I sat under the metal carport butted up against the taco truck as the bottom fell out of the sky just after dark on a Friday night.
The abandoned parking lot of whatever box store shuttered several years ago made for an inviting dinner companion and I had the whole place to myself as the leaded rain pellets danced around the perimeter of my castle.
Isolation compounded by abandonment, squared, enveloped in a torrential downpour I spent two days watching build up over the river equals the sort of dessert not found on the menu. The kind that nobody else can savor. The kind of dessert kept away from assholes and orneriness. And pigs. The sort of unspoken love only a Mexican woman could wield with a quick comprehensive diagnostic of a man’s face unabridged.
I took the wrapper off my root beer dum dum and just before I put it in my mouth, I dipped it in the top layer of my horchata and for a moment, seven year old me felt at peace in the arms of unspoken embrace and the mutual gratitude for one another’s silent yet happenstance company in the waning hours of daily commerce.