Читать книгу Blink Of An Eye - Rexanne Becnel - Страница 9

Some parts of that day remain a blur: how I managed to keep Fido and myself from drowning; why I kept Fido and myself from drowning. Between the tearing winds, the punishing waves and the debris missiles they both aimed at me, I could easily have just let go. Given in. Given up.

But I couldn’t.

It was because of the dog.

He was a medium-sized mutt, black and white, totally non-descript, like a million others. Mainly, though, he was petrified with fear. He’d decided I was his salvation and kept trying to climb into my arms. That’s because the water was too deep for him to stand in.

Unfortunately, between the wind and the waves, it was too rough for me to stand in. Tree branches, lawn furniture, street signs, garbage. It was like being inside a giant washing machine set on spin.

One thing I knew: avoid the cars. Because if one of them pinned me to a tree, I was a goner.

I know, I know. Five minutes ago I’d wanted to be a goner. And I still did. But I needed to save this dog first.

I could barely keep my eyes open; that’s how harshly the winds whipped around me. Like a drowning blind woman, I flailed around, looking for something solid to cling to. Then I slammed into a fence. A hurricane fence, designed not to fall over no matter how hard the wind and water pushed. The fence also had a gate—wide open, thank God. And the gate led to a house. Somehow I dragged myself up the steps. The minute Fido’s feet hit something solid, he was out of my arms. Right behind him, I crawled up the long flight of steps, out of the water and onto a porch. There I curled into a ball in a corner against the house. Fido, wet and stinky, wormed his way into my arms, and that’s how the two of us spent the next few hours. He shivered and whimpered uncontrollably. I shivered and alternately cried and cursed.

You’d think someone who wanted to be dead wouldn’t be afraid of anything. That she should stand up to the storm, beating her chest and screaming, “Come and get me, Katrina! Come and get me!”

But it was terrifying. I’d never seen such power. Mother Nature at her most furious. Ripping up trees, tearing off roofs, and flinging everything around like pick-up sticks. And all the while wailing her rage until I thought I’d go deaf.

Parts of trees and other buildings thumped against the house. I felt the floor shudder beneath me, and I prayed it would hold. A shingle flew across the porch just above my head, then cartwheeled across the floor before burying itself in the wood half wall, just like an ax thrown in a magician’s trick.

Suffice it to say, I did not fall asleep this time.

I kept checking my watch, but it had stopped. The water, I guess. It seemed as if hours went by with no change. I was afraid to lift my head above the solid porch rail; I could get decapitated.

Fido finally stopped shivering, but he didn’t sleep either. He just kept his anxious brown eyes on me, as if I might disappear if he looked away. Who did he belong to? And why on earth had they left him behind?

He wore a collar with a tag that identified him as Lucky.

Lucky. Yeah, right! Lucky to be huddled on somebody’s porch with a crazy woman while the whole damn city returned to the sea.

It felt as if two days had gone by before I sensed the first easing of the wind. It’s not that the wind slowed down, it was more that the worst gusts weren’t coming as often. Since the weathermen had predicted the eye would reach New Orleans around eleven, I figured it must be early afternoon.

Extracting myself from Lucky, I wriggled toward the porch steps. How many steps had I climbed? A full flight, I think. But only seven steps remained above water. That meant the water had to be at least four feet deep.

Holy crap!

I looked for my car. No sign of it, though I did see the top of what must have been the van we’d drifted into.

Holy shit!

It must have been late afternoon heading toward dusk before it was safe enough for me to venture down the steps and peer around the neighborhood. The water was still choppy and rough, driven by the wind, but also with a distinct flow to it. I tried to picture the map of New Orleans and where I was on it. Water was flowing generally from the east, even though the winds were now coming out of the north. The eye was past us, but the water was still coming in. It had to be a levee break. And if this part of town had five feet of water, what was happening in other neighborhoods?

I heard Lucky bark and turned to him. “It’s okay, boy. We’re okay.” But he kept on barking. Then I heard a shout, a kid’s voice.

“Lucky? Lucky? Where are you?”

It came from a few doors down. “He’s okay!” I shouted. “He’s up on a porch with me.”

Then I saw a kid with his mother hanging on to him as they ventured onto their porch. She looked petrified, but he was grinning like any kid who’d just found his dog again.

“Lucky!” He waved his arms over his head. “Good boy! I knew you’d make it!”

Lucky, of course, went berserk when he heard his kid’s voice. He bounced down the steps, only to back up the minute his feet hit water.

We carried on a shouted conversation.

