Читать книгу No Ordinary Heroes: - Demaree Inglese - Страница 15

An hour or so later, Gary opened my office door. “C’mon, Dem. We’re late.”

“And this could be our last meal,” Mike added.

“It’s probably not a good idea to tempt fate, Mike.” Gary frowned.

“I like living dangerously.” Mike met Gary’s anxious gaze with a mischievous grin. He knew that would get a rise from Gary.

“Since when is a no-fat-no-exceptions diet living dangerously, Mike? I want all the calories I can cram in tonight.” I cast a sidelong glance at Gary and added my own barb. “Just in case it is our last meal.”

Several new people had joined the families camped in the foyer outside of Medical Administration, and the security door by the elevator was propped open. The hallway beyond it led to another security door that opened into the fire escape stairwell. The inmates on the tiers upstairs were quiet. They had just eaten dinner and were probably watching TV and wondering how their own families were faring.

But here downstairs, the growing number of children added a level of high-pitched noise that grated on taut nerves, especially in the cement-walled stairwell where the acoustics amplified sound. As we walked down to the lobby, three teenagers—a boy chasing two squealing girls—burst through the doorway below and raced up past us.

“It’s going to be a long night,” Mike muttered.

When we got to the first floor, we headed down a hallway past the sheriff’s office. In a wide corridor at the rear of the building, the kitchen staff had set up tables with metal serving pans, disposable plates, and plastic utensils.

Gary stared into an empty chafing dish. The pan was coated with dried tomato sauce. “We really are too late.”

“Have a sandwich,” I said, picking up a plate. There were several racks holding turkey, cheese, and loaves of bread. I made three sandwiches for myself, then moved out to the back porch where dozens of people were watching the rain. The wind wasn’t bad yet. It could have been New Orleans on any stormy summer night.

Almost everyone stood under the protection of the overhang, but a few stalwart souls scattered across the thirty feet of tiled porch that wasn’t covered. A wrought-iron railing ran along the perimeter with a break at the rear steps. The kitchen and warehouse stood across a narrow courtyard.

I spotted Paul and walked over. “This isn’t too bad.”

“Just wait. The wind isn’t even tropical storm force, yet,” Paul explained. “It’s going to get a lot worse.”

Sitting down beside him, I pondered the many twists and turns my life had taken to bring me to this moment: sitting cross-legged on the porch of a New Orleans jail, eating turkey sandwiches and watching the first stages of a major hurricane. It seemed surreal.

It brought me back to a hair-raising helicopter ride in Korea when I was transporting a heart patient over rice fields, through a thunderstorm, dressed in body armor. I remembered wondering what choices I had made—me, a kid from an upper-middle-class family in Pennsylvania—that had brought me to such a bizarre and dangerous situation. That night I had no idea what was around the corner. Katrina’s dangers were just as serious, and again I couldn’t imagine what was in store.