Here comes the rain (Buddie) - English

Chapter 3: The ones left

A man in his forties, hunched by both years and a motorcycle accident five years prior, stands facing a folding wooden table. With his back to the entrance of the small room, he pours coffee into a plastic cup, paying no mind to what might happen behind him. An old radio on the seat of a chair plays a System of a Down tune, but the volume is so low that Serj Tankian's deep notes resemble Anthony Kiedis's high ones. Focused, the man tries to control the indecent trembling of his hand holding the Thermos while aiming into the tiny plastic cup. He takes his coffee black, preferring it bitter, needing something strong enough to keep him awake at least until lunch. With a shuffling step, mainly caused by the metal fragment that entered his chest and pierced his spine, narrowly avoiding paralysis for life, he approaches the windows. Swiftly, he pulls down the blinds and then raises them all the way up, glancing inquisitively at the spiders, which stir only slightly. A diffuse yellow light brightens the room, casting rectangular shapes on the old parquet floor, eaten away by moths and smelling of decay and damp wood. A thick cloud of dust hangs in the sunlight, and he coughs, covering his scarred hand over his mouth. 

A dozen chairs have been taken down from the left wall and unfolded before being arranged in a circle in the middle of the small room. They were all empty, their plastic bleached by time, but glancing at the digital watch on his wrist, he knew it wouldn't be long before they were occupied. Leaning against the table, whose stability was not entirely certain, he opens his flip phone and dials a number on its keypad. Time and desert sand had dirtied every small crevice of his phone, so he doesn't hear much through the speaker. He holds it to his ear and listens to the robotic voice of the woman on the phone telling him how many messages he has on his voicemail.

The first is from his mother. She's an old lady with a quavering voice and a deaf ear who never quite knows how to use her smartphone, although she always manages to reach her son, who rarely ever answers. Knowing full well that the message she probably left by mistake would be nothing but a string of grumbles as she tries to turn off her screen without success, he deletes it and moves on to the next. Marvin Lockwood, the sender of the second message, is a promising young boy and a big basketball enthusiast. He often occupies the outskirts of Los Angeles, where crime and lawlessness run rampant, and where kids get killed when they meddle in things they shouldn't. That's also where the police seldom venture, but where firefighters show up every day to deal with knife wounds or stray bullets hitting bystanders.

The basketball court is located under the bridge at the intersection of Long Beach and Alondra, just a few steps from the body shop that takes up the entire vacant lot to store its 15-ton beasts. The 9-1-1 center frequently receives calls from Emile Esposito, the owner, asking them to come and drive away the riffraff and drug dealers occupying the industrial area under the bridge. He's far from being the only one to complain, but he's the only one bold enough to intervene.

His garage had already been riddled with bullets earlier in the year. A police raid had taken place in a squat a few streets away, and unfortunately, his name had leaked out through the sources. Since then, he had been hiding a shotgun under his reception desk, a Glock in one of his toolboxes, and a revolver at his belt, and he hadn't had any trouble since. Not since a kid from the main street, who had come to play at the basketball court, was gunned down by a gang member seeking revenge on Esposito. Now, cameras had been installed under the bridge, and even though a few vandals persisted in tagging them, there was always a kind soul who spent their nights watching over the neighborhood.

In his message, Marvin announces that he won't be able to come to the friendly match scheduled for that evening. His mother grounded him for skipping classes too often, and he grumbles that if he doesn't obey, he risks losing all his chances of getting into a good school, something he doesn't dream of, but which his father imposes on him if he wants to join the Los Angeles team.