Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
My old friend Andy, who is back in New Orleans again after a brief but lovely visit with us in North Carolina, sent another essay to me that I'm pleased and honored to share. I posted the story of her initial return to the city a couple of months ago, and if you missed it then, it's worth your time. Links to some of her published works are here. Her encounter with Hurricane Rita is below the fold.
Mystic Bowling with Tornado Warnings
It's mystic night at Rivergate Bowling, our first outing since Katrina. Most nights we're fine hiding away, watching CNN for a glimpse of what is happening to our home. But with Hurricane Rita now threatening, it is all becoming too much. Or maybe we are. In any case, our host wants us all to "do something." Since I fear that French movie night — a showing of Truffaut's Four Hundred Blows — might make the inside of the gas oven look really cozy, we settle on a night of bowling.
It is true that we need distraction. Simple pleasures are not easy to come by these days. The other day we tried to rent a movie in town and the girl said she could not issue a card without a utility bill. I asked her if she really wanted a utility bill from New Orleans. She said she'd have to ask the manager who was not here right now.
There are three of us "evacuees" in the house now. (Every time I think of this fact, I imagine us as a band. There was some debate in the media over whether we are "refugees" or "evacuees," and the terms merged in my head into "evacugees." I hear a radio voice: "The evacugees, coming soon to a city near you….") Khaled and I drifted into the shelter of this antebellum mansion in Natchez, Mississippi, a few days ago. Then I got a call from another friend in Texas telling me our mutual friend Kevin was sleeping in his van in a nearby parking lot. It turns out the hotel owner kicked out all the "FEMA people" — those whose bills were to be paid by the government agency — in favor of the immediate cash he could get from the new batch of those fleeing Rita. No doubt it is illegal, not to mention immoral, but who were they to complain to? Trying to talk to FEMA is like trying to talk to God.
So with the hard rain and high winds coming, as well as the threat of tornadoes surrounding the storm, we could not rest with our friend in his car. But how does one offer hospitality to someone when one has no home of one's own? Luckily, our host Gwen is a gracious and generous woman and offered to take him in.
When we get to Rivergate Bowling, we see that there is a strange blue glow above all of the lanes. A dry ice machine puffs out its smoke. Saturdays are "mystic nights" at Rivergate, which apparently means blue lights and smoke. We'll take it. The scene is frivolous and strange, and strange is a prerequisite these days for relating to anything.
We are all terrible bowlers, but the accoutrements of the sport distract us a little: the multi-colored shoes, the search to find the perfect ball, the muffled voice interrupting early 90s pop songs, the cold beer. We're doing our best to get in the groove when a red light blinks and a loud, long beep sounds. A voice comes through the intercom, sounding like it has been put through a blender. "This is the emergency broadcast system…" and I hearken back to those "this is only a test" interruptions of television kids shows. I had always frightened myself trying to imagine what would happen if it were not "only a test." Lately, I have not had to imagine. While I cannot make out the details preceding it, the gist of it is clear enough: a tornado warning is in effect for the county we are in. It is hard to believe we are skirting the edges of another emergency. My mind goes numb. We keep bowling.
The people in the next lane over start to chat with us, and soon we learn that they are also evacuees — from Texas, on the run from Rita. It starts to feel like a virus that can spread. Soon the whole south, the whole country, maybe, will be fleeing something, seeking refuge, finding camaraderie in others who've been infected.
We tally our scores, turn in our shoes, head out into the night. Gwen has talked us into going to a bar downtown. We don't much feel like continuing our foray into the social world, and bars remind us too much of our sunken city. But, trying to be gracious, we agree. As we drive through the town and approach the bar, we see that the power is out downtown. Everything is pitch, and it is hard to see where the outage ends. I have a moment of panic: it's happening again. Then I relax and feel a strange kind of relief. I know this story. This is life now. This confirms our new reality, our new disaster life. We sit in the darkened bar, look at the faces lit by candlelight, and drink a beer. Before we finish, the lights flicker, then stay on. It's over. The emergency, like a fever, has broken.
In some ways, being around others who are experiencing the same thing is a kind of comfort. Those of us whose lives have been thrown to the wind by Katrina have a certain understanding, as if we are a weird kind of club. They are starting to call us "Katrina victims," which makes me imagine Katrina as a vampire and us her neck-bitten prey. I have a friend who lives on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain and who has continued to stay in her tree-smashed house with no electricity, gas or water. She has gotten used to eating MREs (meals ready to eat) and bathing in a nearby cold spring. She says she is not ready to be around "normal people," and I understand what she means. There is a kind of bonding in going through trauma, the relief of not having to explain.
It is not that I don't want to relate to other people. But one of my recent attempts at being social — an invitation to a barbecue — made me feel more sad and isolated than ever. One of the conversations was about real estate. Between bites of chicken, they discussed the fabulous six-digit prices of houses, who the best real estate agent was, what part of town had the best deals. Knowing our city was smashed and drowning, the topic felt obscene, as if they were discussing their favorite porn site in front of my parents. People also have the distressing habit of speaking of the city in the past tense, too, as in "New Orleans was such a great city" or "I loved New Orleans." And then there is the look of pity and the awkward silence when you say where you are from, as if someone has just realized that you are the one who just lost her whole family in a tragic accident.