“You two okay?”

“Yes. We’re fine. And you?”

“Fine.” Sort of. I was bruised and had a cut on my forearm that I didn’t remember getting. I was wet and I was hungry. But otherwise I was fine.

“Can you bring Lucky to me?” the kid asked.

“When the wind dies down,” I shouted back. And if the water quit rising. There were only six steps visible now.

I ended up sleeping that night on the porch, with Lucky curled up next to me. Whoever lived in the house had obviously evacuated. They’d also locked the iron security door and boarded up the windows with plywood. Under the circumstances, they probably wouldn’t have begrudged me breaking into their home, eating their food and sleeping in their bed. But I couldn’t get in, and believe me I tried.

So I spent a horrible pitch-black night listening to waves lap against the house—how incongruous is that?—and to cars dying. At least that’s what it sounded like. Cars that weren’t entirely underwater would spazz out when the water hit their electronics center. Horns honking, alarm systems beeping, trunks popping open. Even headlights coming on.

It was creepy beyond words, the prolonged death throes of Detroit’s finest.

At least the darkness allowed me to attend to my private functions. But by dawn I was hungry, thirsty and sitting on the top step contemplating my future.

It wouldn’t take much to complete my original plan. Just head north on Elysian Fields until I either drowned in the street or reached Lake Pontchartrain and drowned there.

But not until I got Lucky home.

The water felt a lot colder today, but what the hell. I had to pick up Lucky—he wouldn’t go anywhere near the water—and carry him down the steps. I thought he would claw me to death trying to climb onto my shoulders and head. He was that scared. So was I. The water was up to my chest and the sidewalk beneath my feet was an underwater minefield. Branches, a newspaper machine, garbage cans. At least the plastic cans floated.

And then there was the question of the living creatures that might be in that water. Snakes. Big hungry fish. Even alligators, if the storm had blown them over the levee.

It felt like a mile to Lucky’s house, even though it was only four houses over. Once on his own porch, Lucky started barking and leaping at the door. When they opened it, both the boy and his mom burst into tears.

He was thrilled to have his beloved pet back. She was obviously relieved to have another grown-up with her.

“Do you have food and water?” I asked as she wiped her face with her hands.

“Sure. Come on in.”

I hesitated at the front door, dripping nasty water all over the porch. “Do you have any dry clothes?”

In short order I had a shower, washed my hair, and put on a House of Blues T-shirt, a pair of jogging shorts and red rubber flip-flops. Then as we sat in the kitchen and she cooked me breakfast on her gas stove, we shared our stories. She was Sherry and her son, Bradley, was nine.

“We tried to evacuate,” she said. “But my car started to overheat while we sat on the interstate. Traffic was awful and I sure didn’t want to break down somewhere on the twin spans. So I exited on Louisa, and after the engine cooled down, we came back home. How about you?”

“Me? Um …I didn’t plan to evacuate.” No duh!

“Right. But how’d you end up out in the storm?”

Sherry was already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Failed attempt to commit suicide” would probably upset her even more. So I smiled at her. “I was trying to get to a friend’s house, and then a big tree limb hit my car and it stalled. Then the water came and the car got swamped.”

“And then you saved Lucky,” Bradley said. He’d been sitting across the table from me, his chin on his hands, staring at me as if I were a superhero or something.

Perversely enough, it made me feel lower than low. I was such a phony. “Or maybe he saved me,” I suggested.

His mouth gaped open in amazement. “He did?”

I nodded because I realized it was true. “He floated onto my car and he was so scared that I forgot to be scared. I just grabbed him and then he and I found those steps and got up on the porch.”

Bradley’s young brow furrowed. “But how did he save you?”

I shrugged. “I think I might have drowned in my car if he hadn’t come along.”

“Really?” His eyes got huge. “Can’t you swim?”

“She was too scared to swim,” Sherry said, laying a hand on her son’s head. “Isn’t that right?”

I nodded. “But Lucky made me brave.”

That seemed to satisfy Bradley. We spent most of the day listening to their battery-powered radio. There wasn’t much information, though. Most of the stations were down, and what little we heard was awful. Flooding everywhere. St. Bernard, New Orleans East, downtown, Metairie. All we could do was wait for the pumps to be turned on. Meanwhile we settled in for a long ordeal.

Sherry had already filled every container she had with water, and she had a lot of canned foods and crackers and a gas stove, like I said. We decided to eat the refrigerated food first. Later in the day I braved the water again and retrieved four big garbage cans, which we rinsed out and filled with even more water, mainly for bathing and washing up, just in case. She made up a bed for me on the couch, and I took a long nap. And in all that time, we didn’t see another human being.

