When the Lights Come Up by Vance Anthony

Author:Vance Anthony [Anthony, Vance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Maestro and I met Hugo and Matti behind the building, across the alley along a narrow bed of mulch and young trees where the residents of Stratus regularly allowed their dogs to relieve themselves. Matti stood with his back to the building while Hugo sniffed around in the mulch. As soon as Maestro noticed them, he darted ahead, drawing me close to Matti, who hadn’t noticed a lock of his hair sticking up in the back, a token of our hot, hasty exploit. It was adorable. When Matti noticed Maestro, he turned to face me with a smile. I attempted to flatten his cowlick, but it didn’t work.

As soon as we began walking, a renewed interest in conversation materialized, and I knew this wouldn’t be just a quick bedtime stroll around the block. A subconscious attempt to make the moment last lingered between us. Heat lightning pierced through the dark sky in the distance as we ambled across Grove Avenue and into the Garden District. The neighborhood wasn’t desolate—there were still people out finishing their dinners, enjoying leisurely cocktails, walking their dogs—but it was a weeknight, so the area seemed comparatively quiet.

Summer callously approached, and the moisture in the air made it clear. Few words could be used to describe summer nights in Atlanta: thick, heavy, dense. Each one of them was more palatable than those used to epitomize the afternoon hours.

We were six blocks away from our building when the first droplets of rain began to fall. They were few and far between at first, sort of like the clouds couldn’t decide if they felt like doing something that night or not, lazily fidgeting on the couch, trying to decide whether they’d call a friend to go out. By the time we heard the first crash of thunder following a flash of lightning that appeared closer than the other strikes we’d noticed in the distance, they’d made their decision. It would be a night out after all, a raging party of a storm.

The skies opened up, and the downpour caught us in its grip. Matti and I had been so wrapped up in each other that we hadn’t paid much mind to the weather forecast. In a labored jog, we dragged the dogs through the rain on our way back to Stratus. We picked up speed as we went, as the rain did in intensity, bounding past houses and cars as the drops pummeled us like acorns falling from trees. At one point, we stopped and purposefully splashed in the puddles that formed near the curbs on Grove. The storm had caught us anyway. We laughed as we kicked water at one another, the dogs jumping and splashing as though it was a game created for them.

Anyone passing us by in their vehicles or looking down from apartment windows above would have found the scene to be comical, I’m sure: two lovestruck fools so involved in their affair they couldn’t be bothered to get a grip, to glance out the window long enough to see a storm brewing.

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