They got out of the rain. Four of them.
They were in northern California, in October, had found no work and hitched toward a town that did not exist. They were stuck in a state park. Miles of road on deep ravines with rapids charging up from below, forested mountains in every direction. No lights, no chimney smoke, no cars for hours. The rain had picked up while they were on the shoulder, fighting and they had trudged an hour before finding shelter, an old cabin, or just its porch; the thing had fallen down with just the roof of the porch still standing. The light faded around the huge hills and it got colder and the rain hammered the roof they were huddling together under. They rubbed their hands together and took off their wet jackets. Dick Metal took off his soaked Chucks and wet socks, hung his sleeping bag up to dry. They sat close to one another. Percy, Enid and Squalaura took their sleeping bags from their stuff-sacks, unzipped them and draped them around one another as evenly as they could.
Enid made a squat candle: She took a metal can and broke off wax chunks from a plastic bag of busted candles into the bottom. She took a chunk of waxed, corrugated cardboard from her bag and tore it into a wick. It was slightly shorter than the height of the can when she placed it inside. She feathered the end with her thumbnail and lit it. The flame took and they saw each others faces again. They all held their hands to the flame. Dick Metal moved his scummy feet toward the fire. They took out their crackers, their peanut butter, an apple, Slim Jims, one flask of whiskey, a pouch of tobacco and shared them. Enid fed chunks of wax into the can and acrid black smoke poured off as the plastic lining of the can burned out.
They had not known one another for more than a week, had come together hitching down: Percy from Bellingham, Dick Metal and Squalaura from Oly, and Enid from Eugene. They had all stumbled down to work the marijuana harvest, their heads filled with meager dreams that a few thousand dollars could fulfill. With no initial leads, they had found nothing, had talked to some old hippie in Arcata who sent them southeast, into the mountains, towards a town he guaranteed would be full of work. The town was fake and no drivers had corrected them.
They were not friends, had crossed one another frequently during their brief association: At one point Dick Metal had tried to grab Enid's tits. Squalaura drank too much and always bitched about her hangover. Percy cried one time and everyone laughed at him. But tonight, considering their situation and bathed in strong yellow light, Enid felt expansive enough to recite a poem she wrongly attributed to Robert Duncan:
For friendship
make a chain that holds,
to be bound to
others, two by two,
a walk, a garland
handed by hands
that cannot move
unless they hold.
They took turns telling stories. Dick Metal went first.
