Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta Page A

again.
    “Dude,” I say into the phone.
    “Well, hello there.” It's my mother. She sounds a little tipsy. “I saw you on the late news.”
    “I was on the news?”
    “Your town, silly. Good old Moundville.” She laughs. “Mudville, USA. They said it stopped raining, just like that.”
    “Yep,” I say, like it's no big deal.
    “Who woulda thunk it?”
    “Not me,” I say. “Next thing you know, the Cubs will win the World Series.”
    She laughs. “Or maybe Moundville will even beat Sinis-ter Bend! Hey, I sent you a postcard from Chicago. Did you get it?”
    “Yeah. Thanks. I added it to the collection.” She sent me a postcard from U.S. Cellular, though, not Wrigley Field.
    “Anyway,” she says, “I just wanted to say congratulations. Hey, tell your dad he can finally finish that baseball game. Ifthey can round everyone up.” She laughs again and starts singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
    Now I know she's tipsy.
    “Well, thanks for calling.” I hang up the phone right in the middle of the part about how she doesn't care if she never gets back.
    The next day is the Fourth of July. It's a perfect day for it, too: sunny and not a drop of rain. Around noon, I get an itch to head outside and see what's going on.
    “Want to go hang out downtown?” I ask Sturgis. He's on the couch, reading one of his paperback books.
    “I don't think so,” he says. “I've been wanting to reread this series for a while. Roger Zelazny.” He looks at me hope-fully, but I've never heard of the guy and don't care.
    “You're going to hang out inside when it's actually not raining?”
    He shrugs. “Inside's okay,” he says. “I just kind of want to read.”
    “Didn't you say yourself that it would probably start up again? What if it's the only nice day for the next twenty-two years?”
    “There's a short story like that by Ray Bradbury,” he says. “It takes place on a planet where the sun comes out for a few hours every seven years. One kid spends the whole day locked in a closet.”
    “And you want to be that kid?”
    “Yeah. I always identified with that kid.”

    My dad is in the office, messing with invoices or something.
    “Want to go kick around town?” I ask him.
    “Maybe later. I'm trying to figure out how to give every-one two weeks’ severance pay without selling our house.”
    “Well, I'm going to head out,” I tell him. “Just in case this is the one sunny day in my whole life. I don't want to be like the kid in the Roger Bradbury story.” That sounds wrong, but whatever.
    “All right. Have fun.”
    What a couple of sad sacks, I think as I bang out the door.
    I'm glad to discover I'm not the only one eager to get out and enjoy the weather. People are setting up rusty old grills in their driveways, trying to light age-old charcoal. They're in the street, tossing Nerf footballs and Frisbees. One family has even dumped enough fresh sand in their muddy yard to have a go at volleyball.
    It occurs to me that I don't really know everyone, the way you're supposed to in a small town. Everyone was inside all the time, and even outside they were hidden under hoods and umbrellas. I walk along, waving at all the neighbors and wishing I could halfway whistle. I'm just in that kind of mood.
    Downtown, there's an impromptu block party. Most towns have them on the Fourth, but Moundville never has in my lifetime. Everyone packs off to Sutton or wherever for barbecue and fireworks. This year, everyone has gathered downtown.
    There's a big grill going—who knows where they found it—and a snow cone machine and an ice cream truck and popcorn and cotton candy. There's a rock band playing in the ruins of the grandstand and a guy dressed like Uncle Sam, on stilts, making balloon animals for kids. It's strange to see all this among the washed-out buildings and gray mud. It reminds me of this weird painting I saw once, because the background is the same, like a desert on Pluto. Only instead of melting clocks and