That night no dying cars serenaded us, but that made us feel even more alone, as if we were the last people on earth. In the universe.

But the next morning, Lucky started barking. We heard voices, and what do we see when we rush to the porch but a flat boat with two guys using fence boards for paddles.

“Y’all okay?” the older guy called. “Anybody hurt?”

“We’re fine,” I called back. “What in the hell is going on?”

The other fellow spat in the water. “Damned levees broke. More than one of ’em, we heard. The whole damned city is filling up with water.”

I guess we knew that already, but hearing it said out loud sucked the heart out of me.

Next to me, Sherry started to weep. “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?”

“We’ve been ferrying stranded folks up to the I-610 overpass. But there’s no water there, or shade.”

“What happens after that?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” the younger guy said. “But somebody’s gotta come eventually.”

“If you want my opinion,” the other guy said. “As long as you have food and water, you ought to just sit tight. There’s people a whole lot worse off than you. Sitting on their roofs, trapped in their attics.”

“I’m staying put,” I decided on the instant. I looked at Sherry.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Can we take Lucky?” Bradley piped in.

“The dog? Sorry, kid, that’s probably not a good idea. There’s not food and water for people, let alone pets.”

Bradley hugged Lucky’s neck. “I’m not going anywhere without Lucky.”

But Sherry wasn’t so sure. “What if we bring our own food and water?”

“There’s over a hundred folks there already, lady. By tonight there’ll be a lot more. You gonna bring enough to share?” He shook his head. “Sit tight here for another day or two. We’ll check on you again, okay?”

So we stayed.

It was a surreal existence. We played cards and Monopoly, and cooked all the meat in the refrigerator. We saw the two guys on the boat three more times that day ferrying people up to the overpass, and on the last trip we gave them extra fried chicken and apple juice.

We went to bed at dusk. That was Wednesday.

Thursday was more of the same, except that we saw more boats, more rescuers searching for people stranded in their flooded homes. And with every boat that passed the question was the same: what’s going on?

For the most part, nobody knew anything beyond the obvious. The levees had broken; the city was flooded; and there was no getting out. The elevated I-610 was full of people now, scared, hungry and baking in the relentless heat.

The radio added to the horror. The Superdome was crammed with too many people and not enough food or water. In the dry parts of the city, like the French Quarter, Bywater, and parts of Uptown, looters were taking advantage of the crisis. A fire started in a shopping center, and other places, too.

To make matters even more horrific, police from the small town of Gretna wouldn’t allow people to evacuate across the Mississippi River Bridge from the flooded Eastbank to the mostly dry Westbank. With weapons drawn, the cops sent the poor people back into hell!

Had the whole world gone mad? I wasn’t a churchgoer, but even I knew the story of the good Samaritan.

In our little moated castle we were okay, and yet not okay. We had plenty of food and water, but Sherry was a basket case. To begin with, her cell phone didn’t work too well. I guess a lot of the towers must have been damaged in the storm. Added to that, there was no way to charge the phone up. So it was bad when her phone died. Then she went to take a shower and discovered that the city water had been turned off. That’s when she lost it.

“We have to get out of here! I can’t take any more! We can go to my sister in Denver. Or my aunts in Memphis.”

She started packing—two backpacks of clothes and important papers, two tote bags of food and water.

“Don’t forget dog food for Lucky,” Bradley said, pulling out a giant bag of Purina.

“We can’t take Lucky with us, honey.” Sherry knelt in front of her son. “We’ll leave him on the porch with lots of food and water, and he’ll—”

“No!” Bradley wrenched free of her. “No. We have to bring Lucky with us!”

“We can’t.” She started to cry. “On the radio they said the National Guard won’t take pets in their boats or helicopters.”

“Then I won’t go!” he shouted, wiping his own tears.

That’s when I chimed in. “I’ll take care of Lucky.”

They both looked over at me.

“You will?” Bradley exclaimed.

“You’re not coming with us?” Sherry asked.

“No, I’m not going, so I can keep him with me. If you don’t mind me staying here until the water goes down.”

She gave me a house key and the phone numbers of all her relatives where they might end up. I gave her my apartment phone number, since I doubted it was flooded. Of course the roof might have blown off. But one way or another, we’d find each other again.

“Thank you so much, Jane.” Bradley gave me a hug so tight it hurt. “Lucky’s a very good dog. And he’ll protect you, too.”

