In the fields of Grandmother's dead dandelions, moon spread across the earth like a hand over a wet basketball, Boy-Shaman decides to call for the rain. He drags along a bright orange dolly with a sheet of warped, unpainted plywood laid across the top-a makeshift boxcar he built after dinner-up a hill. In truth, it is Grandmother's biggest hill, a mountain of sorts, covered in the white, puffy heads of departed weeds.
Before Boy-Shaman realizes it, he has already made it to the apex of Grandmother's hill. There, he stops, looks up to God and demands to know, Where is my thunderstorm? Where is my rain?
Above, the sky is clear and the little pecks of stars mock him and his boyish need to see results from his demands. But, instead of weakening quickly as he has done in the past, Boy-Shaman sits on the scratchy plywood of his boxcar with the slick grip of the dolly held tight by both hands. Looking down onto Grandmother's property-an expansive lot of high grass, maple trees, and a little slice of lakefront-he calls out again, "Rain! Rain! Darn it! Rain!" He closes his eyes, waits for the sound of precipitation on the ground. There is none.
His feet slide off the plywood, on to the prickly, tall grass that crunches under his feet, forms little spikes that scratch against his ankles. He kicks the ground back, rolls forward, opens his eyes, lifts his feet onto the plywood again and feels the weight of the heavy boxcar begin rushing him down the hill, wobbling.
A brazen child, forgetful of all passed failure in rain-summoning, lights the air behind him with the lively feathers of weed spores that fly up from the little black wheels of his boxcar. New wishes, he thinks, new powers to be used.
Boy-Shaman comes to the end of his ride as the boxcar bounces to a halt somewhere down the hill, now at the edge of Grandmother‘s driveway. He gets off the car, a little shaken from the rush of adrenaline resulting from such a treacherous trip. He turns around, sees that the floating white hairballs of dandelion have drifted off into the void of dark sky. He smiles and centers his mind on rain.
"I am the maker of Rain," he says again and again, until his mind is clear and a feeling of power moves through his arms. Then, Boy-Shaman begins to perform the ancestral dance on his grandmother's asphalt, between her Jeep Grand Cherokee and his father's Buick Century. Shaking, jumping, he runs to find a stick, does so under the branches of a maple tree, and beats it against Grandmother's rusty blue swing set. He chases away Aunt Kathy's Maltese puppy named Pinky. He jumps up and down on a large, round rock. He runs a circle around the old stone house, around a deep hole Father dug to fix Grandmother's septic tank.
And there, above him now, the clouds are rolling in. Dark, beautiful, ominous clouds. They have obeyed his commands, his shaman strength.
Soon, the death-rattle of rain, fierce and natural on the hoods of cars, the roof of Grandmother's house, the reaped dead dandelions. Boy-Shaman revels in his newfound command of the elements on a tree near Grandmother's little shed. It was a tree he had yet not dared to climb before; but now, the rain he loves, his rain and his thunder, give him the cunning and strength to scale the tree. His socks muddy, his shirt wet, and his father calling from under an umbrella on Grandmother's porch…it all feels like a cool chocolate milkshake on his arms and neck. Like God must feel in the tingles of power that pulse in his legs.
Boy-Shaman climbs as high as he can and sits on a wet, black bough, recalling the fellas down the street and the game of football they all played earlier that day. They called him from Grandmother's house and he counted his bruises for them, out in the sunshine. Boy-Shaman told them, "I conjured this stuff. This sun, you know? These are the bruises I got from all the conjuring." The fellas believed him like they believed scar stories, like jelly sandwiches, like his victory over Mario Two. Like Jailbreak when he passed that babysitter, tagged base, saved them all and kept those dirty Lopez kids from down the street looking for another hour. Oh sweet revenge. "Piss on my trampoline again, you dirty Lopez kids!" Boy-Shaman yelled. Still, the fellas never believed that he was their savior. They only thought he was a little crazy.
Boy-Shaman remembers earlier that day, drinking muddy water on a bike ride, trying to impress Lacey. He remembers the salted brownies! Oh, Sister got him back for that dollhouse he broke.
Boy-Shaman reaches out, plucks a leaf from the tree beside Grandmother's little shed. He licks a drop of rain from its clean, green surface. He is proud, so very proud of his magic that that raindrop tastes of a sweet drink he sipped earlier that morning with Sister. It was the summer-sweet burgundy taste of a Wild Cherry Kool-Aid on the shore of the dirty lake that sits a little ways outside of Grandmother's lot. It is an important place for Boy-Shaman, where he gets his powers. He learned to swim and play Hearts there, last year.
Why, just this morning, a little flock of ducks was there, too. They were dunking their heads, striking down at wet bread that Boy-Shaman had tossed in the lake, commanded that they eat of it. He wondered, Do those dumb ducks like their bread wet or dry? He wanted to demand the ducks to eat something they didn't enjoy; it would prove his power better.
"Hey ducks!" Boy-Shaman screamed, "Do you like-" Before he could find out any information with his duck-listening power, all of those ugly birds stopped eating the bread. Before anything could be asked, all but one duck had flown away.
Boy-Shaman was slightly disheartened, but decided to ask that one duck his opinion of bread moisture. After all, he thought, one duck's opinion is as good as any other's.
Maybe not this duck. This was the only duck that wasn't eating the bread he had tossed into the water. This duck was the only duck not moving. It was limp on the little round rocks that lined the lake with browns and grays. It was letting the small ripples of water occasionally splash against it. Boy-Shaman walked up to the duck. "Hey, do you like your bread wet or dry?"
There was no answer.
"Hey duck….Wake up." Boy-Shaman prodded the duck with the tip of his naked toe. "Duck?"
The duck didn't move.
But Boy-Shaman doesn't know about death-the finality of all things, even things as lowly as the common mallard-and he didn't then. So, as he looked down into the ugly, wet feathers, Boy-Shaman formulated an idea to get the duck to answer. He walked up to it and picked up a rock that had been lying right under its limp, slick-black head. He blessed the rock-a little gray rock-with the name of God, raised his hand, and began commanding that the duck answer his question. He stood above it, waited for a few seconds, and then let the rock fall on its little head.
The duck startled, shook the water from its feathers, and noticed the little boy looming above it. Quickly, it flew away from the edge of the lake. But as it did so, it was answering, "Wet! Wet! Wet!"
Now, sitting in Grandmother's tree, licking the rain off of leafs and hands, Boy-Shaman is still remembering the empty spot from where the duck had risen. He is recalling how he picked up his magic rock again, rubbed it around in the palm of his hand, and decided to skip it across that lake. He is remembering how it only skipped okay.
But Boy-Shaman knows that next time, when he remembers to use his powers, it'll skip five…six…maybe even seven times. Someday, he'll skip another magic rock so far across that lake it'll hit the other side.
Someday soon, Boy-Shaman thinks, or probably tomorrow.