The Black Balloon

"Dad, why do we have to eat corn flakes every morning?"

"It's good for you, son! Ha ha ha!" Dad took a big spoonful into his mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed. He smiled his satisfaction and a weak leak of milk dribbled out of the corners of his mouth. 

Brown, chunky corn flakes. The milk sweetens them a little, but they're just so bland and joyless, but you wouldn't know that by the way dad scarfed it down grinning like an idiot.

"Come on, son, we're gonna be late." He brought the bowl to his mouth and tilted his head back and slurped down the last bit of milk and then wiped his face with the back of his hand. I pushed around a brown clump with my spoon and decided to pour it down the garbage disposal.

My book bag was in the back seat and my dad and I were in the front headed for school and then to his job. 

"Boy, isn't that a beautiful blue sky, son?"

"Sure is."

Dad rolled down the windows without asking if I wanted mine down.

"Smell that air!" SNIFFFFFFF "Ah, that's the ticket!" 

When dad would go on and on about the sky, or the air, or the corn flakes, I always tuned him out. Sad thing is I don't think he ever noticed. 

"Son, how'd you like to go fishing this weekend? It's gonna be a beautiful day!"

"It's always a beautiful day." 

"It sure is, son!" He turned his big stupid grin towards me. "I'll let you hook the worm!"

If I said no, dad would flip. We go fishing every weekend and he always asks like I have a choice. One time I said no. Dad didn't take it well. And I got a lecture so I figured it was best just to say yes to whatever he said. He never noticed the sarcasm. I admit it is nice out there, but...why is it nice all the time?

"Dad, don't you ever wish it rained?"

"No! What's wrong, son? Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine."

"How about we go for some ice cream after school, huh? Would you like that?" He was beaming again.

"Sure."

We pulled up to school and as I walked away from the car dad did his three little honks that he always did. Standing at the side door to the school was Justin.

"Hey, man," he said.

"What's good?"

"Everything, haven't you heard?"

That made us both laugh.

Sitting in science class we listened to Mr. Lambert covering the section on the rain cycle.

"See, class, in other parts of the world water falls from the sky, touches the ground, that's precipitation, and is eventually brought back up into the sky by a process called evaporation." Mr. Lambert had drawn a circle on the board to illustrate this mythic happening. "Rain is very beneficial to the environment. It's like nature's watering can." He brought out a big green plastic watering can and demonstrated his point by pouring water from it into a bucket. The water streamed out in many closely packed threads. It looked like the hair of a mermaid. 

"But we don't have a rain cycle here, do we class? No, we don't! We decided that rainy days were just too much trouble, so we don't have them anymore. Personally, I think it's okay."

I raised my hand.

"But isn't that, like, against nature?"

"Well, not exactly. If we can control nature, then nature is whatever we want it to be. And that means we could never be against it."

"I just feel that, it should rain, you know. Why's it always gotta be sunny?"

"Okay, class we're getting off topic here, let's settle down. Now, who can tell me what snow is?"

"Snow is cold rain. Why doesn't it ever get cold around here," asked Justin. This made some of the class laugh. Mr. Lambert rubbed his bald spot.

"Boys, calm down. Okay? Let's get back to the lesson."

Justin and I looked at each other and we both shrugged our shoulders like we always did.

That night dad and I were eating dinner, buttered noodles. We ate buttered noodles every night.

"Son, what's this I hear about you acting up in school today?"

"I didn't act up, dad."

"That's not what Mr. Lambert said."

"I just asked a question."

"Well, that's where you can get into trouble, son. You start questioning things, you'll never stop. Just take things as they are, son."

"Why?"

"Mmm! These are some good noodles!"

Next day at school, Justin and I were asked to visit the principal's office. We were given write ups and detention for "causing a scene" in Mr. Lambert's class. Walking through the hall Justin and I saw the posters for the upcoming spring fair. 

The spring fair was when everybody in school got dressed up in their brightest colors and danced and laughed and remarked about what a beautiful day it was. The sunshine glittered off everyone's sparkling white teeth. No storm cloud ever hung over their heads, no strong breeze ever blew away a paper plate. Everything was just peaches when they babbled and gaggled and snapped their heads back and guffawed to the witness of the bright blue sky. If you ever got stuck in conversation, you could always remark upon the weather, even though it never changed and no one ever had anything new to add. 

"It'd be a real shame if it rained there," I said.

"Yeah. Real shame."

