COME HELL OR HIGH WATER!

                                        COME HELL OR HIGH WATER!

                                 HARRY THOMAS DANVERS

 

                            "I don't remember when I ever saw anything like it! About three o'clock in the morning I went up on the second story and watched how the tin roof flopped up and down, until I thought I lost it all!"Haraldo confessed, as they sat huddled on the wet cement, in front of the cantina.

                 He didn't look at anyone as he spoke, neither did anyone look at him. He hadn't shaved for days and both the hair on his face and head appeared to have gotten a little whiter this last week, when the rain never ceased and everyone was short of Arcs.

                           "The whole side of our house caved in where we put the drainage pipes. The earth was soft because of that and now...Now we have a whole a kilometer wide!"

                 Chepe didn't look at anybody either and it was obvious that they were all in shock, for there were no exchanges of brotherly hugs or jokes, as was the Latin custom.

                           "And the hail storm we had before that?"Hector inquired. He was the4 first to stand up, as he was seated at the end of the stoop. "Did you ever see anything like that before?"

                     No one spoke, nor talked directly to anyone, for they were all reliving the tragedies of their real life dramas. Fortunately no one was killed or hurt in the barrio. There were a lot of repairs to be made, but he sky had cleared and they were only a little drunk.

                            "It's the same thing all over,"Rene, who was just one of their members who had lived in the States, said: "When I was in Kansas, they had tornados and in Texas draughts. A lot of hurricanes in Miami and floods in Ohio."

                            "My uncle lives in Chicago and he says you could freeze to death there just walking down the street in winter!" another one ventured.

                           "My aunt says the same thing about New York City!"yet another added in haste.

                 Perhaps they were unknowingly making allowances for their own natural disasters, in a world which was perplex and dubious in its final outcome. For whatever reason, it was all tied up with the final statement, by someone else who had lived in the States.

                           "I remember when I lived in Ohio, where I worked construction. I didn't speak much English, but there was a storm that washed away beams, blocks and cement.  The gringo that was the foreman there, cursed and kept saying the same thing."

                           "What did he say? "Everyone asked, as though coming painfully alive or shaken from a wretched dream:

                             "Come hell or high water!"Was his answer, but the pronunciation was so altered that it was incomprehensible. At the same time, no one knew English very well anyway.  Thus, they were left to look up at the sky and wait, expectedly.