Years later would be the train tracks that maneuvered between charming Franklin facades and Civil War landmarks. Dobermans on blue rope and teenagers on blue acid, or something like that. An early spring storm stranded us in a music store on the square downtown. He went for the car; I stayed with the violin bow. In our haste, we forgot the rosin. Yanking down the rearview mirror, I picked hail from my hair and wondered if you could be electrocuted on a swingset during a thunderstorm if you weren't holding the chains. Sparks on the gravel and currents in every link.
And the Sangre de Cristo, the northernmost trickles of the Rio Grande. In Franklin thunderstorms had been intimate affairs, threats stroking bare shoulders, pretty displays of waterfalls down front stoops. But from Orphan Mesa we counted the seconds between the flash and the boom, waiting for the sky to ripen into charcoal. Most of the time we lost our nerve and ran for cover before the clouds broke.
The owner of the music store had rushed out with a squeal when the thunder had first cracked and the lights died. Behind her the storm door had flapped flaglike in the gusts. I made it to the car okay. His bow didn't. We wrung our hair onto our pants.
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