The black cloud that followed Pablo around spit lightning, and it was meaner than most. It struck him three times before he turned forty. The first time, he was pitching apples against the trunk of a tree, and the charge from the bolt knocked his clothes off. When he awoke, he was in his underwear prostrate in the dirt; his Tuffskins and Chuck Taylor’s hung from a branch fourteen feet up, and smoke streamed from his fingertips like ten lines of silk thread. He suffered from dizzy spells after that and a patch of white hair sprouted from his crown, spotting his thick brown mane like bird shit on the hood of a Monte Carlo. The second time stopped his heart, and if it hadn’t been for the help of a nearby doctor, Pablo would not have lived to experience the third time, and the people of Last Chance, California would have missed out on the fireworks that accompanied his fortieth birthday.
Pablo manipulated puppets on the pier for a living. He worked for peanuts—sometimes literally—and he never experienced love, or had children, or looked for anything that could potentially bring him joy because he knew that the black cloud would spoil it. He saw the blue sky and the sun shining down on those around him and he generally hated them for their good fortune. But his resentment was superficial because he knew deep down that their happiness was by no fault of their own, just as he knew that he was not responsible for his own despair. The cloud was to blame.
He lived in an old bait shop. He ate frijoles when he had the money and peanuts when he didn’t, and he drank rainwater, always in plentiful supply, from two Hills Brothers coffee cans that he kept on his porch.
On his thirty-seventh birthday he went out to collect a fresh coffee can of water and he saw three colorful hot air balloons on the distant horizon. At that moment, he hatched a plan that would allow him to escape from under his black cloud. And as he was enthusiastic about it, he began to advertise it right away. He told his audience on the pier about his plan. Then he wrote it on the sidewalk. Of course, his perpetual rainstorm washed away the chalk letters, so he improvised and spelled it out with pebbles.
His plan was to rent a hot air balloon and rise above his black cloud. It was time to cut the strings. Nothing was going to stop him. But for a humble puppeteer, it would take some time to gather together the money required for such a feat. Thus, he allotted himself one year, and just like that, Pablo’s Plan (as he liked to call it) was penciled in to celebrate his thirty-eighth.
He scrimped and saved every penny. He rationed out his frijoles, and instead of eating six peanuts for dinner when the frijoles were gone, he ate five. If he felt especially hungry, he drank an extra glass of water—for the cloud could always be counted on for that—and he lost fifteen pounds during that year. He almost had sixty four dollars saved when the big day arrived, which was just enough to rent the balloon for an hour, so the sacrifice was worth it.
He rolled out of bed with a smile. Outside his window, the sun shone bright and the sky was blue, except for around his bait shop where it was raining. He pulled on his galoshes and donned his raincoat, and when he reached for the Mason jar where he kept his money, he saw that it was gone. Someone had stolen it during the night. Pablo’s Plan would have to be postponed.
Perhaps when I’m thirty-nine, he thought.
For another year, he scrimped and saved every penny. Once again, he rationed out his frijoles, and he pared down his peanut allowance to four in case of inflation, and by the time his thirty-ninth birthday rolled around he was thin enough to hula-hoop a donut. He also had almost eighty dollars stuffed into his jar.
He held the jar tightly under his left arm as he unlocked his front door. It took him a few extra minutes because he had fitted it with two additional locks, and he made his way to the balloon shop to rent his escape. For the first time in his life, he heard the birds singing. He noticed the flutter of leaves in the trees. He could even smell the perfume of the flowers as he walked by, and despite the rain dripping off of the hood of his raincoat, he felt a flutter of optimism in his stomach. He was about to be free.
Unfortunately, just as he reached the door of the balloon shop his cloud opened up and zapped him again.
After he stopped twitching, he looked around for his Mason jar. It was in pieces at his feet. A few dollars were scattered here and there, and he collected a half-dozen coins in varying denominations, but when he had gathered up every single scrap of money on the street, he was only left with fifty-one dollars and twenty-six cents.
He was not discouraged; he made his way to the fabric shop. He purchased as much nylon fabric as his meager savings would allow, and he went home to build the contraption himself.
Another soggy year piddled by and Pablo used his peanut money to purchase more fabric. He also bought thread, wire, bamboo, and matches. He used the thread to sew the nylon fabric together. He used the bamboo to weave a large, but shabby basket. He planned to use the wire to attach the balloon to the basket, and the matches were to stoke the fire.
The day of his fortieth birthday finally arrived. Everyone in Last Chance knew of Pablo’s Plan and a crowd began to gather around his bait shop. They stood basking in their sunshine, and they formed a circle around Pablo’s shack just far enough away to keep from getting rained on. They cheered when he emerged from the front door.
Pablo carried the homemade balloon under one of his frail arms. The bamboo basket sat next to the bait shop. Pablo unfolded his nylon balloon and fastened it to the basket with the wire. He climbed a rickety ladder onto the roof of his bait shop and he latched one side of the nylon balloon to a ringlet on the cupola. He dragged the rickety ladder to the opposite side of his bamboo basket and he climbed into the branches of a tree that grew there. He latched the other side of the nylon balloon to one of the branches so that the hole in the bottom of the balloon stretched over the basket, and when everything was set, he climbed into the makeshift hot air balloon and he waved to the cheering crowd.
A large tin bucket was on the center of the basket floor. An open umbrella had been fastened over the bucket and a tangle of dry sticks sprouted out of it. Pablo struck match after match until a small flame crackled the twigs, and after awhile, the nylon balloon stretched, and filled, and grew into a colorful patchwork egg. The balloon broke free from the roof ringlet, and it broke free of the tree branch, and when Pablo felt the basket slowly lift off, that old flutter of optimism tickled his insides. This time he mistook it for nausea though, and he wretched a few peanuts and a swallow of water onto his threadbare shoes.
Within minutes, Pablo’s balloon was fifteen feet off the ground; then twenty; then twenty-five. Soon the faces in the crowd were too small to distinguish, and when the black fog of his cloud engulfed him, the faces below him disappeared entirely from view.
His cloud was meaner than most, however, and much more committed. It bucked his basket, and then pitched it violently from side to side. One wire snapped, and then another wire snapped. The bamboo basket tipped and the tin bucket spilled. Flames licked the bamboo. Pablo’s pants caught fire, then his shirt caught fire, and when the remaining wires snapped, both the basket and its passenger screamed back down to earth.
He broke both of his legs, but his rain cloud doused his clothes and the burns were not serious enough to require skin grafts.
Perhaps when I’m forty-one, he thought.
As a writer, I often feel like poor Pablo, trying to stay optimistic in the face of a very difficult industry. Do any of you ever feel the same?
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