When we get back to Gwen's, we check in with the news, and see that water is pouring over the levees again in the ninth ward of New Orleans. Again, we see the streets fill. Again, we see the houses submerged. We are living some kind of recurring nightmare; we can only watch, unable to enter. It is like seeing someone get hit by a train, unable to help them off the tracks, then watching their heart slow as the blood pours out. I think of a man I read about who was hit seven times by lightning. He killed himself because he thought God was out to get him. And how could he not? It is difficult to avoid the thought that our city is being punished, that we are.
Somehow the rest of the world is going on, having birthday parties, making plans. Between shots of the suffering on television, there are car commercials advertising brand new trucks, no money down. This is an alien world. I am still driving the car I left the city with, a car that belongs to a woman I don't know. I have spoken to her once, and know I will give it back. But now it is a simple matter of practicality. The idea of ownership is ludicrous at this point. I have spoken with college professors who "commandeered" — a new, favorite word among New Orleanians — boats and cars to get out of the city. Policemen commandeered gas from sitting cars. Those who were lucky commandeered water from convenience stores. If we stuck to the usual notions of ownership, we would not survive.
We use the car to do things like go to the free clinic for evacuees. After our trip into New Orleans last week, Khaled developed a rash on his arm. From wrist to armpit, he was covered in pink bumps. The evacuee clinic is just across the Mississippi River in Louisiana. We decided to have his rash checked out, and I'd see a doctor to see if he could give me something to help me sleep. While I can fall asleep, I can't seem to stay unconscious for more than a couple of hours.
We got there fifteen minutes before it opened, thinking we'd be first in line. But there were at least ten people ahead of us. As we waited in line, everyone spoke of the particulars of their geography and their loss. The man next to us was from Chalmette. He told us how he saw a thirty foot wall of water come at his house "like a tsunami." He swam to his cousin's house where he found shelter on the top floor. He had come to the clinic for a wound on his leg that was not healing. Compared to his story, Khaled's rash seems minor, but everything has taken on a sinister overtone. What is the rash, and what is it from? In other times, it may not have been so worrying, but everything now has an apocalyptic patina. When we drive through a swarm of lovebugs, they seem unusually thick. The black clouds dim our view. Is this normal? Are the locusts next?
The doctor gave Khaled a prescription for mega doses of Tetracycline. He had no idea what the rash was. He would not give me sleeping pills, instead tried to get me to consider a prescription for anti-depressants. I refused this because I don't think there is anything wrong with being sad about what is happening. But if I could sleep, it might help. We settled on a short-term prescription for anti-anxiety medication. He said everyone who has come through should probably be on them. The other thing everyone must get is their shots. Being an evacuee is like being a dog. You have to make sure your shots are up to date. So we got injections for tetanus and hepatitis, then headed out to fill our prescriptions at a pharmacy that was giving them for free.
Like the free prescriptions, there are other benefits to being an evacuee. There are the care packages from family and friends. Boxes of clothes and shoes arrive, along with the occasional goodies. My favorite contained a bottle of good wine and a bar of "Nomad" soap, with a little picture of a man on a camel on the front. I am not sure if the brand was intentional, but it was certainly fitting.
And there are various agencies that offer help, usually in the form of plastic cards. The Red Cross gave us white debit cards with a small red cross on the front and the words "Disaster Relief" written on it. The State of Louisiana has given us disaster food stamp cards. We begin to identify with the word "disaster" and joke that it might be easier to get the word disaster or Katrina tattooed discreetly on our palms. Or maybe we could get red crosses tattooed on our third eyes so it is immediately apparent. Perhaps Khaled, being from Egypt, should get a red crescent.
Later in the night after mystic bowling, we are awakened by a wailing siren. We look at each other wordlessly, hoping it will pass. We try to convince ourselves it is a loud but distant machine of some kind. But it doesn't stop. The only time I have ever heard a sound like it was when I was in Hawaii and they were doing a tsunami drill. Strange as things are, I doubt there is threat of a tsunami in Natchez, Mississippi. But it doesn't stop, so we go downstairs to see if anyone is there who might be able to explain. Gwen and her daughters are watching the Weather Channel. "It's the tornado warning," one of them says calmly.
"What does it mean?" I ask.
"Well, it means there is a tornado on the way. Look, you can see on the radar," Gwen says. I feel a nauseated pain, as if someone has just punched me in the stomach.
"Don't worry," says Gwen's daughter. "You'll know it is coming." While I have been through my share of late, I don't know how to know if it is coming.
"You'll hear a sound like a freight train," she says. These people are originally from Kansas. This is apparently not a big deal to them. Khaled and I are verging on panic.
"And what do we do then?" we beg.
"You get under the stairs." I go to the stairs and see what we are dealing with: there is a small bathroom that would fit three people in a pinch. There are six of us. When I press the issue, it is decided that three can go into some hidden mysterious bathroom while the other three could take refuge under the stairs.
"Don't worry," says Gwen. Meanwhile her daughters are talking in cheerful voices about memories of streets in their hometown leveled in a matter of seconds.
We wait, watching the red blob skirt the edges of town on the radar, then finally pass. It is another near miss, and again we have come out unscathed. But we feel like we are standing at the center of some cosmic bull's eye, and the archer either has a sick sense of humor or terrible aim.
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