time was a Memphis art school dropout from Arkansas who waited tables at Commander’s Palace. Even though we had all hung out the upstairs windows slapping on the first coat of primer that had touched the house in decades, we barely passed inspection. Our initial inspector, a woman who had just passed her inspector test, took one look at the house and shook her head. She told us she did not want to lose her new license. The inspector slid us the number of a portly Yes Man who arrived mouthing a cigar. This ancient Yes Man doddered around the property, declining to huff upstairs or bend down to peek under our raised house at all. He told Jake how he had strafed German trains in World War II. He thought Jake looked like a nice young man who would have enjoyed it. We passed with flying colors.
During the evacuation before this evacuation, Jake and I had talked about pulling our heads out of the clouds and getting our shit together. We were overexposed in more ways than one. Our house had appreciated in value since the bargain-basement nineties, and we were underinsured. But after we got back from that evacuation, our vow to set our house of cards in order somehow got lost in our whirl of whirl.
My mom, who saw us most often, had long lamented that our entire management system was more a case study than a best-practices text. She would give me flowered file folder boxes for gifts. Picking her way through amps, guitars, cords, piles of books, recently stripped shutters, and a friend’s oversized paintings of outer space on her way to the bathroom, she would announce, “Someone is going to break their neck!”
The weather forecasters were really enjoying themselves. They were shaking their arms at the digital red blob like it was the latest dance.
“I’m going to bed,” Jake announced. “I’m not watching this all night to see if it turns or not.”
I was exhausted but needed to stay up to see if the storm was going to veer far enough toward Mississippi to miss us. This guilty last-minute wishing is the dirty secret of the final hours of storm watching—thousands of Louisianans and Mississippians pitted against one another wherever they are, screaming into their televisions at the wobbling red curse on the satellite, Go left! or Go right!
Sometime in the wee hours my mother’s electricity went out. I called her and her voice sounded thin. The wind was howling and now she wanted to go to the shelter. It was too late. She sounded frightened and old.
“What’s the Weather Channel say?” she asked.
The TV kept saying it was the widest storm ever. It said it would go on for a deliciously long time. The TV was excited. It could not wait for us to get hit. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what was coming her way was hours and hours from ending. Her health had not been great in the past few years. I felt sick. I hoped she did not have a heart attack listening to the wind howl and waiting for her trees to fall. I slunk off to bed.
When I woke up a few hours later, I called Mom back. Her cell phone was out. I called her on her house phone. It was out, too. I turned on the television. There was no point willing it this way or that. It was too big. Jake’s mother padded into the kitchen.
“How’s it going?” she said.
“Terrible,” I replied. “My mom’s phone went out.”
Chapter 3
what the fuck?
From: Cheryl
To: Everybody
Subject: It takes awhile to open but it has a satellite pic of n.o. taken Wednesday
You can see where the water starts and stops by block at least if you trace it back from landmark streets etc. When the street is dark, it’s b/c it’s filled with water seems like
cheryl
From: Cheryl
To: Fontenot
Subject: Re: how are things?
I hope j. did not hole up w/his parents in n.o. east. The stuff online at wwl is terrible. we thought we were okay but now we’re worried our house flooded in that levee break b/c they said the flooding got as far as mid-city. They’re not letting us back yet, so only time will tell…my mom’s trees fell on her neighbor’s house in hammond but she is okay but no electricity…i hope we don’t wind up in some kind of mad max situation guarding our wreckage!
cheryl
From: Stoo
To: Cheryl
Subject: Fwd: Katrina hopes & fears
Here ya go…Remember this is a couple days old. There is a map floating around in Yahoo News Photos of where the flooding is. Irish Channel looks virtually unscathed. Mid-City looks fucked up, alas. Rumor is they’re evacuating my parents from Touro Hospital as we speak. No one knows to where.
Kisses, odom
From: Helen
To: Cheryl
Subject: we’re okay
Cheryl!
I’m so glad to hear from you. I assume Jake’s okay too. We are certainly in the same boat with our Mid-City homes. Paul and Francis and I and Rosie the pig are safe at my parents’ in Columbia, SC. I heard that the Jesuit high school had 9 feet of water inside. I miraculously got in touch by cellphone with a neighbor, Derrlyn, who stayed behind because she is a cop in training. She was optimistic that our street wasn’t flooded too badly, but that was Tuesday morning. She hadn’t been able to get back to Mid-City. I figure our houses are pretty flooded, if standing. Paul will go back to investigate when he feels it is safe, and may be allowed back earlier since he is a doctor at a state hospital. I know Rene is fine and has kept his sense of humor, emailing me that the 8 ball outlook of my film class show at Zeitgeist on Oct. 2 is not so good.
love from Helen
From: Alex
To: Cheryl
Subject: Re: It takes awhile to open but it has a satellite pic of n.o. taken Wednesday
thank you so much! my house may not be flooded as much as I thought or even at all. I can see some green spots around my neighborhood. makes sense because we’re above sea level unlike the rest of Lakeview which is totally submerged. I hope that’s the case…
Alex
From: Fontenot
To: Cheryl
Subject: Re: how are things?
Any word about J. and his family? This whole thing is horrific and unbelievable. I’ve been angry and frustrated for the last two days. How are you doing?
From: Cheryl
To: Fontenot
Subject: Re: how are things?
the rage is about to kill me. i am so angry. we’re getting more and more news of friends who had to walk out of the city and HITCHHIKE to Lafayette, others still stuck, friends parents with cancer left on hospital rooftops and airlifted out just this morning. not to mention the HORROR of not dropping any water for all those old people and not getting them out. disgusting and criminal.
mom
