“You gotta let that go. Let the rain wash it away.”
Forbes wiped the sweat off his brow with his stump hand. He dumped the contents of
the thermos on it. Ice water soaked into the cl oth and soil. It began to evaporate. “If it aint
gonna wash away, then maybe somethin’ll grow,” he said in a futile, gasping anger. “Now go
on.” He felt a gnawing to get away from his field.
He went into the Burlap Tongue. When things had been good it had been his watering hole — a
throne room in a way, where he crowned himself illegally for his mastery at manipulating the
heavens. But he hadn’t been back for many years. He sat at the end of the bar where it hooked
toward a wood carving of a seedless watermelon. Adam Lancaster, in his fifties, was in the
corner alone trying to make peanuts stick on a dart board; Nick, his uncle, read the newspaper.
There was no one else in the bar. Nick looked up.
“Well well. If it aint good ol’ farmer Forbes. Good to see you!” He reached to shake his
hand but when Forbes’ extended his stump wrist, he pulled back, blushing. “I’m sorry. I
forgot.”
“What happened to the juke box?”
“Had to sell it.” He fetched a glass and began pouring him a drink. He set the drink
before him. “Frothing, for you. One Rain Catcher.”
“Just give me water.”
He hated this place. It wasn’t like those times long ago when you had to stand in line
for a drink and get spilled on while you waited, when you couldn’t hear your wife talking in
your ear about what she thirsted for, when there were three of them behind the bar working
quick to pour your drink. Most of them had moved away, somehow shriveling up with the hard
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