Today, the omnipresent rain botches a field trip. At 6:15am, I am at home drinking coffee. At 6:45, I am showered and dressed. At 7am, another graduate student in my geology program calls me on the phone. “Good morning, it’s Brooke,” she says. “I’m in front of your house.”
I look out the window. Her silver car isn’t visible. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Maybe not. What’s your number?”
“1680.”
“Oh. I think I’m up the block.”
I haul my gear out to the car.
We drive out of DC. Brooke greets the Kennedy Center as we pass it on our
way over the Potomac. In Virginia, we roll smoothly west along the pavement,
while inbound traffic is stalled for miles. It starts raining as we cross
the Fairfax County line.
The day’s destination is the field site where Brooke will be doing her
thesis work, the Quaker Run shear zone. We near it after close to three hours
of driving. The rain is coming down thick and steady. I look up from my National
Geographic and make the suggestion that it might be a nice time to get a cup
of coffee and wait for the weather to pass.
We turn and drive to the town of Madison, Virginia. At the recommendation
of two construction workers, we find a small pharmacy and lunch counter. Painted
on the glass door is MADISON DRUG. When we push open the door, a piece of
paper taped to it flares upwards. It says “FORD F-150 GREAT DEAL CHEAP.”
Inside on one of the lunch counter’s stools, there is a stack of The
Madison Eagle's latest edition. Headline: “MCHS Takes Academic Cup for
7th Year.” Madison is on its twenty-second continuous day of precipitation.
We sit at one of two square tables, surrounded by Hallmark cards, Dr. Scholl’s
inserts, and candy bars. The tables are topped in green Formica, and edged
in a chrome strip with four raised ridges. Between the ridges, there is an
encrustation of dry ketchup. On top of the table are: a battered salt shaker,
a dusty pepper shaker, a napkin dispenser, a sugar canister, and a menu with
the lamination peeling off.
“Help ya’ll?”
“Cup of coffee; is that possible?”
“It is possible.”
We sit. The waitress brings two ceramic mugs of hot coffee. A little stainless
steel carafe of cold milk is set between them. I pick up the menu. Coffee
is only 10¢. So is a Coke! They offer a pimento cheese sandwich for $1.95,
chips for 45¢, and “nabs” for 40¢.
“Brooke, what’s a ‘nab’?”
Tootsie pops are another item on the menu: a quarter each. A cup of ice water
would cost you another dime.
The front of the drugstore faces Main Street. Four plate glass windows show
the continually falling rain. By my reckoning, each window measures four feet
by six feet. Each one presents twenty-four square feet of the same grey skies,
the same vertical dashes of rain. There is a building of brown bricks across
Main Street. Next to it is a telephone pole, heavy with plaits of cable coming
from four directions. Beyond the wires is an Ailanthus tree, its fronds drooping
under the weight of droplets. The inside of the windows displays a butterfly
collection in stained glass: each insect sculpture hanging by a gold braid
to a transparent suction cup. Below them: a green plastic watering can, with
a magic marker inscription that reads MADISON DRUG.
I read about India’s Untouchable caste in National Geographic. Brooke
reads a historical novel called Maya. I sneak peeks at my surroundings. Above
the lunch counter is a white sign with black plastic letters. SANDWICHES.
HOT SOUPS. ICE CREAM SPECIALS. Below the last is the cryptic message “Give
your tongue a sleigh ride.”
Three customers come in. A child pokes around behind the counter, asks what
each cabinet holds. One woman discusses the effect of the rain on her husband’s
employment.
“He’s worked one day in the past week.”
“Is that so?”
“The tractor keeps keeping bogged down in the mud.”
I look up at the window; the clouds are still shedding. Brooke is edgy. I’d
be happy to sit here all day, but it’s her project. Grey dashes in the
air. We decide to head for the field regardless. We drove all this way, after
all. Then we decide to bag it all and head back to the university. We’d
be soaked before we even reached the outcrop, after all. Despite wasting six
hours of gasoline, it would be wiser to wait for better weather.
We stand at the counter to pay for our coffee. The total bill is 22¢.