Clark and Praado plodded back to their home while minatory clouds rolled in from the sea. The wind formed morning waves on the sea.
Clark saw lightning on the horizon as he entered his house. Clark opened the door just as sprinkles of rain graced his brow. Praado, behind him with his tail between his legs, darted into the living room and scurried down the cellar stairs to his hiding place.
Janene, no longer exercising, was wearing a black bath robe and listening to the weather forecast on TV. A tropical storm was forecast for the rest of the day. Clark winced at this unwelcome news. He had planned to spend the day with Janene to discuss their future. He needed to talk; that would have to wait until this storm passed.
"Clark, have you closed the garage door?" There was a sense of urgency in Janine's voice; that, and a resonance of fear. She had been in a hurricane in Florida when she was ten years old. Her mother met her death in that storm.
"No." Clark said in a calm voice but with a taut smile. He turned to go to the garage when a bolt of lightning followed by a sizzling crack of thunder shook the house. "That was too close," Clark uttered under his breath, closing the door behind him. The wind howled through the chink of the partially opened living-room window.
"I'll wait a minute," Clark said to himself. "No use risking being struck by lightening."
Popeye was not concerned about being in the jaws of gale force winds and thunder and rain and lightning. For a parrot he was loquacious and during the thunder he blurted, as he sidled to and fro on his T-stand, "OH BOY, WHAT FUN. DO IT AGAIN PRAADO. WHAT FUN. I'M A SEXY BIRD. I SAW THE LIGHT. KNOCK, KNOCK, WHO'S THERE. WHO'S ON SECOND. YOUR SLIP'S SHOWING.MAIS QUI." He pooped on the rug beneath him and again began his litany.
"Shut up," Clark screamed, "or you'll be out in the rain!"
Popeye screamed, "I'M SEXY BIRD, I'M SEXY TURD," then belched. His beak parted into a sardonic smile while ducking a tossed roll of tissue paper. The roll glanced off the T-stand, missed Popeye by a wing but hit the table lamp, knocking the lamp over and breaking its bulb.
"Damn it," Clark blurted.
"DAMN IT," Popeye squawked.
The wind outside howled. Clark opened the door to go out to close the garage door, the wind pushed him back. The wind then ripped the screen door off its hinges. The palm tree to his right bowed to the wind as if saying, "Okay, okay, uncle, uncle, I give up." The rain fell as would a cascade over a cliff. Clark could not see two feet in front of him.
"This is ridiculous," Clark said out loud to himself. "I'm going back in." He turned round to return to the shelter of his house when he noticed Janene with a terrified look peering out the living room picture window.
Clark re-entered the house drenched. His hair, usually brown, appeared a pomaded black. His face, dampened by the rain and buffeted by the recalcitrant wind, appeared pallid. His eyes were dilated from fear. His thoughts, however, were on sex, the energy of the surrounding storm making him feel amorous. Even so, he knew that Janene would not be in the mood. She was in the downstairs bathroom now huddled in the bathtub. She was huddled in the tub singing under her breath: "Jesus loves me yes I know for the Bible loves me so. . . " The last thing on her mind was making love.
After Clark re-oriented himself to the present moment and after his transient thought of sex left him, he decided that he would sit out the storm in the living-room by reading a novel. In a split second the house went dark.
Clark, groping his way, lolled his muscled frame down into his plush living room divan while Popeye sang: "Jesus loves me yes I know." Janene was in the bathroom now humming "Amazing Grace," and Praado, no longer whimpering in the basement, was lying on the cement floor of the basement, his front paws covering his two eyes, his tail inert.
