Hurricane Song

And when this earthly weight’s too much to bear
Yes, when this weight’s too much to bear
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

A single shot rang out, and a voice screamed right on top of it. Then the whole Superdome got stone quiet, except for the sound of people reaching to pull their kids and family in close. Pop looked at me, and I looked back at him. It wasn’t a big space between us, but it felt like it was from one end of a football field to the other.

There weren’t any more shots, and after a few minutes, people went back to what they were doing before. But I kept thinking about that space between Pop and me.

It didn’t matter that it was after noon, the sky behind the holes in the dome was still pitch black. Katrina kept slapping at us, and the air was getting hotter and thicker with the smell of shit.

Pop, Uncle Roy, and Fess finished off the whisky, with Pop having more than his share. Then Fess pulled a small flask of gin from his pants pocket, and they started drinking that, too.

Other folks were talking, arguing, praying, and moving back and forth all around them, but those three had their eyes and ears on each other, like they were jamming onstage together.

“One year, when the basketball team played here— the New Orleans Jazz—I got paid to play in these stands with a Dixieland band,” said Fess, taking his clarinet out of its case.

Then Pop broke out laughing in a voice twice as loud as I was used to hearing him. “The Utah Jazz—can you imagine that crap? What are there, twenty black folks in all of Utah? I’ll bet half of them are on that team!”

“The Superdome’s beat up, but it’s still standing,” I said. “Maybe you can play during halftime at a Saints game.”

“Here’s to my son,” cracked Pop, raising the flask to make a pretend toast. “Everything’s football to him— the rest is all invisible.”

“Miles,” my uncle said in a quiet voice, “there probably won’t be enough people livin’ here to go to football games.”

“You see that Saints football helmet painted on the field, Miles?” said Fess. “That flower symbol on the helmet’s a fleur de lis. The French Kings adopted that as their sign, but it really comes outta the Bible. It’s a flower that sprung up from the tears of Eve when God kicked her and Adam out of paradise.”

“And that’s what’s happenin’ now, son,” said Pop. “God’s kickin’ us out of our paradise.”

“You sure you wanna blow that here?” asked Uncle Roy. “When some of these animals start grabbing for what ain’t theirs, they’re gonna remember it.”

“And pass up on one last gig in N’awlins? Shiiiitt. In a house this big?” Fess came back, before he started to play.

Preacher Culver was walking Cyrus around the stands, I guess trying to get him tired enough to stay put. But Cyrus made a quick turn and headed straight for us.

“I know who all of you are. And you the boy that brings me dirty dishes on Friday and Saturday night,” said Cyrus, taking a sip. “You all think I’m a fool, but I’m not. I tell the truth and—”

That’s when a group of soldiers invaded our section. They were all wearing white masks, like doctors, and you’d think we had some kind of disease they could catch.

“Every one of you, put your hands on the backs of those seats,” barked the one with the captain’s bars on his shoulders. “We’re authorized to search for weapons, and that’s what we’re gonna do—the women, kids, everybody.”

The nameplate over the captain’s heart read HANCOCK, and I could see the outline of his face snarling beneath that mask.

The soldier with the sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve was named Scobie, and he came around to the front of us, pulling his own mask down to talk.

“I’m sorry, but we have to search your bags, too,” he said, nodding to the other soldiers, who started going through our stuff.

That hit me harder than what Pop had said. I was burning inside and wanted to tackle Hancock on the spot. But I didn’t want to get arrested, and I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t start shooting. Then Hancock slid over behind me, and ran his hands up and down my sides. I looked over my shoulder to eye that bastard good, when I saw Cyrus sneaking off with the flask. He got all the way up the stairs before anybody noticed. One of the soldiers screamed, "Halt!” but Cyrus started running like the devil was chasing him.

Cyrus’s daughter tried to run after him, but a soldier grabbed her, twisting her arm back. That’s when Sergeant Scobie stepped in, turning her loose.

“Watch my kids!” she yelled to the preacher’s wife. Then she took off after her father, cursing the soldiers.

“You keep your hands on that chair. That collar you’re wearin’ don’t hold any weight with me,” said Hancock, pointing to the bars on his uniform. “We’ll catch up to the old man. There’s no way outta here.”

“Yeah? You smash up that candy machine in the corridor to get all this?” Hancock asked, like he already knew for sure.

