Hurricane Song

And when the moon turns red with blood
When the moon turns red with blood
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the moon turns red with blood

The later it got, the tighter the stands became packed with people. The lights kept fading lower, and my eyes were constantly trying to adjust. I was just hoping to sleep. The storm outside sounded like it was easing up, and my stomach was howling worse than the wind now. Except for a few candy bars, I hadn’t eaten any real food since before we got to the Superdome on Sunday morning.

It was closing in on ten o’clock when a fire broke out two sections over. I smelled the smoke before I saw the flames. Then I opened my mouth, but Pop found his tongue first.

We all shot to our feet, rushing in different directions, and couldn’t get out of each other’s way. Everybody between the fire and us was scrambling, too. Most of them were pushing right towards us, climbing over the rows of seats. We got jammed up hard and couldn’t move. I felt the weight of them pinning me, till I almost couldn’t breathe. It was like fighting to keep my head above water inside of one big black wave.

Uncle Roy slipped down, and I stepped square on his back by accident. That’s when I felt that guinea pig go flying past my feet.

Pop had a death grip on my arm and wouldn’t let go for anything. But I couldn’t tell if he was keeping me up or dragging me down with him. And just when I thought I was going under for sure, that bottleneck busted loose and we finally broke free, spilling out into the aisle.

When the fire was out, and everything was safe, Pop pried his fingers loose from my arm. I could feel the bruises raising up where his nails had dug into me.

Before I could answer, Fess, who was holding his ribs on the left side, said, “This Superdome ’bout to kick me senseless, Doc.”

So Pop and Uncle Roy helped him back down the steps and left me where I was standing.

A woman in the corridor started screaming “Rat!” as she tried to stomp that guinea pig dead with the heel of her shoe. It jumped back and even showed its teeth. Then I saw it jet past her and streak down the hall, running for its life.

People were whispering that thugs had started the fire, trying to shake folks down. But it had happened too far away to know for sure.

The soldiers never showed up to check on what happened, and after everybody got settled in again, the fire alarm went off.

The sound pounded my eardrums. I shoved a finger into each ear, but even that couldn’t stop it from getting through. It pierced every nerve I had, till my heartbeat kept the same rhythm as that damn alarm.

People stood at their seats, turning in every direction. They were looking for the fire, ready to run. Only there weren’t flames anybody could see, just the smell of the last fire mixed with that sickening stench.

Pop tried to tell me something as loud as he could, but the sound of that alarm swallowed up his voice like it was nothing.

After five minutes, people started sitting back down, trying to think through that deafening sound. But I couldn’t.

When it finally stopped, I swear my heart skipped a beat, waiting for it to kick back in. I sank into my seat, exhausted and beat up, like I’d just been gang-tackled by the whole Chicago Bears football team.

It was just after midnight and into Tuesday morning when the lights died out, and the Superdome went completely dark. People were cursing out loud at anyone they could think of—God, the soldiers, the mayor, their own mother, anybody. All over the stands, people sparked their lighters to see by, and dots of light kept popping up then burning out everywhere.

“Them soldiers should free us from this joint by sunup,” said Pop in the glow from Uncle Roy’s lighter. “If the levees on the river don’t bust, all that water Fess seen in the streets will go down. Some places gotta be left standin’.”

“Some of those shoes I had in my trunk were alligator. Maybe they swam for it.” Uncle Roy grinned, turning it into a joke. “You know tickets for these same seats probably went for five thousand dollars the last Super Bowl they had here. Now we got ’em for nothin’ to see the Shit and Stink Bowl.”

“I’m gonna play the high-school championship game on this field one day,” I said flat out. “I’ll get you all free tickets for that.”

“I know you will, son,” Pop said, looking me in the eye. “There’s no doubt.”

Screams echoed through the stands—chilling ones. And even in the dark, I wouldn’t close my eyes.

A flashlight beam came swinging down the corridor. I thought maybe it was the soldiers back on patrol, but then I heard Cain’s miserable voice.

Dunham and those other guys were with him, too, and they ripped the flashlights away from a doctor and nurse working in the hall behind our section.

Then Cain and one of his thugs came halfway down the stairs, while Dunham and the heavy dude with the knife—the one who’d pried open the candy machine—stood guard at the top.

“You want us to burn your shit?” Cain threatened him as the thug went through his bag.

The helpless sound in that guy’s voice pushed me to my feet. Pop and Uncle Roy were up, too.

I almost couldn’t believe it. But there they were, ready to fight for some guy we hadn’t even noticed before.

Pop and my uncle had come to the Superdome looking to mind their own business and only care about their own. But somewhere over the last two days, that had changed. Maybe it was Cyrus jumping, or seeing every black face here going through the same thing— stressed out over the thought of losing most of what they ever had—that made them all start to look like family.

Cain was five or six rows away from us, with lots of people in between. So we stood there like stone statues that wanted to move but couldn’t.

Preacher Culver was closer and fought his way into the aisle, hollering at Cain to stop.

“You Miles’s preacher man,” said Cain, shining his light in Culver’s eyes. “You got in our way before.”

I heard the air leave Culver’s lungs as they crashed into him, and his head crack open on the cement steps.

Pop, Roy, and me pinballed off each other, trying to get at that bastard in the dark. Then Uncle Roy got out in front of us with his lighter. But Cain was already standing back at the top of the stairs, surrounded by his crew.

“Where is he?” shouted Cain, pointing his flashlight at us, till my face was the only one in it. “We’ll be back, Miles! I know you’ll take up that collection for us now! Right? Before we smash up those instruments so nobody has to hear that fucked-up music again!”

Preacher Culver was lying at the bottom of the stairs, and his family was trying to sit him up.

“Don’t worry ’bout me,” he muttered, with everybody sparking up their lighters around him. “I’ll be all right.”

Then Culver put his hand to the back of his head, and it was covered in blood—the same red color as Cain’s jersey. But he kept on playing it down.

Before Cain and his crew left, Dunham lit some paper on fire. He tossed it on top of somebody’s stuff, while that whale with the knife kept people back. The plastic garbage bag and everything inside it went up in flames quick.

I watched Pop and my uncle and lots of other people stomp out that fire. Somebody even poured the last of their drinking water on it to make sure it was out.

"Pay them!” Cyrus’s daughter cried. "Just pay those damn bastards. What if my babies get burned up? I can’t lose no more family here!”

Then she pulled her front pocket inside out and pushed a handful of singles at me through the shadows.

“Blow it loud, brother,” Pop told him. “Nobody threatens our instruments—not the mother-tongue.”

I thought about the music I’d made with Pop on Cyrus’s march—how it changed from sad to celebrating in just one beat. I remembered my hands moving to that new rhythm, and how I’d almost seen Cyrus’s soul sailing over a river in Africa, beneath a clear blue sky and shining sun.

Then my hands clenched tight to the sound of that fire alarm starting again, till they were both balled up into fists.