Front after front sweeping through. And the radar rainfall maps look always as if they are covered in ROYGBIV jellybeans. The color spectrum always darkest where there is the most rain and then radiating outward toward the rind of the citrus colors. And always Christchurch is covered in the orange, in the yellow, in the green. Front after front after front. But I am yet to see a single drop of rain.
Since the day that Caroline and Brittany and Eva packed up and zipped away north in their Mazda, I am yet to see a single drop of rain. These are the hot days. Above 30 degrees Celsius, reaching the upper 80s and into the 90s on the old F scale.
The cloud cover complete. A dome of white heat and the sun baking us from without. We are the innards of a hot pocket popped into a microwave. We are the soupy guts of mulligan stew within the aluminum foil wrapper. We sitting silent and brought almost to a boil here in the coals of the campfire.
But it is not a stagnant heat. See. Though the rain gods have spared this Christchurch City, the winds and always the winds rage constant. Billowing the bulge of the trees, the foliage like living sails, leaf bags full of wind and bending the trunk-masts. All of it anchored only by roots and some of the trees still look certain to take flight. To jibe into the sky and beyond.
Day trips to Castle Hill.
Afternoon trips to Jellie Park.
Another night on the town. First it is goons slapped on the hardwood: full bellies of wine. Then it is goons slapped on the hardwood: empty bags plastic. And empty. A troop headed down. Down from the girlfriend’s swank pad. Former girlfriend now after a silent battle royale where we were all present and apparently oblivious to the breaking. Or maybe it was just me.
But what is done is done. Mark is a free man. And the pretty lights shine and we eventually make it to Mackers. What? Grease? “Get ‘ur down ‘ya.” Yes, a meal before moving on. And on to the bars. But the night wilts fast and we find ourselves on an empty dance floor with drum and base music thumping in the empty around us. It is done. Cabs on the street and back to the flat. It is done.
And on another night, a lunar eclipse as soon as darkness descends on the city sky. Through the cloud reefs watch the moon disappear in an ever descending crescent. We sitting on car roofs in the driveway of the flat. We spooning ice cream and steaming hot chocolate pudding from bowls. We eyes and our eyes glued to the shrinking circle. And then out of the other side the brightness swallowing the shadow until she inhales and is full again. The clouds like streamers drifting, and Mark wonders aloud “how many people will kill themselves tonight.”
The string of north westers as sure a sign as any that there are unhappy people in the city of Christchurch. “It’s a statistic,” he says, “more people kill themselves” under the cloud cover of the north wester sweep. “It’s a statistic.” And the wind howls through the channels of the city. The scream of the thriller. With the moon buoyant there in the black and the clouds streaming over her.
There is no room for discussion. For inside the movie waits, paused in mid-sentence on the laptop. And we file back into the house, one after another, like moths to the digital glow.
On Wednesday the clouds have blown past. Gone with the full moon. So it is all blue skies on the drive to Taylor’s Mistake. Alone in the car, blue skies and the sun beating down as I navigate city streets, as I steer vaguely toward the coast.
Another day of breaking in the boots. Already I have exhausted the immensity of Hagley Park and the Botanical Gardens beside the hospital. Hagley to Christchurch as Central to New York, New York.
And now to move on to the coast. The Corolla rolling around the water’s edge. Through the town of Sumner. Through the town of summer and through the town Sumner and over the hill to Taylor’s Mistake. Taylor’s Mistake named after the faulty map that Captain Taylor drew. The map that failed to show the inlet where the inlet was.
A beautiful black sand beach packed with bunches of babes in bikinis and the blue-green water peppered with surfers and body boarders languid in the swells and always looking for the next big wave.
In the parking lot I strap black leather over wool socks and set off toward Godley Head—into the Port Hills—up and up and up and over the hard packed winding, the waves crashing below against the rocks and the wind gusting over the grass. A rippling. A rippling golden current over the land swelling.
And the people I pass must surely think I’m a Douche. Here is a beach track. Here is a beach track people. Shirtless and in swimsuits. People in flip-flops and sunglasses. Here is a people laughing and skipping. People kissing in the grass beside the track.
And here is the hardcore. Here is the hardcore hiker coming at them. Power walking in clodhoppers and calf-high wool socks. Here is the hardcore with a backpack strapped to his back. Here he comes sweating and breathing heavily. Here he comes. Get out of the way. Here he comes.
What a day. Boots beaten but not yet broken. But they are on the way.
And I am on the way.
After a trip to Castle Hill. After a send fest at Castle Hill. I am on the way. After a send fest at Castle Hill and after driving back and drinking rum out of a Power Aid bottle at the flat. After squirting rum into my mouth like a sports star at the Alcoholic Olympics and taking a bus to the bar where Mark pretended to hit me with a pool cue and then forgot that he was pretending and broke a pool cue over my arm. After all this I am on the way.
On the way to Kaikora. Christmas Eve and sunny skies. To the east coast for hot fun in the summer time. To the east coast to meet my gorgeous North Carolina Comrades. To the east coast for pretty girls, good food, and cheap wine. To the east coast for Christmas. To the east coast.
And I am on the way.
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