“I know.” He already had. I had no doubt that I was alive because of Lucky. And now I had to stay alive if I was going to keep him safe for Bradley.

Oh well. If I still wanted to commit suicide, there would be plenty of time to do it later.

They didn’t actually leave until the next morning in a boat with the same two guys. We’d come to know Manny and Fred pretty well, and they told us that the National Guard was finally flying people out. We knew that because ever since last night the sky had been alive with helicopters.

I waved them goodbye. Lucky barked until they were out of sight. Then we just sat there, him and me, staring at the surreal landscape of our poor doomed city. I still had plenty of food, so Manny and Fred continued to drop by every day for lunch. In return they fed me news and tried to talk me into leaving. But I refused to leave town. At least the water level had begun slowly to drop. Very slowly. And Manny and Fred promised that when I was ready, they’d take me back to my house, or at least as close as they could get in their boat.

“There’s looting going on,” Fred warned me. “And the cops have orders to shoot to kill.”

“Fine with me,” I replied, “since I don’t have any intentions of looting.”

Only when the flooding was over and the most desperate people evacuated did I decide to leave. All Lucky and I took was water and food, as much as the boat could hold. Behind the boat we towed a rolling garbage can. Manny and Fred let me off at Elysian Fields and Urquhart Street. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses. Their addresses probably weren’t any good, though. They lived on Wickfield, a block from where we now knew the London Avenue Canal had failed. Both houses were up to their ceilings with water, and Manny’s had shifted off its foundations.

But they were great guys, helping their fellow New Orleanians any way they could. I hoped I’d see them again. After many hugs, goodbyes and admonitions, it was just me, Lucky and a damp garbage can full of food and water.

How can I possibly describe the devastation? Everyone has seen pictures of flooded neighborhoods or burned-down houses. Or even bombed-out neighborhoods, usually in the Middle East. But no one has ever seen anything like this. The vastness of the destruction. Blocks and blocks and blocks of emptiness and debris. It was bad enough in the flooded areas. But I saw now that the water hid the worst of it. I was viewing the complete shambles of a great American city. And this was only the Gentilly area.

Elysian Fields Avenue is about five miles long from the lake, south to the river. A good four miles of it was flooded. I walked the final mile to my house, partly in knee-deep water, the rest on dry ground.

On the entire boat ride we’d only seen three people on their porches. On my walk I saw a few more, but they weren’t the normal New Orleans folks you expect to see. They were fearful and shell-shocked. Wild-eyed. But they all shared whatever information they had.

“The police are making everybody leave.”

“The National Guard’s taking over.”

“Don’t give anybody any back talk. They’ll arrest your ass so fast and throw you in the jail.”

The new jail, that is. The old one was flooded, so the train terminal had been taken over as a temporary prison.

I thanked them and kept moving. My dinky apartment on Dauphine Street had never seemed so appealing. But as I approached my block, I started to cry. The crepe myrtles at the corner house were both down. The awnings on the second floor of another house dangled from one remaining support, threatening to decapitate someone in the next strong wind. Slates and shingles littered the street, as did cable, electric and telephone lines. A three-block section of utility poles leaned like drunken men, and a sycamore tree on the opposite corner had toppled onto two cars, completely blocking the street.

It was like looking at a dead place, and I felt this sickening hole expand in my chest. What were we going to do? How could anybody recover from such devastation? And this neighborhood hadn’t even flooded.

I guess I must have been working on autopilot, pushing my garbage can like some old bag lady and holding tight to Lucky’s leash. Once we’d gotten out of the water, he’d become much happier, treating our trek like some long overdue walk in a new park full of new sights and new smells and new places to explore.

But as we negotiated the trash-strewn block and stopped in front of my house, he seemed to sense how overwhelmed I was. And panicked. I was home, but it wasn’t home. It was a scary place that looked more or less the same. Only nothing seemed familiar anymore. If a Hollywood director could capture the chilling unreality of this surreal gray place, he’d have an Oscar-worthy horror flick. If he could do it. Somehow I didn’t think anyone could.

I shoved aside a plastic lawn chair and a piece of shiplap siding to open the gate, then muscled the garbage can in. As I slammed the gate, though, and looked out at my ordinary New Orleans block of shotgun houses, both singles and doubles, I burst into tears. That’s when Lucky bumped his bony shoulder against my thigh and started to whine.

“It’s okay,” I said, dropping to my knees and hugging his neck. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine.”

But I was lying to him and to myself. At least it felt like a lie. Because it didn’t seem as if anything could ever be fine again.