it some 20 hours ago. The coin is a tell. It lets me know if the door has been opened. Slowly opening the door, I let the coin slip from its place, noting that the tails side is facing me. All is well.

Entering the apartment, I pause for a second in the dark, listening to the steady beat of rain on the tin roof. Sensing that I am alone, I reach for a dimmer and slowly bring the lights up. I tap a remote on the small table near the door. A Mozart piano concerto softly floods the room.

I strip off the wet windbreaker and drop it on the tiled floor. Then, removing an old .45 Cal. Colt auto from the holster under my left armpit, I cross to the small kitchenette. Using a hand towel, I carefully wipe the old automatic down and replace it in the holster. I do the same with the 4 extra magazines I carry. I enter the bathroom and hang the shoulder holster from the inside doorknob. Stripping naked I enter the shower and turn on the water. As the water comes up to temperature, steam begins to rise. I begin to relax a little. Shutting the shower off I grab a large towel from the towel bar and the shoulder holster from the doorknob. Padding naked into the kitchenette, with the towel over my shoulder, I hang the gun on the back of a chair. Opening a cabinet, I remove a bottle of 12-year-old rum and pour an inch into a glass tumbler. Sipping the amber liquid, I roll it around on my tongue, and stand dripping on the floor with my eyes closed, listening to Mozart.

Life can be depressing but maybe tomorrow will be better than today was. Deep down I doubt it, and settle for hoping things won't be any worse.