“Maybe machine guns were gonna be in those cases,” snapped Fess. “Like we was Al Capone and his gang.”

As the soldiers left, Pop picked up his horn. His face turned angrier than I’d ever seen it. Then he ripped off a melody that sliced through the stinking air like a rampaging angel on wings. I knew it was just for Hancock to hear—to say, “I ain’t no drunk!”

To me, every one of those notes felt like a punch to Hancock’s head. And right then, I wanted to hear Pop play more than anything—fierce and hard.

The sweat was pouring down Pop’s face. When he was finished, I put my hand on his shoulder just to feel what it was inside him, and it was like another hurricane blowing in there.

An hour later, Cyrus’s daughter came back exhausted and said she couldn’t find her father anywhere. Uncle Roy went over to calm her down. And everybody knew Cyrus probably didn’t need any whisky in him to think about climbing through those holes in the top of the dome. If he could ever find a way up there.

Waves of new people kept coming in, and it wouldn’t stop. Only they were looking much worse, and it was like they got rescued from one nightmare to get dropped off in the middle of another.

There was a big fat woman, who couldn’t fit in a chair, lying flat on the floor. She was gasping for air, and the man sitting next to her face was moving his hand like a fan to get her more.

A guy in the corridor was doubled over, coughing up blood. His family finally found a doctor in a white hospital coat to help him. But there wasn’t anywhere close to the number of doctors people needed.

A woman even heard Pop get called “Doc” by Uncle Roy and Fess, and stopped to ask if he really was one.

“Findin’ a doctor’s like playing hide and go seek in this joint,” she said frustrated, tightening the bloody T-shirt tied around her cut forearm. “But it ain’t no kids’ game. It’s for real.”

Preacher Culver cleaned up the glass from the candy machine, and that part of the hall got turned into a clinic. There was an old woman in a wheelchair there who never opened her eyes once. I watched a nurse hang a clear bag over the sign with our section number—32H. Then she ran an IV from it into the woman’s arm. And if her eyes ever popped open, I figured she would have thought she’d died and got sent to hell.

People were saying the mayor had come through, and saw how bad we had it inside the Superdome. They said he was so pissed off that he started to shake with anger.

“He was cursing, saying how he’d make a phone call to the president who’s on vacation and get us help here quick,” I heard a man sitting on a laundry bag tell somebody.

I didn’t even know the mayor’s name. All I knew about him was that he was a black dude. So I couldn’t see the president of the whole United States jumping too fast to answer his call.

Cyrus’s daughter and Uncle Roy had their eyes glued to the stands, looking for the old man. Every little while, one of them would take a walk, trying to find him, but they came back without him every time.

I was playing the “slap game” with Cyrus’s granddaughters. They took turns putting both hands out, palms-up in front of me, while the other minded the guinea pig. Then I’d lay my hands flat on top of theirs, and they’d try to smack me before I could pull my hands away. They’d laugh hysterically every time one of them would whack me, and I’d shake my hand in the air, like it stung so much I couldn’t stand it.

“That baby weasel you’re holdin’ don’t eat frogs, does he?” asked Pop, making his voice deep. “’Cause I’m part bullfrog.”

So Pop put a finger over his lips to keep them closed. Then he puffed his cheeks and neck up with air, like when he blew his horn. His cheeks got so big you’d think they were going to burst. The two girls laughed like crazy, falling over each other.

That face was one of the first memories I had of Pop growing up. He’d probably made it for me staring down into my crib.

Then I thought about the times I missed out on with Pop when I was younger. And I wondered what kind of times we were going to share from here on, especially if we didn’t have anyplace left to live.

That’s when I heard Cyrus yelling from somewhere. I knew it was him because his daughter’s head was on a swivel, too, looking all around. He was screaming wild about something, and his voice got higher and higher. Then I heard lots of people gasp all at once, like when something terrible is about to happen on a movie screen.

There were shrieks, and I saw Cyrus fly from the top tier. He’d jumped. His body rocketed through the air, like he was shot straight down out of a cannon.

Both little girls were facing me and didn’t see it. So I let my hands drop quick onto the palms of the one who was holding them out flat. I heard Cyrus’s body crash onto the concrete floor under the football field. It was a sickening sound, like a bag of bones hitting the face of a sledgehammer.