The day of the spring fair came, bright and sunshiny, who could have guessed? Justin and I stood on the school roof with the water balloons. Everyone was laughing and smiling and jumping like idiots in their brightly colored clothes. Our balloons were brightly colored too. The two coolers we had were full of reds, yellows, blues, greens, pinks, purples, oranges, and one black one for someone special. We let them jump around down there for a while, just watching them and coming up with an attack strategy. We saw our classmates, most of the school staff, some parents, my dad. 

"FIRE!" I yelled. Justin and I launched the pinks and reds and blues and all the rest of the balloons we had in the two coolers. Any plans of attack went out the window and we just launched them without even really looking. We hit a bunch of our classmates, didn't really mean to. Justin hit Mr. Lambert on his bald spot. Then I saw my dad and I dropped the green balloon I held and picked up the black. He was looking right at me, still smiling.

"Hey, dad, we're eating cornflakes again tomorrow!"

I threw it as hard as I could and it hit dad right in the face. He wasn't smiling anymore but I was. I was laughing hard. 

The spring fair was cancelled for the day and everyone that got soaked was pretty upset about it. Especially dad. Justin and I were nearly expelled, but the staff decided we needed more school, not less of it, so we got detention everyday for three weeks. We had to write apologies to the school, we had to write papers on the dangers of disobedience, we had to clean up the school grounds. We had to pick up every single popped water balloon off the lawn. The whole time Justin and I just laughed about what we did. 

Dad still ate corn flakes like an idiot every morning but he didn't ask me to go fishing with him. Not the first week of detention, not the second, not the third.

"Listen to your teachers, son," was all he would say when I talked about what we had to do.

When detention was over and it was the Friday four weeks past the incident, I expected dad to ask me to go fishing with him. I know he went every week without me, but now that my punishment was over, he must feel like I learned my lesson. But he didn't ask. Saturday came and he just left. I stayed at home, told Justin I wasn't feeling good and wanted to rest.

Dad came home at the usual time he did and I asked, "How was it dad?"

"Great! Caught a real whopper today!"

"Cool. Maybe I could come next time, catch one."

Dad held his breath for a moment, then said, "Son, I don't want you to come out with me anymore. Fishing is my peace and I don't want you to ruin it."

He went to his room, shut the door. I went outside and stared up at the bright blue sky. I let the sun pass over me. 

The next Friday, we were at the breakfast table and I said, "Dad, I'd really like go fishing tomorrow."

He chewed his flakes, slurped milk from the bowl, and placed the bowl and the spoon into the sink.

"I don't think so, son."

"But I really want to go. I miss being out there."

"Even though it's the same old thing?"

"Yeah."

"Son, I want you to know that we made things here stay the same because we like it that way. We like the nice weather and I like to catch a whopper every weekend. It's when things change that can hurt you." 

"Dad, it's okay for things to change. I think if it rained here once in a while, that would be good for us. You like things to stay the same, but, it's when things are taken away, just for a little, that make them better. Imagine how good it would feel to see a bright sky after it rained."

"Come on, we're gonna be late."

Dad wouldn't talk about it for the rest of the day. Saturday morning came but dad wasn't dressed in his fishing gear. He didn't have anything packed in the car either. He woke me up by knocking on my door and said, "Son, how'd you like go on a trip somewhere? It'll take us a while, but I can make good time!"

I mumbled something that was like a cross between "yeah" and "sure" and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. 

"Where are we going," I asked as we drove down the long straight highway out of town.

"You'll see!" 

We drove for hours, seeing nothing but a few lame gas stations and an occasional cattle pasture. Dad hummed to himself and drummed the steering wheel. The long road made me sleepy and I passed out with the sun on my face. 

However long it was after I closed my eyes, maybe a minute, maybe an hour, dad shook me awake.

"Look, son!"

What I saw was darkness. The sky was a mix of dark blue, light purple, and midnight black. There were patches of grey things I didn't recognize at first but then I remembered Mr. Lambert's class and I realized they were clouds. I stared up at them through the windshield and then the first drop of rain fell and would have landed in my eye if it hadn't been for the windshield. Dad pulled over to the side of the road. 

"I got something in the back. Something I thought I would never need again."

He got out of the car and went to the trunk. I watched him through the rear windshield and he pulled out two bright yellow jackets and said, "Come on out, son, and get a load of these!"

I got out of the car and he handed me a jacket.

"Better put it on! This one looks like a whopper!"

The rain came down just as I zipped up the jacket. It started slow and light, then picked up to a steady, but not heavy, flow. Dad started dancing. He was jumping like a spring fair idiot in the rain and I couldn't help but join him. Our music was the pitter patter of raindrops on our yellow coats. 

"Look at that sky, dad! Isn't it great?"